Fuel efficiency for starting ships

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george moromisato
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I calculated how long it takes each starting ship to consume 10 helium fuel rods. This assumes: shields are always recharging, primary weapons is always firing, and the ship is always thrusting. Here's the result (in real seconds):

Sapphire 278
EI500 192
Wolfen 167

Constellation 147
Freyr 192
Manticore 162

Hercules 278
Spartan 143
Raijin 164

A few observations:

1. I think it is OK for the Wolfen (a gunship) to consume so much fuel, but I think that should be the limit for starting ships. The Manticore, Constellation, and Spartan are all less efficient, and might need some changes.

2. The Constellation, in particular, seems to consume power very fast (it lasts about half as long as a Sapphire). The Moskva light turret consumes 5 MW. Maybe the Constellation should start with a different omni weapon, either an omni laser or maybe we create an omni light recoilless.

3. The Manticore is as inefficient as the Wolfen, but with worse weapons. Its armor regeneration is 3 MW. Perhaps it should be lower?

4. The Spartan is also clearly consuming too much power (it is even worse than the Constellation), due to the hull plate ionizer (4 MW). Maybe we need a different shield?

5. I think the Raijin and the Freyr are OK (at least in terms of power consumption).

What do you all think?
NMS
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Players generally spend a lot more time traveling and in dockscreens than fighting, so the standby power use is more important. That's much more heavily weighted towards shields' power use.
george moromisato
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NMS wrote:
Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:48 am
Players generally spend a lot more time traveling and in dockscreens than fighting, so the standby power use is more important. That's much more heavily weighted towards shields' power use.
In that case the Manticore should be pretty efficient: it doesn't consume power when armor does not need to be repaired. Is that consistent with people's experience?
Derakon
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george moromisato wrote:
Mon Nov 12, 2018 5:34 pm
NMS wrote:
Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:48 am
Players generally spend a lot more time traveling and in dockscreens than fighting, so the standby power use is more important. That's much more heavily weighted towards shields' power use.
In that case the Manticore should be pretty efficient: it doesn't consume power when armor does not need to be repaired. Is that consistent with people's experience?
It is. The Manticore is IMO the easiest ship to do the "only use found fuel" challenge with, primarily because it does not have an expensive shield constantly drawing power.

In contrast, I tried flying Song's EI100/M yesterday, which is a very slow freighter with IIRC a Mk. II Deflector and a 25MW reactor (much bigger than most starting reactors), and just clearing Eridani meant running through about 2x the reactor's total capacity. I didn't even do the Benedict missions. Most of that fuel was spent just traveling slowly across the system, losing power to the shield and life support.
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Song
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Yeah, I'm having to look into new reactors to get around the limitations of the Nova series.


One thing though: The constellation should fit an omni recoilless. Not a light recoilless (also not the Moskva). Reason 1: It's a NAMI ship and the basic kinetics are also NAMI weapons Reason 2: Less power drain and a more usable range compared with the Moskva, Reason 3: the light recoilless cannon is both NotForSale and often considered a bit better than the standard gun, so let's work with the commercial weapon rather than adding another NotForSale version.

(Personally I'd remove the LRC, take the ships that use it and put them onto the standard recoilless and then have a fast-fire variant at level 2 using the UNID. But that's off-topic.
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Tiber
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If u wanna balance the fuel-time at start at a balanced rate you will need a baseline.
For example, your looking into updating eridany, size and such, when thats finished, u should probably pick one al-rounding ship for the baseline; like the Sapphire.
Play the game a couple times, just eridany, take time to pretent you need to figure out the buttons and purpose of the game, also allow time for reading the texts when docket, altogether this should give u an idea on how to make it balanced for just your starting ship (whatever ship u pick tbh).

Dont forget ''full system travel time'' as for the baseline ship u pick has a speed, that is either slower or faster than the others. Allow for newbie folks to figure out how todo or how about togo at their objectives. This should include trade the missions, the training (including Benedict) and last but not least the painfully slow mining (mining could also use a revamp)

Onec that is done the adaptation to the other ships should not be to hard; slower ships are slower there fore use more fuel for the same job, but start whit an omni gun, slightly balancing things out.

Your list for fuel use is therefore a partial one, if u include the other variables this comes out;

Example
Sapphire (278FuelUse x 56ticksOfTime) / 12Per Full Refuel) /20DueMoney made over 56ticksOFtime =64 start rods of fuel**

Assuming gamers learn quickly, cus we do ^^ 2nd system onley need an increase of half that in drops schedule. And last returning to a normal loot(fuel) drop schedule in system 3

**This example is made on Eridany as it is now, see your own other post for the overhaul idea's, also, 100% shooting weapon doesn't happen, alot...

To be honest tho, i still would vote for reactors u can recharge at the sun, taking over the old solar items property.
This because;
1 especially mining at the moment might not be profitable, along whit buy limits for mined roids this could be suicidal, deny''ing a part of the game that could be fun, making and producing armors or perhaps other items at a base (so far thinkerers).
2 There are plenty of other already present ingame tools to balance income and progression, (loot tables comes to mind as the quick and easy way).
3 Fuel rods are radiation ..... in the hard radiated space -.-
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Are players expected to turn off shields when traveling much? (I do not see George turning his shields off except rarely at low fuel.)

I generally always travel with shields on because I noticed when I travel with them off, sooner or later, a random enemy appears and my shields are either down (I did not shut off autopilot in time) or not regenerated enough (because I use high hp/slow regen shield like Cyclotron), and I take armor damage. Any costs saved from less fuel consumed goes to armor repair.
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Tiber
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Hi all

I noticed that the fuel efficiency for ships in general from 1.8.5beta is now different to 1.8 stable.

My suggestion would be an upgrade path whit the heise quantum cpu as something that can boost your fuel effectiveness seperate from that what u get from longu or domina power (and or the random St katrine school spawned thingy).
For example; convert the sheild efficiancy cpu use item to an general efficiency item u can apply to most items, making it A; an usefull item B; get less anoying trips to CSC ships / domina pilgrim aids.

This can result in efficient reactor, guns, sheild. This would mean u can stack different bonuses againg.
I know this would cause some balance issues as is. However having a good time not flying towards a refuel spot is worth something yeah?
Derakon
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Are you aware that Heliotrope fuel has a chance to make your reactor more efficient when used? It boosts output by 20% and increases efficiency by IIRC 50%.

I have to say I'm not thrilled by the idea of being able to apply a generic enhancement to any kind of equipment. It feels less special to me than having specific items for each kind of enhancement and type of device you might want to enhance. Which isn't to say I'm opposed to letting you enhance other kinds of gear, just that I don't want it to be a generic "push button, get enhancement" kind of thing.
Tiber
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yes i am aware of the heliotrobe enhancment, not usfull for 1gw's tho, they cant use heliotrope's.

as for the push button comment... I -> 7 domina power...
Derakon
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Tiber wrote:
Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:26 pm
yes i am aware of the heliotrobe enhancment, not usfull for 1gw's tho, they cant use heliotrope's.

as for the push button comment... I -> 7 domina power...
Yep, I'm also not a fan of Inspiration. :)

And Heliotrope fuel not being usable by the Hyperion is fine IMO, that reactor is already way more than you really need to win the game with. Unless you're trying to play around with the Lazarus or something, you really don't need more than 500MW.
Tiber
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imo not sure man, 200mw for drive 2x200ish for weapons and on top of that a sheild.... hyperion reactor is a standard goto for me.
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