Disagree. Cost to move a unit of mass from A to B, slow steaming is by far the lowest marginal cost. Burning at a higher FTL usage is still inefficient - you burn more % in fuel than the time that’s saved. With STL there is some wiggle room depending on the specific route, sometimes 2 vs. 3 vs. 5 may yield better results that are worth it.
Burning faster requires less initial capex in ships, as you can use the ones you have more frequently. In early stages of the game, spending more on fuel is worth it because the return from spending that ship money on another base outweighs the increased fuel costs. In the end, it really depends on what side of the ROI & capital structure you are. There are times when its good to make better use of your existing fleet by burning faster. But once you acquire enough capital it’s best to lower those marginal costs by investing in more shipping capacity.
Given the cost of the gateways and the addition of a new material specifically for them - I think the assumption of many players that they would revolutionize some part of in-game movement was a reasonable thing. I would really love to hear from the devs what they thought gateways would do for the game and if reality matches with what they envisioned.
For now, I am stuck with a decision - if this is all gateways will ever be I will likely mothball my colony ship and remove my REO/RE base because I have better uses for that HQ point. If there is some fix for gateways that will improve there use,. then I would likely keep the REO/RE base. But I really wish the Devs would weigh in with what their intention was/is.
That’s just how it is with new goodies in games; sometimes they don’t quite fit into the system – because other, older features don’t work or aren’t effective in gameplay. Currently, only a few routes are truly faster in-game because the STL mechanics (consumption and acceleration) aren’t implemented very well. It sometimes takes longer to travel from planet to planet, as traversing half the galaxy. Also, few players are willing to venture into the outer reaches of the galaxy because there are no advantages to maintaining and developing their own planet. The colony ship was an experiment in this direction, driven by the need for the new resource. All the new resources were mined and produced in a frenzy and temporarily stored on the commodity exchanges. The 3 million VF currently on the market will last for quite some time.
I hope for QoL improvements and rebalancing of old features (gov, ship-blueprints) before something completely new is introduced into the game. and yes i still prospects KR….
The routes where gateways appear to make the most sense is between planets that have direct logistic chains to them. Verdant - Sand being an example (I take the gateway every time I fly that route). A consistent 5h 23m trip with only needing STL ship is a great deal. That represents a lot of logistic capacity with even starter ships (can do a round trip in waking hours).
However, many other logistic chains have been built in the same system (Promitor - Avalon). A gateway would provide much more optional routes for specific pairs. Wild Garden : Pyrgos - New Mexico : Tacotopia might be a pairing to look at for the frm → inc pair as fertile outer planets become more of a target for bases.
Vallis - WB-948c for quickly bringing in ALO to a metallurgy world for either AL or SI (and then maybe another link for Vallis - Prism for SIO one way and SI the other). Yes, its only two hops for Vallis to Prism but then it becomes viable to have an STL only WCB hauler that shaves a significant amount off the price vs a jump capable one.
Or XD-311a (Resource Extraction - HAL) to Circe could be another useful pairing of systems.
Gateways appear to be much more useful for making “this planet to that planet” as part of multi system logistic chains faster. However, using gateways as a middle leg on a longer route rarely seems to be practical with the “jump point to gateway” and “gateway to next jump point” being significant time consumption in themselves… especially if the ships were already built with FTL drives to try to make the pre-gateway routes faster between systems that are already next to each other.
The minimal FTL speed is 1,8 pc/h no matter the ship or reactor. And increasing the speed also increases the damage (and of course fuel consumption) and bigger reactors also increase the weight and volume. So if you fly faster you increase your costs in multiple dimensions for the same amount of wares moved.
Cranking up the speed only makes sense when you don’t have the money to buy new ships.
And regarding STL:
The fuel efficiency for FSE is just what makes them so strong because how physics work as the engine only burns for a fraction of the flight time (<10%), HTE has a slightly better efficiency (and a way faster acceleration but that part is only really important for when you want to fly fast on a short route and you neeed to have a ship which can handle the acceleration). So HTE are only worth it when you really want to invest money to reduce your running costs slightls but the ROI is very long.
On STL shuttles HTE would be interesting but for some reason AEN and HTE need a BR2 which partially defeats the purpose of a STL shuttle (cheaper and weight saved).
And sometimes it is faster to burn less because it flies the other way round in a system instead of trying to catch up to a planet.
and yes i still prospects KR….