Made some mods to find out what determines fuel use.

My finds are

the old fuel system is no more

fuel use is rounded (so add the MW of your items then drop off anything after the decimal point to get the rate of fuel consumption)

reactor size has nothing to do with it other than larger reactors allow you to equip more draining things

your reactor can overload if you put too much drain on it even if you are still under the capacity (80% drain in my tests)

basic trusting takes 1MW of power

there is no life support needed :D (ie no power is drained for just sitting there gliding)

armor takes no power


anyone have any questions you would like to see me experiment on?

Explain this, please.

Have you tried equipping devices that have a power usage greater than the reactor's rating?

What's the basic ratio of time:fuel use per megawatt?(How many units of fuel are used by one megawatt each second, or some such.) That would be really good to know. That way you could calculate the length of time a given reactor could run at maximum power, or at a specific minimum power, etc.

It's nice to know that if you don't use any devices you don't use fuel. But of course, that means turning off your shield if you are in a bind...

Thanks for you research, Gannon!

ok did some more tests and found out there must be 5 MW of power free for no overloading so it isn't 80% like I thought it is a flat 5 MW of power needed for no overloading.

Equipping a device that have a power usage greater than the reactor's rating starts disabling items (didn't test on order).

disabled items don't use fuel or power

I did see some oddness with thrust and still have to test the MW per sec so off to more testing.

edit: ok basic thrust takes 10% (not 1 MW) of reactor power (and fuel is used according to reactor use)

ok my tests say that each MW of power takes 2 fuel per second

with

Helium3 Fuel Rod = 2500 fuel
Helium Assembly = 10000 fuel
Longzhu Sphere = 100000 fuel
Pteracnium Fuel Rod = 50000 fuel

remember each reactor has a different max amount of fuel
here is a list of item reactors

Nova-100 reactor
maxFuel= "250000"

Nova-25 reactor
maxFuel= "60000"

Hyperion reactor (1 GW)
maxFuel= "2500000"

SN250 reactor
maxFuel= "600000"

edit:
so this means that a ship only using 1 MW of power and not trusting can last 14.46 days!

the basic thrust power use is reactorMW / 10
(1 GW = 1000 MW in game)

edit2:
don't forget ships can have a maxfuel too so if there max fuel is smaller than the reactors it uses the ships max fuel

Cool.

So, how is the duration of time for power usage on weapons calculated? Is it just the length of time that he fire key is held down? Or is there a set energy usage for each shot?

ok just did the tests and had some interesting results

every second your weapon is being fired rounded up it costs (rate of fire doesn't change the amount of fuel used)

when not being fired it is counted as a item with 10% the power use. So a 100 MW weapon when being fired would cost 10 MW when not fired even if not in the weapon slot (ie you have two weapons they both count for non firing power use)

that does make it not a good idea to have many weapons :unsure: not sure if I like that

Ouch...

I guess that means that you'd better disable your weapons that you're not actively using.

That'll make for some interesting decisions during the early-mid game while you're still juggling fuel/weapons/devices...

Interesting...This will change my play style some.

Frankly, I've found that early and mid-game is nothing like the headache you'll get once you install a 1GW reactor, some of the really good shields and weapons, and then try to keep the reactor fuelled...

There just isn't enough pteracnium fuel around, and you can no longer use He3...

I think the main reason for the huge fuel use is that getting a 1 GW reactor and thrusting is like having a 100 MW extra item. That it takes up 4 He3 fuel rods per 5 seconds and thats without any other power drain.

Wow...so that's a pteracnium fuel rod every 25 seconds. That has to hurt.

Are you sure about this?

I've checked the code, and fuel use while thrusting is only dependent on the drive upgrade that you've got.

Of course, the Pteracnium Megadrive consumes 200MW while thrusting, so your point about fuel use is valid. I do think I will have to balance fuel use in the higher levels (and/or make pteracnium rods more common).

Your stats about weapon firing are correct. Note also that weapons with ammo generally consume very little power for their level.

One spoiler about shields: Shields only draw their rated power while regenerating. If shields are at full strength, they only draw half-power.

I checked again and you are right. the basic thruster uses 2 MW of power

thanks for the shields spoiler

I didn't have problems with pteracnium rods because I had lots of rins from lots of miners but I had tons of problems with the 250 because I had a hard time finding them and no station refuels them untill you get to late game.

with the 250 you can prey on ferian miners - they all carry reactor assemblies, and are in plentiful supply (provided you dont destroy the nest)