Fuel Consumption

[OneManStanding]

I'm taking my time on the roads on Just In Time Missions, using the cruise control and taking on salvage, as opposed to skimming through the debris fields with the Driver Assist off. I'm taking more notice of my fuel and it has me wondering...

When you fill up on fuel it says x-amount of KM and slowly drops as you drive. Now, will you get the full x-amount - say, 97km - out of the tank wither you travel at 40kmph or 100kmph? Or does the game take into account that travelling at 100kmph will burn up more fuel and mean you only get something like 50km out of it?

[Merikon]

Speed doesnt matter as for my experience

[Aesyle]

Same here, speed doesn't matter. What matters to fuel consumption, is how much are you correcting your truck at Y, X and Z axis.

Though, haven't tested it that well, but maybe pulling heavier load also matters. E.g 40T vs 235T. That, and maybe also the truck upgrade you can buy, that increases accel and braking. Since latter says on the tin that it makes more fuel reaching your engine (hence the better accel/brake).

[Your weakness is your own]

Fuel is consumed when a thruster is at non-zero throttle, and currently the curves are so bad that ANY throttle level is almost full consumption. Like, 15% throttle -> 85% fuel rate bad. Thus, cruise is the worst thing you can do for fuel consumption.

I don't think there is any adjustment for upgrades or weight other than the one efficiency upgrade, but fuel is such a nonissue that I haven't bothered revisiting my initial fuel investigations.

I wouldn't put any stock in the range estimate unless you really want to fly around with a steady throttle setting.

[Ottomic]

Range is probably some variation on Delta-v, that is, a measure of how much effort your thrusters can put out. I wouldn't look at it too much besides orientative purposes.

Btw, don't use cruise control. At the moment it's bugged so the fuel consumption and heat generation it's the same as going full throttle.

[OneManStanding]

Originally posted by Ottomic:

Btw, don't use cruise control. At the moment it's bugged so the fuel consumption and heat generation it's the same as going full throttle.

That's the weird thing! First time I played I got three engine burnouts in succession, one cruising at 150kph, next at 100kph, next at 60kph -- all whilst crossing two systems. Restarted on a new game and since then no serious issues of engine heating. I see the temp gauge warm up but I've always reached my destination first.

I've turned to using the cruise control because I'm also using the roads more, as opposed to skimming the debris fields straight from gate-to-gate. For me, refuelling at this point in the game isn't a problem. So I was just curious wither I burned fuel faster at higher speeds or if I'd get the full 97km out of a tank regardless of how slow or quick I did it.

[Ottomic]

Outside of using cruise control I don't believe there's a way to overheat in "recommended", yeah, which gives you a sense of how higher fuel consumption is with cruise control right now.

You can maximize fuel consumption if you go assist off, since with assist on your retros are always firing while you're coasting, but imo it's not really that much worth it. What does help is going at a reasonable speed (120 mph, for example) and coasting on to your destination, instead of wasting fuel on accelerating/decelerating. If you're playing on a controller, pressing your trigger about 20% in won't be enough to accelerate you, but it will still help in keeping your momentum forward.

This being said, fuel isn't super hard to stay on top of, so in the end I'm way more wasteful now that I've slapped a few upgrades on my truck lol.

[OneManStanding]

Yeah, skimming the debris with drive assist off was something I did at the start. Could cross multiple systems, gate to gate, barely using any fuel at all. But turning it off and on was a bit of a tedium, and you always had so much time to kill on Just In Time Jobs you might as well not accept them. This is why I'm using the roads, and instead of blasting my engine every few moments just using cruise control and refuel when needed. I'm willing to say the game is a little more relaxed played in this manner.

Regarding holding the trigger in 20%, I was aware holding it in just enough kept you at the speed you were going at. I configured that in Steam so basically the whole first part of the trigger was enough to maintain momentum and only a full press put the engine to max. But just decided cruise control was easier.

Switching zoom to toggle, another useful feature - especially when during solar flares and you need to focus on the monitor.