Fuel can be a little too scarce at times.

Hi, firstly, loving Out There so far, great job!

However, my runs always end with no fuel quite early due to hitting 3 or 4 systems in a row with no gas planets. It's entirely possible (and even probable) that I'm missing something and this is intended, but it seems that fuel can be very hard to come by at times.

Cheers,
guska

After running through the game several times (trying several different strategies), I have to agree.  

If the goal of the game is to encourage exhaustive exploration, then the fuel costs seem far too high.  For example, it take 16 fuel units to get from one star system to the next, but then it take another 10-14 to orbit and land/drill to get more resources. Just to get more fuel it's a cost of 26 fuel units, and the likelihood of deriving that much fuel from your probe (at least initially) is pretty rare.

If the goal of the game is to meet some objective and only restock resources when needed, then the randomness of the systems and what is in them seems out of balance.

That said, I do really like the the tension of the game and while I feel like my runs end way too soon, they are fun.

Thanks for your feedback.
We're currently working on fuel balance but it is close to what we intended.
It's tricky to find the sweet spot between "too much" and "not enough" to keep you on your toes.

I agree with the others, fuel management sometimes feel a bit hard and random, especially at the beginning of the game. Here's some possible tweaks:

- Put more fuel in the cargo at the beginning, like 20He rather than 10H. In other words, you'll start with 180 rather than 120 fuel. After all, why not? It would make the first minutes more comfortable for discovering the game, and even for experienced players it will just give them a bit more time for gathering a first round of metals and a stock of fuel. I don't think it would hurt the game to go a bit more towards the "exploration"/"interactive story" aspect rather than harsh survival.

- I like the idea of having the star as a last-chance way to retrieve some fuel ; unfortunately the only time I tried it, my ship was immediately destroyed (despite being almost in top shape, I think). Maybe it was just bad luck, but I'd say it should not inflict >50 damage, except special events of course Maybe the amound of damage we can be expect from approaching something could be explained in the tutorial?

About fuel, I also feel it's a bit random. Like I played dozen games and still have some big issues with fuel, totally randomly, sometimes after 5 turns, or after 15...
> start with a bit more hydrogen seems nice
> also maybe all resources could "burn" as fuel, but giving only +1 by unit (or fewer)
> also maybe I could burn equipment in the engine, that would allow last-chance actions!

Another issue I've seen, is an 'out-of-fuel' game over when I have fuel in my cargo. It says that I have no way of getting fuel, but it's right there, ready to go.

Fuel tips
https://outthere.forumactif.org/t29-tips-for-the-beta

After the first few (ok, maybe 20 or so) games I don't find fuel to be too scarce at all.
If you can get past the initial scramble for survial, which i think is an important part of the game and should be a little desperate, then managing fuel (and to a lesser extent iron) becomes 'relatively' easy. And, once you get a store of He it becomes much easier to absorb the random events and the occasional fuel dry spell. Maybe careful preperation really is the key to survival?
Perhaps, H should be slightly more common and He slightly less common. That way, even if you have plenty fuel, it becomes an inventory management issue as you won't have space to build/gather other resources.
Of course, if you find a high power ship or build a power improving device then fuel usage is dramatically reduced meaning you can easily afford to skip around the systems looking for fuel.

I have to agree now. After playing, let's call it a shedload of games, fuel doesn't feel anywhere near as scarce as it did. Sure, you can't go exploring every system, but that's part of the survival aspect. Do I play it safe and move forward, or do I risk everything and explore one more side system?