tosh, while that's the way it is currently, that does not mean it is immutable.

Fighters should, in my opinion, be short range, considering how short "short" is. Fighters base out of seaborne carriers or ground airstrips currently, the equivalent being spaceborne carriers and stations in VO. It suddenly becomes a lot more difficult jollying one's way through opposing space without considering fuel. Hell, Serco space is 5 systems wide minimum. If fighters can only go 3 or less before refueling, that will force people to think differently in the Run, for example. And not use Serco space as merely a shortcut between Deneb and Sedina.

Once there is more to do where one is, wherever that may be, this would be very good to give a sense of... distance, perhaps?

moldyman,
I love the way you think.
There is no sense of distance currently in this game, and jump fuel would give you a dollar value for such.

"Fighters should"..."be short range,..."
I completely agree.

This means each ship be redesigned to have a small part of it's cargo, or a big part (depending on the new variant decisions the devs could come up with), dedicated to an FTL gas tank.

This will affect PVP. PVP with fighters on low jump fuel will become a standard. Obviously anyone who wants to fight would be forced to empty out their FTL fuel and fight with the lightest possible ship.

However, intercept gankers will find them easy prey because they literally have no where to run. They could stake out all the station sectors and wormhole sectors, and just wait for them to show up.

The strategy and thinking involved in this is seemingly endless. I simply would love this feature if it was added.

Fuel Consumption could vary between systems as well. Remember "Ray" said that all the systems weren't really set up the way they are on the galactic map?

Well I propose that we set values to these distances. Strategically speaking, I recommend making Deneb significantly far away from that Serco system that borders on Itani space... Geira Rutilus?

This would creat a pocket where it is difficult to send supplies to or from, and would probably be well worth it for traders to help out their sides in the BS that goes on in those "hot" systems.

Various "pockets like this could become well known, and become more interesting. In serco space, one route might be less expensive to travel through, as with UIT space. Do you go around the Azek entrance because Dau and Azek are so much closer than Arta Caelestus and Dau?

One things definately for sure, no more 25% random ass set jump energy is ever going to be seen again... or will it haunt me till I die?

Now this is getting interesting... but harder and harder to implement and balance...
understanding jump fuel mass might be a stumbling block for new pvp'ers but it definitely adds a whole new dimension to things. A strike force headed into enemy territory would need someone to act as tanker (or maybe a cap ship?) to support maximum effectiveness and to get everyone through. I was just reading a bit on EVE and how in that game player death has consequence. The point they made is that it forced people to work together to stay alive. Things like fuel support and the repair ships are good for this.
It's thoughts like this that get me excited about the game again.

I also like the idea for distances, I'm not sure that at this point in the game's development and given current number of players, anything that makes getting somewhere harder can work, but I definitely agree that this would be a big step to differentiate systems and create more defined and populated hubs.
good ideas Kirk

I never said it was immutable. I said it was not exactly easy to implement.

And my post has very much to do with yours, Mynt. Fuel is only required as long as we have to accelerate. The way it is now, that fuel is energy created from an infinite energy source, infinite for our purposes. And we have to accelerate constantly, because somehow the gravitic drive technology creates some kind of 'fluid resistance' that slows our ships down.

Limitations on speed exist only because there are limits to how much energy can be expended at one given point in time (let's call it energy bandwidth). In (VO), using gravitic drives, speeds FTL could probably be attained easily, but there would be an enormous amount of energy required. I am not sure our ships' power cells could supply that much in so short an amount of time.

Neither could an expendable fuel tank, not to mention that the fuel tank for, say, a cent, would probably be around the size of a Leviathan.

At some point, the suspended disbelief kicks back in.

Edit: Please note that this does not necessarily contradict the finiteness of 'fuel'. In an earlier post, I said that the need for fuel would be eliminated. This is, obviously, wrong. It is relative infinity we gain, not absolute.

Okay, so earlier Incarnate posted this thread about potentially modifying turbo to be more variable instead of just 100% or not. Some ideas were that the battery 'hard line' would keep you from going past what the current turbo speed limits are. Essentially, if a Valk was moving at about 225m/s it'd suffer a drain of about 55/sec. It could go higher than that for a little bit, would drain exponentially greater amounts of energy/sec. It could also travel at a smooth rate of say 100m/s, under a much slighter drain.

A second idea is "sector popping" which is explained later on. The general idea behind this one is that you store up energy for a bit, then let go for an enormous boost in acceleration.

Perhaps fuel could only be used for those over the limit kinds of speeds. (or just regular turbo maybe) Basically anything past about 65m/s (depending on your ship's efficiency) would start to eat away at your reserves. So, dog fighting wouldn't necessarily be an issue, but boosting around alot would for tactical advantage, or trading etc. would. This way you can't get stuck, but if you run out of fuel in a compromising spot, such as behind enemy lines, you'll have a devil of a time getting out alive.

Or the sector popping might use fuel as well as energy.

The explanation for both of these is that although the gravitic drives work fine at lower speeds, to overclock them so to speak requires some sort additional chemical, or coolant, or fuel, or *manamana*...

So, a tri-layered velocity setup? This sounds interesting. I haven't read inc's turbo system change post in quite some time.

Naturally, turbo speed limits should be an adjustable setting, i.e. any speed within the range could be set (an int value), like a cruise control on cars.

Then we could introduce the three layers like this:

0-65 m/s: No energy or fuel expenditure. Ship retains full manoeuverability in all directions.

65-225 m/s (upper bound varying with ship type): Energy expenditure, but not fuel. Ship is limited to linear manoeuverability (essentiall current rubo).

225-? m/s (upper bound has to be defined, but should vary with ship type, as well): Energy expenditure as well as fuel. Fuel is finite, but the player gets some manoeuverability back, at the cost of forward acceleration. This would perhaps make it easier for pirates to catch that pesky centaur which they would not have caught otherwise (yes, I do think getting away in VO is a bit too easy. Why do you think I choose to run at times?).

I like the tri-layered idea for speed. I also like the "jump fuel" idea. However, the gravitic drives should run directly off our ship's main reactor. The wormhole distance idea, however, seems silly. Wormholes provide instantaneous travel, and in all actuality, should suck you through once you get in range.

This thread brought up yet again the concept of non-system jumping fighters, or limited atleast. I find gradiant systems more interesting than black and white, Yes jump or No jump ones. From the OP, I want fuel instead of batteries. Infinitely rechargable batteries that magically recharge due to, uh, magic, just aren't as cool as finite fuel.
I say, a mix. Magically rechargeable, yet not finite.

The point is, in addition to the current power capacity used for weapons, turbo, and initiating jumps, a different 'fuel' bar could simply be another statistic on each power cell consumed on each jump. It'd recharge, sure, but maybe not so quickly as from empty to full in 5 seconds. So either ships could have different consumption rates, like maybe the light fighters have a really big drain for some arbitrary reason, or even cooler it could all be dependent on the Power Cell, mebbeh even using the Power Grid system. Perhaps your extra power grid points translate to more fuel capacity? Whatever. Point is, you'd be able to sprint, but not indefinitely.

As with all previous threads of this nature, at least when it comes to recommending fuel.

NO!

One of the things that sets VO apart from other science-fiction games, is that it actually doesn't rely on massive fuel needs. We've developed a nuclear/fusion/fission reactor system that provides direct power from the ship's primary reactor to a battery holding system, allowing it to be used for Turbo or FTL/Warp Travel.
Requiring fuel means that many of the 256 sectors per system would become completely and totally useless.

I'm not so sure if rely is the word I'd use, but VO certainly does include fuel requirements for travel. We call it energy, and you use it out of your Power Cell each time you jump, or turbo, the two primary means of long distance travel. If you actually bother to read the thread, much of the discussion has been about improving the current logistics mechanics, some of which would actually make travelling less of a hassel. (That is the intent of fuel after all... storing extra energy and stuff.)

As I said before, perhaps an explanation for the purpose of fuel is that "although the gravitic drives work fine at lower speeds, to overclock them so to speak requires some sort additional chemical, or coolant, or fuel, or *manamana*...". You might notice that while our current ships do not fly very fast, they are capable of flying very far. I've consider this the tradeoff for seemingly infinitely reneweable energy, but even a millenia ago militaries used limited rocket propellent to achieve traumatic jumps in acceleration. The tactical advantage of short but sweet speeds cannot be denied. Neither can the gameplay. Although incarnate is loath to up the relative speeds, there it is - all things are relative.

I've brushed up on this thread. I've read it before, but I didn't post at the time, but this time I think I've come up with a solution.

For the use of fuel to make sense in the VO universe, which is dominated by gravitic and ion drives, we must turn our attention to the reactor itself for the solution. Let us assume, for the sake of the argument, that the reactors actually do use fuel, but are so hyper-efficient that their fuel consumption is negligible. However, this comes at the cost of reduced power output.

Although ships can open wormholes and sustain high velocities for inter-stellar transit, they necessitate building up a substantial reserve of power in the battery's capacitor. This is reflected in-game by the requirement of 25% of a battery's capacity for a short-range jump, and a full battery for wormhole transit.

Now, let us assume that the batteries (which are, in reality, reactor/capacitor systems) can be temporarily set to a higher energy-output state, at the cost of greatly reduced fuel efficiency. This would allow for instantaneous activation of the gravitic engines, without the need for waiting for the battery to recharge. Once the reserves go so low as to be insufficient for this, the standard goes back to the battery-power build-up we know as the current standard.

Some ship models would have more fuel than others; notably freighters would have a more substantial fuel cell than fighters, which would prevent them from being useful as long-range interceptors unless explicitly designed to be so.

However, such things could be amended through use of an equipment port, allowing for additional fuel capacity, or even conceivably an after-market add-on permitting the use of fuel-guzzling in standard flight to briefly hot-charge the power-cell. And, of course, there is the ever-popular suggestion to permit using fuel as prerequisite for using an afterburner, on top of the standard boost.

Mining ships don't really have a need to traverse WH's.