Discovery Gaming Community

A question here for those modders out there with an eye for the code that makes this game tic..

As I was watching an episode of Firefly " Out of Gas " the other day, I had a thought about the game....

Fuel

There are ways to link an item ( say ID ) to thruster or tractor beam; ( " dismount your ID = NO movement in space ) there is also a ( ?? ) Glitch that forces you to never unmount a power capacitor from a cap ship lest you be dead in the water?

(( I'm unfamilliar with that one actually but I think that's the gist of it ))

Based on these two already existing game effects; I thought it would be easiest to approach it one of two ways..

H-fuel for small ships and MOX for cap ships and the like....They already exist in the game; so though the one has no decay rate set, it could... thus they are reasonable targets as a fuel sources; decay could be modified to be aibit easier/ harder on the pocketbook; made to where most bases sell it at one price or another ( could be astronomical at an out-of-the-way base...) and then keyed to cause you to lose

Thruster?
Cruise?

ALL movement?

if you didn't have ANY in your hold....complete decay = out of fuel...dead in the water or maybe limping simply without cruise?

( yes I know I'm toying with the cargo hold capacities as I concider having to allocate fuel room; not really a concern until I figure out if this can even be done ) Another problem with coding to this method is that a starflier would eat fuel just as fast as a Dromedary, I'm not certain you could even link ship size ( engines/ mass ? ) to cargo decay rate. )

A secondary way to enable such a playtool would be to make an already existing item ( Power cell? ) responsible for one or all of the movement types; and have it take " damage " while in flight...

....as if you were ALWAYS flying through Omega 41?...

a repair bill on that engine component for " damage " would equate to " fuel consumption "

This also alleviates the need to scatter MoX sellers thoughout a galaxy to insure fair access to fuel.
Anyone out there know of work that has already been done in this area? Or would be willing to look into the possibilities of modifiing existing code in a basic game to facillitate such a system?


~ Jack

I would love to help code something of this nature, it could add quite a bit challenge to the game, and it would ofrce pirates to pirate, rather than just engage in fleet battles.

As fun as it would be to be sitting dead in space until a friendly player brought you some fuel for you to tractor in...praying a pirate didn't come by instead...

Poking around the code has revealed little or NO way to link any type of cargo to ship performance. The links just don't seem to be there;

Links for equipment to ship performance DO exist though so maybe it would be a better direction to take this.



It would come down to a piece of equipment that ALWAYS took 'damage' ( fuel consumption ) during flight. The only ways to make a piece of equipment reieve damage are combat/collision, or solar phenomena.

Right?

So; an addendum to my question is this : Are solar radiation zones like the Star of Omega 41 tailorable to damage only specific pieces of equipment?

Can such 'damage zones' be layered? enabling a mod maker to blanket a zone with essentially a 'radiation' type.... flagged to slowly damage the 'fuel cell' of a fighter / cap ship?

No flashing radiation warning need be enabled for such, it would be assumed that if you are in flght, you're consuming fuel...This strays now from ship architecture into solar and system building...so I'm really even MORE lost..


~ Jack

As far as I know (I'm a system modder so thats quite alot more than average person's knowledge of such things.) radiation effects you 100%. All your equipment. Hull, thruster, guns, etc. If little enough damage is done, some items might not be damaged, but that is determined by hull and cost of certain equipment.

I like Jack's idea. Using cruise consumes fuel, so if you run out, your stuck with thruster and impulse engines. This will greatly reduce the time you get somewhere. However, the cargo holds of all ships would have to be upgraded rather largely, and would make trade routes requiring cruise to become less profitable (but thats not that big a deal. Cam-Theta route makes enough..)

We would need to make the consumption considerably small amount as we can't have people flying around with 400 units of H-fuel for 1 hour of cruising.

We would need to add H-fuel to all bases in the game, but that wouldn't take as long as modding this..

As for MOX consumption, I'd say no. We shouldn't have weapons consume MOX. The energy needs are already large enough. Though some type of things could work. For instance, make Mortars for capships require half the energy they do right now, and make them require ammo. They are better than Razors, but if you run out of ammo, your firepower is significantly lowered.

if Novas required MOX usage to fire, they would become less of a jesus weapon...

' Wrote:if Novas required MOX usage to fire, they would become less of a jesus weapon...

I do not think is a good idea. Now, unless you equip only nomad g/c, in many case you have to choose between firing with your nova or with your cannons (since the nova drains a lot). But after? If using some mox is enough to fire the nova everbody would go around firing with nova and cannon at the same time.

I think some guns should require secondary sources of energy. Burst Missles and Novas are some that we can name.

I also think that Dab's idea is good...Cruise should consume fuel, but a very minimal amount.

Here is my idea for Cruise. In StarTrek, Capital ships carry Warp Cores in order to go into warp...

What if we let ships carry "warp core" like items to initiate Cruise? Then cruise can be used a limited amount of time. All we need to do then is just shave off the cruise-delay times on cruise disruptors.

OK, I'm warmed up...

I'm all for realism in our little RP world here, but take a little pity on us old farts.

As it is, I have to keep track of who hates who 'n who likes who, and who's the newest "Devastatin'" pirate threat around the corner;

And, because of vagaries in the system, I have to keep one eye glued to my own rep constantly, for fear I'll shoot just one too many of "X", and next thing I know I'm flashin' "Q", without even knowing how, when, or why it happened..

And now ya want me to worry about my fuel consumption and how good a fuel mileage my ship gets?

I guess i'm saying the things are hectic, complicated, and "real" enough now, without the added headache of fillin' my bloody gas tank...

(Sirius has a lot of Hells already, Jack Burton. Sure you want another?)
The Obligatory Pair o' Dimes,
Mal

Burst missiles... I think you mean Swarm Pods??? Swarms aren't very accurate, so i wouldnt say they need secondary drains. Feel free to flame me, as I'm pretty new compared to all of you Disco vets. Swarms rock though, you can lay down a wall of them (only did this once, as its very annoying). I like the "fuel cell" idea for cruise only though.

i dunno, cruse is too commonly used for a fuel to be needed, it would, as mal said, be another thing that it would take too much time/effort to watch.