Compugasm wrote: This is the part I'm saying we can do without. It's unneccessary to click that button. The cost of refueling isn't a concern. Like, if you drive from home to work, maybe you use $1 of gas. That sum of money isn't the barrier preventing you from refueling. Similarly, it won't matter for your space ship either.

maybe it is.

there is a free market in LT, you cant guarantee low fuel prices.

it has to be mined, refined, transported and the guy who sells it finally to you also wants a share of the profit

just because it isnt a major concern now in RL, it doesnt mean that it cannot be a concern.

car fuel is also functionally different from spaceship reaction mass, as you dont have to expell tons of it out of principle

those tons that you "expell" with a car is the ground you use for traction
so you can ommit 99% of the fuel usage that a spaceship would have in a car.

and if we apply that to your 1$ example: now it costs me 100$ to get to work with my spaceship, and that is a major concern

We've all seen Star Trek right? They had a "Five year mission" to explore space. When Enterprise comes into the space dock, I'm sure it needs resupply at regular intervals. I never saw Kirk or Picard scrubbing dilithium crystals. They had enough energy to last an entire crew at least that long.

A space ship is more efficient than a naval ship or a car. But, continuing the metaphor, your car does not need just fuel to go, it has other consumables such as oil, coolant, transmission fluid, wiper fluid, etc. Are we going to worry about all those and click "Fill wiper fluid" buttons? If you can argue that these things are irrelevant, then I don't see why fuel takes player input.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:there is a free market in LT, you cant guarantee low fuel prices.

it has to be mined, refined, transported and the guy who sells it finally to you also wants a share of the profit

This is a problem of resource scarcity, invisible hand of the market kinda stuff. Great profit can be made taking fuel to those locations if you can risk it. I understand that part. You want to load fuel into the cargo hold? Okay, then it makes sense to have a "load" button for fuel when you are transporting it in quantity to another location, as that function would be used to load any cargo. I understand. But if every few missions I have to pump the gas into my tank to get to the next system? No sir, I don't agree, in the same way that worrying about the other fluids of my vehicle don't need topping off.

Compugasm wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:there is a free market in LT, you cant guarantee low fuel prices.

it has to be mined, refined, transported and the guy who sells it finally to you also wants a share of the profit

This is a problem of resource scarcity, invisible hand of the market kinda stuff. Great profit can be made taking fuel to those locations if you can risk it. You want to load fuel into the cargo hold? Okay, then it makes sense to have a "load" button for fuel when you are transporting it in quantity to another location, as that function would be used to load any cargo. But if every few missions I have to pump the gas into my tank to get to the next system? No sir, I don't agree, in the same way that worrying about the other fluids of my vehicle don't need topping off.

soo.. what worth would fuel have if you dont have to top off your supplies now and then?


"so, we built a fuel refinery now, we can sell fuel, but none of the ships flying around needs fuel"



kirk and picard are a whole other case, they are commanding military ships refueling at military stations.

they dont have to worry about fuel costs, others worry about that

if they'd dock somewhere not-starfleet for refueling they'd have to pay somehow for it

also there wont be refueling without the captain at least agree on it.
"sir, we are ready for fuel transfer"
"make it so"


i dont want to dock at a station which has maybe horrendous fuel prices, and have my money wasted because of automatic refueling.

when i dock on my own station, thats a whole other case, as i already paid for that fuel and just transfer it to my ship
i already worried somewhere else about the costs

Cornflakes_91 wrote:soo.. what worth would fuel have if you dont have to top off your supplies now and then?

That isn't what I said at all. What I said was it should just resupply itself when you are docked.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:when i dock on my own station, thats a whole other case, as i already paid for that fuel

Okay, there you go. You don't need a button to do it after all. But here is the thing about the economy you're missing. You have enough money to have your own fuel production facility, but worry about putting $1 worth of gas in your $40 tank, in your $10,000 vehicle? Obviously these prices aren't game accurate. I'm just putting them in a relative scale. We all know fuel is important, and why. But, the amount you use and the frequency of refueling isn't important enough it should require our attention.

Compugasm wrote: ...but worry about putting $1 worth of gas in your $40 tank, in your $10,000 vehicle?.

these relations arent bound to be true under all circumstances.

the prices are by far not set in stone.

as soon as the AI discovers that everyone is force-fueled and has no other option than to pay after that it will set the price up to astronomic heights.

so you dock and BAAM! instant poverty because fuel costs 100k per unit... and you cant do anything against that

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

Compugasm wrote: ...but worry about putting $1 worth of gas in your $40 tank, in your $10,000 vehicle?.

these relations arent bound to be true under all circumstances.

the prices are by far not set in stone.

This argument is getting ridiculous. In real life, my fridge knows it's warm, and it cools itself. My air conditioner cools the room. What will happen when the power company figures out that when your refrigerator turns on, they'll be able to jack up the utility rates and bankrupt you? But that isn't what happens. How about those automatic supermarket doors won't let me out of the store until buy $100,000 of Pepsi? No, what happens is, the motion sensor opens the door for me, and that's it. Because the doors and fridge are not connected to the banking system. I've seen phones charge themselves when placed on the charging pad. No connections, no worrying about how much electricity costs at that moment. Why can't my spaceship do that? Why must the LT simultaneously be so sentient to determine the connection between fuel and money, yet so backwards it can't do refrigerators have done since 1918? Oh, so you can explain the reason for the refuel button, which prevents the Cylons from stealing our money. Got it, that makes total sense.

Instead of relative stability in a market, what you guys are describing, are broken game mechanics which can potentially bankrupt your billion dollar empire when you fill up at the local Texico. A refuel button will not fix that catastrophe. Whatever. I give up. Even in the game X3 ships refuel themselves, and the economy stabilizes after 6hrs of gameplay. If those idiots can figure it out, I'm sure Josh can too.

Compugasm wrote: This argument is getting ridiculous. In real life, my fridge knows it's warm, and it cools itself. My air conditioner cools the room. What will happen when the power company figures out that when your refrigerator turns on, they'll be able to jack up the utility rates and bankrupt you? But that isn't what happens. How about those automatic supermarket doors won't let me out of the store until buy $100,000 of Pepsi? No, what happens is, the motion sensor opens the door for me, and that's it. Because the doors and fridge are not connected to the banking system. I've seen phones charge themselves when placed on the charging pad. No connections, no worrying about how much electricity costs at that moment. Why can't my spaceship do that? Why must the LT simultaneously be so sentient to determine the connection between fuel and money, yet so backwards it can't do refrigerators have done since 1918? Oh, so you can explain the reason for the refuel button, which prevents the Cylons from stealing our money. Got it, that makes total sense.

....what? 0.o

Compugasm wrote: Instead of relative stability in a market, what you guys are describing, are broken game mechanics which can potentially bankrupt your billion dollar empire when you fill up at the local Texico. A refuel button will
not fix that catastrophe.

i do not say that the economy is volatile like nitroglycerine, but that if you are force-feeded by simply docking at a station the AI will abuse that by at least trying to rip you off.
by abusing that you dont choose to refuel but you stuff the fuel into your tank without looking.

a simple button wich says how much the refuel costs prevents that, as you have the choice of not buying the stuff



and there is no "you guys", its just me

Compugasm wrote: Even in the game X3 ships refuel themselves, and the economy stabilizes after 6hrs of gameplay. If those idiots can figure it out, I'm sure Josh can too.

the ships in X3 dont refuel automatically, they dont use fuel at all.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:if you are force-feeded by simply docking at a station the AI will abuse that by at least trying to rip you off.

I assume the LT mission system pays you the correct amount for completing a mission. The AI is going to consider screwing over the player over fuel... And you know that, how? Do literally have to check my bank balance after every debit/credit transaction and make sure the AI banking cronies didn't try to short me too? Over my whole empire of AI controlled ships, I have to scour their transaction reports to make sure the AI player didn't try to overcharge/underpay another AI player? I think you will agree that this is dumb. And this cheating AI strategy has no consequences?

The economy is procedural. I get it. Prices fluctuate. But what you are concerned about is the the XXX,XXX amount of product you are trying to sell at market. Not the XXX fuel it took you to get there.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:the ships in X3 dont refuel automatically, they dont use fuel at all.

They do so. It's called the CAG and CLS1&2 pilots. It's fuel cells used for jumps and your AI pilots can be trained to buy more when needed.

I don't know how many ways I can say it. Right now, we have actual technology to power things automatically, and we don't have to worry about recharging stations or gas pumps anywhere, draining our bank account. The fridge example, we don't have to tell our fridge to keep itself cool. You set a rheostat control, and your fridge just stays that temperature. It's been that way for over a century. It just does it, and it's not nearly as advanced as a spaceship.

In LT, the ship warns me I'm low on fuel, the station computer can be aware I need it. You're telling me, my future spaceship can't refuel via a rheostat price control, and conduct the refueling transaction without me? How did we loose this basic technology? I've pointed out the broken and cumbersome X3 game which has AI pilots that automatically refuel themselves, without being cheated by the AI. Why is that not possible in the LT future?

If it's a feature to add an extra step of complexity for the gamers who like that, but it's an automated background process, why have it?

compugasm:

the power needs of your fridge are different from buying fuel at random stations.

for your power at home you already have negotiated a contract which clearly defines the price per kwhr.
so the price you pay for your power is already defined at the point where the fridge actually needs it


with buying fuel at a random station you dont have a pre-negotiated price.

so when your ship auto-buys at the moment you dock without asking you could be ripped off very well.

as you dont have a pre-defined price at which you buy the fuel.



the auto-pillocks in X3 dont dock at random stations and take what they get without looking a second time.
they actively search for low-priced energy cells and buy those with best price.

in contrast to what you describe, where the ship auto-buys every bit of fuel it can get into its tanks every time you dock without asking for a price





edit: ninja'd

Compugasm wrote:They do so. It's called the CAG and CLS1&2 pilots. It's fuel cells used for jumps and your AI pilots can be trained to buy more when needed.

This is "Fuel for optional special movement only" and there isn't even a poll option for such a thing. =)

Gazz wrote:This is "Fuel for optional special movement only" and there isn't even a poll option for such a thing. =)

We are talking about how fuel should work, and there is an "other" poll option. Additionally, Cornflakes said ships use no fuel in X3, and they do. Possibly he didn't play Albion Prelude, or didn't know about this pilot mod. I don't know. It doesn't matter.

The point is, there is fuel required in X3, and AI pilots can refuel it. The pilots get fuel in a min/max price range. This negates the concern about being screwed over on pricing. Simultaneously, this means that refueling will happen automatically too. Therefore, there is no need for a refuel button, which was the whole point of my argument. Either I can't explain this properly, or you guys are trolling me.

Fuel isn't required in X3. You just can't activate your aftermarket equipment to travel instantaneously without it. What you are describing is a secondary resource that is required to activate a specialty function.

Compugasm wrote:Simultaneously, this means that refueling will happen automatically too. Therefore, there is no need for a refuel button

Or refuelling.
What's the difference between this, mechanically, and just having multiple 'jump charges' with individual cooldowns?

Katawa wrote:What you are describing is a secondary resource that is required to activate a specialty function.

That is a semantic difference. Fuel exists, and it's consumption is in the game.

Katawa wrote:What's the difference between this, mechanically, and just having multiple 'jump charges' with individual cool downs?

Cool-down periods are the "price" you pay for travel. Possibly, another price associated, is not having the ability to transport resources through the gate. Ships, people, equipment, all good; but you better have the resources on the other side of the gate before you jump. It's not a rational explanation that people can go through, and not resources. It's a cost for the convenience. But along with the "no res jumping" then you must have fuel, and fuel consumption for system travel. Otherwise, it's not really fair to jump whole armadas of ships across the galaxy for free, and fly at no cost once they get there. This is what you're asking right? We're theory crafting? You're not asking me about a specific game are you?