Starfarer fuel tank capacities are all sorts of messed up

FZD

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Posted about this on spectrum as well.

Anyhow, so I was checking out the new refueling mechanics, or at least, how big tanks Starfarer has and how they work. (Took me forever to manage to spawn a ship btw.)
I really rather like that the panels next to the tanks now work and have a function that makes sense (You can open a tank to accept fuel, and move fuel to it from another tank.) Okey, not sure what's the actual benefit there, unless your ships weight distribution starts affecting flight characteristics. But it's cool little thing.
And it's cool how one of the 2 extra stations in Starfarers cockpit is now fully functional and actually serves a purpose.

What I wasn't all that happy about is the sizes of the fuel tanks. So you got 6x60 SCU payload tanks, I suppose 360 SCU fuel and 291 SCU cargo isn't that bad of a deal in on itself, only... Starfarers internal hydrogen tank is 362 SCU.
ScreenShot-2022-04-01_15-22-52-22C.jpg

That's right.
A Starfarer can not fully refuel its own internal tank from the external payload tanks.
(I mean, it doesn't seem possible to move fuel from the external tanks to the internal tank anyhow, but even if that was possible.)
That really rather sucks.

On the quantum fuel side of things, it gets even more ridiculous. Starfarers internal quantum fuel tank is 0.611 SCU. Yeah, a ship with 271 SCU cargo capacity, 360 SCU fuel payload capacity, and 362 SCU hydrogen fuel capacity has around half an SCU tank for quantum fuel. *sigh*
I'm just glad it's not 611 SCU, but still. None of these numbers make any sense. Like, you could refuel the Starfarers internal qFuel tank 589 times from the payload tanks. Or you could refuel your hydrogen 0.99 times.

And again, you can't actually move fuel from payload tanks to internal tanks. Which means, you could have a ton of qFuel or hydrogen fuel with you, but still require another Starfarer to come refuel you.
 

Vavrik

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This doesn't sound all that well thought out, although flying with a Liberator supporting a Prospector or Mole, and an Expanse might help refuel the Starfarer. Or maybe a serious Starfarer refactor is needed. It isn't designed all that well inside (to me) - I've personally kind of written it off as a result, but still perfectly willing to have you and @NaffNaffBobFace drop down into a gas giant and suck up some hydrogen for me.
 
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wmk

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Good point, @FZD -- we will have to add it to the wish list in the feedback thread.
Some real World tankers like KC-135A and KC-135R can use fuel stored in all wing and body tanks onboard to offload to receiver aircraft or feed their own engines to increase range if necessary.
 
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