On the Mercury Star Runner, why did we increase the fuel tank size instead of lowering the rate of fuel consumption?
TL;DRThe Mercury's fuel tank was enlarged because the ship had grown more powerful than its tank, and this rebalanced it against comparable ships, whereas lowering consumption would have left an outlier and affected thrusters across ships.
So it was to do with size comparison. So essentially when all the ships are made, they have to have a way to be able to balance between each of the categories. We've got a lot of ships. So the ship team take a lot of these parameters and come up with metrics for where things should sit. So when the fuel tank was designed around the Mercury Star Runner, it was given a certain value, but then throughout implementation and then as it developed, it became a bit stronger, and essentially it was getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And then it got to a point where it kind of outgrew its fuel tank from basically a power to size comparison. So this was all about bringing it back in line from a balanced perspective that was representative across the board. So if it would have just been a number change, it would have left this weird outlier. So it was about bringing it back into that realm so it fits well within its power comparison.
Well, and it's also making sure that when we're tuning things, those thrusters will take a certain amount of power. And if we turn that down or adjust that, then we're adjusting across multiple thrusters, across multiple ships. So this is a different way for us to tune.