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Fuel Estimation Errors

Starships —> Fuel —> Fuel Consumption Details —> Fuel Estimation Errors

All starships use neutronium for fuel. When a starship is moved, it will usually consume fuel. The estimated amount of fuel consumption is displayed in the Movement section of the Starship Interface Pane. That estimate has errors. Some of those errors are intentional, and some are bugs. This page categorizes and describes the various known fuel usage estimate errors in the Desktop client.

Bugs

The following fuel estimation errors are considered to be bugs. This is because they involve a single starship with little or no external interaction. As such, they can be resolved without major difficulty.

  1. The mass lost due to the use of supplies to repair a starship is not factored into the fuel usage.
  2. The fuel used by the Cloak and Chameleon missions isn't subtracted from the starship's mass prior to the fuel usage estimate.
  3. In the "getNextLoc" function, the Cloak fuel usage is figured in, but not the Chameleon fuel usage.
  4. When the Cloak mission is selected, but the starship is damaged, the fuel will not be consumed but the estimated fuel use will still include the cloaking fuel.
  5. Sometimes the system will claim that the cloak or chameleon fuel usage will be higher than the number of turns implies. This is due to rounding errors in the "getFuelUsage" function. That function needs to be rewritten to use a step-by-step movement algorithm (not a trivial task).
  6. Sometimes, the mass of a towed starship isn't figured into the fuel use estimate. This bug is in the "getNextLoc" function.
  7. When a starship has waypoints, the trip fuel consumption will probably be less than estimated. This is because the mass used to determine the fuel consumption on all legs will be the starting mass of the starship, and won't account for the fuel consumed in previous legs. This bug also causes the number of turns required to make a turn be displayed incorrectly. This bug is in the "loadMovement" function, and is documented on UserVoice ( https://planets.uservoice.com/forums/136520-general/suggestions/4156238-bug-fuel-prediction-error-when-giving-multiple-tu )
  8. When a Merlin Class Alchemy Ship or Neutronic Refinery Ship has no fuel and is being towed, the starship mass is based on alchemy not being performed, even though alchemy does not require fuel to occur. This bug is in the "getMass" function (different lines for the two starships). This bug has been fixed, but we don't know when.
  9. When a starship has no fuel, is being towed and laying mines, the starship mass is based on all the requested torpedoes being converted to mines, even though mine laying requires fuel to occur. This bug is in the "getMass" function.
  10. When a starship is laying mines, the starship mass is based on all the requested torpedoes being converted to mines, even if the minefield would exceed the minefield size limit. This bug is in the "getMineLayTorps" function. A suggested code fix can be found in https://planets.nu/_library/2016/11/fuel-estimate-fix-1.txt.
  11. When a Command starship, or one of the starships moving with it, lays mines, the fuel use estimate is based on the mines being layed before movement instead of after.
  12. When a towed starship has no fuel and Jettisons cargo, the fuel use estimate is based on the post-jettison mass, even though the Jettison doesn't happen.
  13. When moving or towing a Neutronic Refinery, the converted mass of minerals and supplies will be used, even if there's not enough space in the fuel tank to accept all the generated fuel.

Non-bugs

While all of these actions can cause fuel estimation errors, they all involve interaction with external objects (planets or foreign starships). Because of that interaction, the actual change in mass either isn't known, or can become excessively complex to determine.

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