Fuel-- do we need it?

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eleazar
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#16 Post by eleazar »

Bigjoe5 wrote:Not any portions outside supply lines. Any portions that go beyond the "point of no return", so you know that if you send your ships out there, you won't be able to get them back into supply range.

The reason that fuel is annoying when it matters is because you have to be paying attention to too many things to figure out if it's going to matter, and if so, what to do about it (the fuel of the fleet you're moving, your supply lines, and your fleet's destination? And it involves doing a shortest-path algorithm in your head? No wonder fleets are getting stranded in the middle of nowhere). Letting the player know as he's making a move order that his ships won't be able to return will make a huge difference by instantly giving the player all the information about fuel that he really needs at that moment. So destroying ships might not change anything (I would argue otherwise, but that's less important), but the UI indicator would do a lot to solve #2.
No, actually in my case that would solve absolutely none of the annoying-ness of fuel. Other people's mileage may vary. For scouting, it is almost always the right choice to go past the point of no return, With invading fleets, i can't remember a time when i needed to worry about fuel. If the fleet survives, it usually establishes or captures a new colony/outpost, and thus solves the supply problem.

EDIT: I'm not saying point-of-no-return indicator would be useless, just that it doesn't address any of my concerns. An of course it would be pointless if fuel was eliminated as i've proposed.

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Bigjoe5
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#17 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:No, actually in my case that would solve absolutely none of the annoying-ness of fuel. Other people's mileage may vary. For scouting, it is almost always the right choice to go past the point of no return, With invading fleets, i can't remember a time when i needed to worry about fuel. If the fleet survives, it usually establishes or captures a new colony/outpost, and thus solves the supply problem.
Hence destroying ships that run out of fuel. Makes it matter, and easy to deal with. And regardless of what you claim, I have a hard time believing that at least some of your annoyance with fuel doesn't come from unexpectedly running out.
eleazar wrote:EDIT: I'm not saying point-of-no-return indicator would be useless, just that it doesn't address any of my concerns. An of course it would be pointless if fuel was eliminated as i've proposed.
It wouldn't be pointless at all if it were replaced by something like slowing down when out of supply range as you've proposed.
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#18 Post by AndrewW »

eleazar wrote:No, actually in my case that would solve absolutely none of the annoying-ness of fuel. Other people's mileage may vary. For scouting, it is almost always the right choice to go past the point of no return, With invading fleets, i can't remember a time when i needed to worry about fuel. If the fleet survives, it usually establishes or captures a new colony/outpost, and thus solves the supply problem.
I've put a fleet out of supply range at a good choke point, though didn't really need to move it anywhere could have split of some elements to do some exploration and knocking off of smaller fleets if the fuel had been there, but it wasn't a big deal. So fuel can be limiting on occasion. (Not that I do this often).

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Sloth
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#19 Post by Sloth »

Bigjoe5 wrote: The reason that fuel is annoying when it matters is because you have to be paying attention to too many things to figure out if it's going to matter, and if so, what to do about it (the fuel of the fleet you're moving, your supply lines, and your fleet's destination? And it involves doing a shortest-path algorithm in your head? No wonder fleets are getting stranded in the middle of nowhere). Letting the player know as he's making a move order that his ships won't be able to return will make a huge difference by instantly giving the player all the information about fuel that he really needs at that moment. So destroying ships might not change anything (I would argue otherwise, but that's less important), but the UI indicator would do a lot to solve #2.
There is the case that a random space monster can block your suppply lines and your fleet will run out fuel, because the order given was still executed. Oops, you've lost your main fleet.

I think slowing ships down outside of supply lines is a much more user friendly solution.
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#20 Post by Zireael »

eleazar wrote:I very seldom find that i pay attention to fuel in FO.
Sometimes a scout will survive long enough to run out of fuel, and then i'm forced to pay attention to it -- and it is annoying. It is easy to forget about a scout while you are waiting for it to rebuild some fuel. Sure that problem could be partially patched with more sitrep messages, or some kind of fleet overview screen, but that doesn't fix the underlying problem.

Now there is some virtue in limiting travel outside the bounds of your empire. If we need that, it could be done more simply and smoothly, giving ships two different speeds. Two possibilities:

1) Ships travel at a reduced speed on starlanes that are not supply lines for any empire, or
2) Ships travel at a reduced speed when not on their own starlanes --or those of an ally.

The "reduced speed" could be a fraction of the regular speed. Some ship parts / hulls / tech might improve that fraction, so that scouts could be built that can move beyond the civilized lanes at a speed closer to normal.

EDIT: it gets rid of a little used meter, which is also IMHO a good thing, though depending on how we implement we may need to list the both the supply-line & non-(friendly?-)supply-line speeds.

I'd pick option 2, and get rid of the fuel indeed.
I think it wouldn't be too tough to change the current "Prospective Path" indicator from all white, to be red for any portions outside the supply lines. It also seems that would be a decent thing to go ahead and implement (has some value even if we didn't change the current fuel dynamics).
This is a good idea.
Isn't is abundantly obvious when you are directing ships beyond the supply lines? If people aren't paying attention, it is because it doesn't matter much right now.
Sometimes supply lines of different empires overlap and it's not that obvious...

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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#21 Post by em3 »

On the other hand this solution would make any offesive warfare a hassle... Unless there would be some technology/hull/ship part that prevents (or reduces) this drop in speed.

Alternatively there could be something akin to previous ship supply range, which would be fuel range, which would be added to supply range and allow for some full-speed travel outside supply range. It would not affect ship repairs.
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eleazar
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#22 Post by eleazar »

Zireael wrote:Sometimes supply lines of different empires overlap and it's not that obvious...
Yeah, that needs to change.
em3 wrote:On the other hand this solution would make any offesive warfare a hassle... Unless there would be some technology/hull/ship part that prevents (or reduces) this drop in speed.
Of course there would be.
em3 wrote:Alternatively there could be something akin to previous ship supply range, which would be fuel range, which would be added to supply range and allow for some full-speed travel outside supply range. It would not affect ship repairs.
IMHO getting rid of the ship supply range was a big improvement. I won't want to go back to something similar.

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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#23 Post by Krikkitone »

I'd tend to favor the

1. Very Slow when off supply lanes
and
2. "Scouts" have a part that allows normal movement if a supply lane is available 1 or 2 jumps away [special 'range extender' part]

Essentially some ships have fuel, some don't.

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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#24 Post by Zireael »

@ Krikkitone: Good ideas both.

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eleazar
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#25 Post by eleazar »

Krikkitone wrote:2. "Scouts" have a part that allows normal movement if a supply lane is available 1 or 2 jumps away [special 'range extender' part]

Essentially some ships have fuel, some don't.
Which would void the simplifying effect of getting rid of fuel, and revert back to the old double-supply system we just got rid of, except in a less consistent way.

It seems much simpler to me to have a "scout" part that reduces (or at high tech levels totally removes) the speed penalty of moving beyond supply lines -- as i suggested above.

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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#26 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Sloth wrote:There is the case that a random space monster can block your suppply lines and your fleet will run out fuel, because the order given was still executed. Oops, you've lost your main fleet.

I think slowing ships down outside of supply lines is a much more user friendly solution.
True... and regardless, if the ship gets destroyed as soon as it runs out of fuel, there's not even any point in moving your ship to the point where it can't return. All it really does is effectively reduce fuel by one, since you would still go until you can't go any further without being destroyed.
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Krikkitone
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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#27 Post by Krikkitone »

eleazar wrote:
Krikkitone wrote:2. "Scouts" have a part that allows normal movement if a supply lane is available 1 or 2 jumps away [special 'range extender' part]

Essentially some ships have fuel, some don't.
Which would void the simplifying effect of getting rid of fuel, and revert back to the old double-supply system we just got rid of, except in a less consistent way.

It seems much simpler to me to have a "scout" part that reduces (or at high tech levels totally removes) the speed penalty of moving beyond supply lines -- as i suggested above.
I guess if the penalty (both for movement, and for the scout part) was severe enough

(ie normal =5-10% max speed: "scout ships" have 20%-100% of max speed depending on tech) Of course then "scout ships" should be fairly expensive.. and probably have few slots.


That way, you could have cheapest ship=scout for areas in supply range, and you would have a few expensive 'long range scouts'... so you would have to decide where to allocate them.

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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#28 Post by ogre »

my vote is to keep fuel; i like it, i'm new -- and i've learned to adjust. :)
thanks for a great game. :)

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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#29 Post by eleazar »

I'm wondering if i can do a decent prototype with scripting.

a) I know i can remove the need for fuel.

b) not sure if i can reduce speed based on being supply connected.

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Re: Fuel-- do we need it?

#30 Post by qsswin »

eleazar wrote:I'm wondering if i can do a decent prototype with scripting.

a) I know i can remove the need for fuel.

b) not sure if i can reduce speed based on being supply connected.
There's a starlaneConnected condition, and a SetStarlaneSpeed Effect, aren't there? You could check in each hull's effects (using a macro) whether it is connected to an owned planet and accordingly slow the ship, and add parts that counteract that.

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