Source
r/starcitizen•
LevelStudent

Carrack vs Starlifter QT Fuel

DISCUSSION

I'm a little confused about the Carrack and Starlifter QT fuel tanks.

Carrack has a fuel tank of 44 000L, which was exceptional when it was released and is still 2nd best by a massive margin.

Starlifter has twice as much fuel at 88 000L which is exceptional compared to even the Carrack.

This is in addition to having more cargo, and all other stats being very close. Carrack has more turrets but C2/M2 has pilot guns and the turrets have the same sized weapons on them. Shields and components are exactly the same.

The Starlifter costs ~5 million aUEC where as the Carrack costs ~26 million aUEC.

The Starlifter is a vehicle transport and cargo ship, the Carrack is a long ranged explorer.

It's absurd to me that the Starlifter even has as much QT fuel as the Carrack.

Also this is the Carrack store description. Notice the very first sentence mentions fancy expanded fuel tanks for long range explortion. This is the Starlifter page. Notice the lack of a mention of QT fuel tanks.

Is there any reason for this? Is my info wrong? What is going on here?

PS: The Starlifter having a much larger hydrogen tank makes sense since it's for planetary landing and pick up, the QT fuel part is just what boggles my mind.

Posted Sep 9, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

1118
Thetomas•

The fuel in the Hercules series was drastically increased as a test by CIG to determine if a playstyle where you only refuel occasionally at large expense would be better than refueling every time you hit a station.

19
LevelStudentOP•

Would you happen to know where this is mentioned and are there more details?

It seems like way too much, considering how far the Carracks fuel already takes you without a refill.

I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious and would like to see how CIG explained it.

1
Thetomas•

It was a CIG response to a post about some related issue near when 3.14 was released. I can't find the post atm, so ignore me if you like (can't provide evidence, might as well not be true). If I can find it later, i'll edit this.

6
Tjarko_TarnenPathfinder•

Here is a post with the quote from the Dev.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/crusader-hercules-quantum-fuel-seriously

3
LevelStudentOP•

Interesting the Hydrogen is apparently also buffed, I thought that was just what it was supposed to have since its a planetary transport.

Thank you for the link.

Silly to see people still saying its justified as an actual change due to the Carrack having other features over it. I really hope no Hercules owners think it's intentional, or even justified, and factored that into a decision to purchase the ship. Besides the role thing, you can buy 5 Hercules for the price of 1 Carrack so it absolutely should have more better features.

1
Tjarko_TarnenPathfinder•

Yeah it’s just a test, they are just trying to find the sweet spot. When they do all the ships with change accordingly.

1
Koric101BMM•

I think there’s a lot of balancing yet to come.

6
Jumpylemmingbmm•

Maybe they are testing larger quantum tanks because of Pyro coming Soon™. Pyro is a much larger solar system than Stanton and they have spoken about refueling difficulties in the more barren and larger Pyro. Perhaps they will rebalance all the ships after Pyro is added.

But i agree with you, the Carrack should have one of the largest if not the largest Q fuel tank and certainly much more than the Hercules.

4
sniperctCorsair•

I'm thinking it needs that fuel to carry all the cargo and tanks. Like maybe some of the intent is that you'll use more quantum fuel the more mass you are transporting.

Carrack just has to carry itself, it's crew, and maybe one or two light vehicles.

Starlifter carries tanks

3
LevelStudentOP•

Carrack can load its garage up with three trucks and still fill it's nearly-the-same-size cargo bay and it's top snub hangar, while also being a larger vehicle overall. The Starlifter is vehicles or cargo.

Even if this was the case it should have significantly worse range than the Carrack, and I can't imagine the extra weight would make it consume more than twice as much fuel.

8
CMDRJonussbmm•

Man who gives a shit, the carrack's already an OP fucking ship anyone. It can do everything so well. Fine with it also not having the biggest fuel tank

-1
LevelStudentOP•

Did you miss the part where the description explicitly mentions that it has fancy QT fuel tanks?

Carrack is pretty good at stuff (though honestly so is Hecules, besides a med bay it does basically everything just as well save for fewer turrets and slightly slower accel) but it is the long range explorer so it should have the best QT tanks. It's also one of the very very few ships where you can see the tanks.

Apparently it is supposed to also, as people have been saying the Hercules has additional QT fuel for a test.

2
CMDRJonussbmm•

Carrack is pretty good at stuff (though honestly so is Hecules, besides a med bay it does basically everything just as well save for fewer turrets and slightly slower accel)

Let me list the ways you're wrong.

The carrack has significantly more hull HP

has almost double the turret DPS of the M2

has a high tier medbay allowing not only for injury treatment a la cutty red but full on respawn

has a top speed that's on par with a gladius and is actually faster than its companion shuttle

has a drone bay allowing the use of a myriad of drones, potentially even non-exploration drones

is able to have cargo + ground vehicles + snubs without sacrificing anything

It is, by every definition, the mary sue of ships, it has no weaknesses and can do everything really well. The only thing the herc has over it is the fuel tank.

This whole thread from the other day is a good read, but this post in particular is worth reading if you want to skip the rest. https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/pjixjj/the_key_to_making_a_good_fun_fan_ship_concept_is/hbxj083/

0
littlexav•

The answer is: they said when they released the C2 the quantum and hydrogen fuel tanks were for testing.

I spent 20 minutes trying to find the source, and because of the ridiculous way CIG releases patch notes and posts things on Spectrum without also putting the same info into a Q&A, I can't find it. But it happened.

EDIT: Thetomas is apparently having the same problem! Haha. At least our memories agree, too.

3
THUORNSQ42 2025•

The Carrack will have a longer range than the Hercs down the line. The Hercs have more QT fuel than they would have received compared to other ships as part of some testing by CIG.

2
SharpEdgeSodasabre•

I'm still waiting for a time when the economy is fleshed out a bit more, we are going to see a spike in Quantum fuel price and consumption.

Right now "Short v Long" Quantum range doesn't matter for much, and if it doesn't matter, it defeats a lot of the purpose of Carriers like the Bengal beyond maybe "response time" and only shaving minutes off.

Small ship pilots will hate to hear it, but I think "short range" should mean "Able to make jumps around a planet and it's moons, but jumping to another planet is going to need at least one pitstop. This can be mitigated with the very slow but very efficient "Industrial" quantum drives.

Arrows shouldn't be able to go to another planet in one jump, hence why they are carrier based fighters. The Vanguard being a "Long Range" ship however should be able to make at least 2 jumps across an entire system, to fill it's role as a strike craft that has some independence from a carrier.

The perfect time to do this will be when Refueling is added, and suddenly Starfarer's become one of the most important ships in the verse and I think a game like Star Citizen needs "Fuel Rats" to be pandered to as much as possible to tell interesting stories and to have planning be an important aspect of what missions you take.

2