Frigate fuel cost listings: accurate?

[Red Earth]

I read on the wiki that the lowest fuel cost for a non-support frigate is 8, but I'm definitely seeing lower. Five tonnes on a trade ship and it's brand new with no missions.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3058465969
There's a lot of old information around. I'm interested in the lowest fuel cost specifically because it's a lot easier to read that number rather calculating the rest against the frigate's rank to see if it's good.

Side question: Is this the worst frigate ever? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3058467231
It's got all bad traits except the one for its class. I'm almost tempted to use it to see if it can actually get good after a long long time, but I read that frigates with stats in the negative are glitched and might not advance at all.

[Lindy Bomber]

Do you have fleet fuel reduction techs installed on your freighter? That seems to effect how fuel usage is displayed.

The second frigate will level up and the negative traits will go away.

[Red Earth]

No, I have an expedition defence enhancing component, but nothing for fuel. Maybe there's an effect I don't know about somewhere..?

[gNg]

I always thought the minimum fuel consumption was 8 too, but like you, I've seen quite a few with 5 or 6 lately, though I can't be sure if I had any fuel reductions installed on my freighter at the time.

As for frigates with negative traits, if you pick them carefully, they can often become the best frigates in your fleet once they've levelled up. The main thing you have to be careful of though, is the number of encounters they've had. All frigates stop levelling after 55 missions (each mission consists of a number of encounters, depending on it's length - probably averaging out at around 8-10 encounters per mission, I'd guess). After 598 encounters, I would definitely give the one in your picture a miss, but one with up to a couple of hundred or so, might be worth taking a risk on.

[DennisM the Diligent]

If you have a C-class freighter and no frigate fuel upgrades installed in your freighter tech section, then the frigate fuel costs you see are the base frigate fuel consumption rates. If you have a better class of freighter and/or fuel efficiency upgrades installed, then those upgrades will apply to the frigate fuel cost displayed, reducing it. In most of my fleets (multiple saves), my frigate fuel costs are either 1 ton/250 ly for support frigates or 2 tons/250 ly for other types of frigates. This is because I have S-class freighters and three S-class fuel efficiency upgrades (of 20%) installed.

More details in my guide here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2897201809

[gNg]

Ah...I get it now. I didn't realise your freighter class had a direct effect on the fuel consumption rates displayed by frigates for hire. (I thought it only showed once they were in your fleet).
Thanks for the information!

[Red Earth]

That explains it. I did have an S-class freighter at the time. I've switched to an A-class because I apparently got one of the worst S-class and have since found a very good A-class.