[Answered] low fuel problem while escorting transport home

[Meridian]

from https://openxcom.org/bugs/openxcom/issues/1402

When a ship is on it's way home, sometimes a message pops up saying it has low fuel and so is returning home. Ok, annoying but not a real problem.

But while the interceptor with small fuel capacity is escorting a transport and the transport is returning home after mission, than it is a problem. The interceptor could easily stay with the transport (the path IS the path home and fuel depends on path length), but chooses to fly home alone, leaving the transport unguarded.

So my wish:

Either better fuel calculation (OXC/OXCE/OXCE+), so the message would not pop up - there is more than enough fuel for getting home, even if the fuel tanks are less than half full.

Or workaround (OXCE?/OXCE+): Escorting crafts, who escort a transport returning home after mission, should bypass this redirection order. Maybe they could be sticking to that transport on the rest of their way home.

Varana

[Meridian]

1/ I assume you're playing mods, since for vanilla escorting craft doesn't make much sense (because UFOs don't attack)

2/ The fuel consumption in OpenXcom does not depend on path length... very important to understand here. The (classic) fuel consumption depends on craft maximum speed. Therefore each mod that is using the Hunter-Killer functionality should rebalance the speeds and fuel capacities of its transports and interceptors to allow seamless escorting.

I have allowed decreasing fuel consumption while escorting... but not less than 50% of normal fuel consumption (which is same as when patrolling)... otherwise it would be very easy to cheat the normal maximum craft range... which we don't want of course.

The (special) fuel consumption (e.g. when burning Elerium-115) depends only on time, 1 fuel unit every 10 minutes... so any craft burning non-classic fuel need to be also rebalanced accordingly.

PS: I am of course open to more suggestions and ideas, but they have to be compatible with vanilla calculations...