Assembly Hall

Ships require fuel to warp, industrial and T1 frigs require very little fuel, battleships require lots of fuel.




A. The goal is to:

• encourage solo and small numbers, equivalently, discourage blobs
• encourage use of small and T1 ships, equivalently, discourage large and T2 ships

The main idea for achieving this is limiting ship travel distance, for combat
ships. A single solar system can support the daily activities of a limited number of
pilots (exception: mission running hubs), so people tend to spread out, however the easy
travel allows the blob to form quickly and go anywhere. I expect making travel hard (for
combat ships) to act as a force, which tends to keep the people spread out - for any given
group, it would be easier to attack them with small numbers and it would be easier for
them to attack with small numbers - because the blob would be slow and costly to form and
move.

The concrete mechanism to achieving these goals is introducing ship fuel.

In order to be able to warp:

• a ship needs a certain amount of fuel per AU, stored in a fuel bay, in addition to the capacitor;
• In the absence of fuel, a ship can still warp, but at a greatly reduced warp speed, something in the ballpark
of twenty times slower, so nobody is left stuck in space;

Shuttles and rookie ships do not require fuel. The fuel bay is separate from the cargo hold.

Game balance is affected by modifying two variables.

• one variable is the volume of the fuel bay, which determines the maximum distance a
ship can travel without refueling. The guiding principle behind fuel bay volume is
that harmless ships travel long distances, dangerous ships travel short distances.


• second variable is the fuel consumption per AU, for each ship class and for each ship
within a class, again, harmless ships are cheap to deploy, dangerous ships are costly
to deploy.

(without picking too much on what is harmless and what is dangerous)

Taking into account the fuel consumption and fuel bay volume, here are some tentative
distances for different classes of ships, with base distance traveled without refueling
being 1000AU:

1. T1/T2 industrial ships, (jump) freighters, mining barges, Orca, Rorqual - 100%, 1000 AU
2. Covops (not bombers), T1 non-faction frigs and destroyers - 70%, 700 AU
3. T1 non-faction cruisers and battlecruisers - 50%, 500 AU
4. T2 frigs, faction frigs, T2 destroyers - 33%, 330AU
5. Force recons and bombers - 25%, 250 AU
6. Combat recons, HACs, Fleet command ships, faction cruisers, heavy interdictors, logistics,
strategic cruisers - 15%, 150 AU

7. Field command ships, Battleships - 10%, 100 AU

Numbers are tentative and while the concrete values may decrease, the proportion should
stay very similar. The goal is for T1 frigs to be able to travel across a region and back,
while battleships to be limited to 4-5 average systems without refueling (may need
tweaking some systems' radii), harmless ships travel much, dangerous ships travel little.

B. Nature of the fuel

It would be preferable to have an wholly different kind of fuel,
rather then reusing ice products, because increasing their demand will
affect negatively other venues. Comedy option - NPC good, sold only
for AUR. Seriously, probably a new planet commodity would be a good
idea.

C. Fuel tanker class ship

A new class of ships is created under Advanced Industrial Ships - "Tankers". Their role
is to accompany fleets and refuel combat ships. They have a large fuel bay and it is
possible for other ships to refuel from tankers in space. It is not possible to refuel
ships by any means other than from tanker fuel bays and personal or corporate station
hangars, specifically it is not possible to refuel a ship from any ship cargo hold or
non-tanker fuel bay.

Two new ships are created for each races - Blockade Runner Tanker and Deep Space Tanker,
based on the existing transport ship hulls, with the cargo hold bonus changed to fuel bay
bonus.

The base fuel bay volume is subject to game balance, with the goal for a single Blockade
Runner Tanker to be able to increase the effective range of a 3-4 cruiser hulls to the
next class and a single Deep Space Tanker to be able to increase the effective range of
3-4 battleship hulls to the next class (BS class range to HAC class range, T1 cruiser
range to T1 frig range).

D. Related skills

The fuel consimption is affected by the skill Warp Drive operation, which is modified by
adding to its description:

"Each skill level reduces the fuel needed for initiating warp by 5%."

That's all for now.


PS. Naturally, there are also jump bridges and cyno jump mechanics, which also will be scaled down drastically. This will be amended in a following version of the proposal.

great idea. lets kill roaming gangs all together. and if someone feels bold enough to even bring out battleship lets limit his jumps by fuel.

maybe leave faction warfare and go have some real pvp?????? maybe?

Yes. That's why I have written that some system sizes would need to be changed.



No, I am not. What in the proposal would make it impossible to function away from empire?



This is written in the proposal. People's activities make them spread naturally across systems. It would be slower for people to concentrate in a big blob. This applies both for attacking and defense.



You would be able to cover more systems with T1 frigates and cruisers. You may maintain strategically positioned fuel depots.



I think you haven't read carefully the proposal and don't understand it and its implications well. Yes, there are some weak points, that I'm thinking about, but you didn't seem to notice them.

Please, try to be constructive. You're not scoring anything on the forums.

This just encourages people to set up shop in one area and never leave... stagnating inter-corp/alliance conflict.

It also, ironically enough, does the exact opposite of your goal and kills small scale PvP.
Under your system... in order to go out for a "*****-n-giggles" PvP roam you needs to set up supply lines, get dedicated players/alts to fly the tankers, and/or make sure everyone is in the same ship with the same fit so no one runs out of fuel before everyone else. No small corp has the manpower or the will to do that.
A large corp/alliance on the other hand has many, many peons that they can delegate tasks to. "Fleet A (combat fleet) will run point. Fleet B (tankers) stay behind one system until refuel is requested."

Now as far as "the blob" being spread out because some will run out of fuel before others... well... that kind of thinking flies in the face on conventional wisdom and tactics.
If a few people in your group run out of fuel... you do not leave them behind for that reduces your overall effectiveness. Instead, everyone will sit and wait for all of their ships to be refueled before moving on as one unit once more. Again... this encourages players to team up with more players rather than fly on their own and just makes thing unnecessarily tedious.


Overall... your proposal makes it seem like you have a big beef with "big" ships and that you want to limit their use... almost to the point where you obsolete them in any activity beyond defense fleets and SOV warfare (which is still iffy because it seems CARRIERS would perform better than battleships in just getting around).

Having to stop to refuel my ship every 2-3 systems is absurd. And I mostly fly T2 cruisers.

You haven't read the proposal carefully, have you?

It's explicitly written that:

a) it's battleships that are limited to 4-5 systems
b) T2 cruiser hulls have between 150% and 250% bigger range than battleships

which even under the current tentative numbers would mean that T2 cruisers would be able to cover fast 10-15 systems range (and slower - unlimited range).

How did you get that 2-3 systems?

Oh, I AM a coder and I can assure you the required coding effort is negligible.

You don't think a dev goes one by one over each solar system, changing by hand coordinates of jump gates, do you?

I'm glad to hear they have experience with this. Thank you for your input.

Thank you.

Do you think that the stated goals are terrible?

Or do you think that the proposed changes would have consequences different from the ones, stated in the proposal,
and why?

No, you would proceed to warp at a reduced warp speed.

Given that I have to repeat that ships CAN warp without fuel in almost every reply of mine in this thread, it's obvious I have to make this information stand out more.