Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

Yes. Trying to think of what I want to say. Yes. And there'll be a discussion on that soon.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

The poor Starfarer has languished for some time.

Thorsten Leimann · Lead Systems Designer

Four years.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

Starfarer came out in 2016?

Thorsten Leimann · Lead Systems Designer

Yeah, but the functionality came out for it. It was my first thing I worked on here.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

But there haven't been missions for it. Refueling is interesting, because I've been talking about it a lot, because there might be a new refueling ship coming. There is a new refueling ship coming. In a while. Not soon or far, just in a while. So we've been talking about this as a loop. Refueling sort of sits with the medical gameplay as this one where it's not really supported by the story and the gameplay we provide; it kind of relies on other players. You have to wait for another player to get shot and wounded before you have something to do as a medic. And with refueling, you kind of have to wait for another player to run out of gas.

Elliot Maltby · Lead Mission Designer

So we're actually currently working on refueling missions, and we're doing two types for the initial release. We're going to do player-to-AI refueling. So this is where I have my Starfarer. I can take a contract from the faction, which I'll leave as a surprise for later, not because I forgot the faction name. We'll offer you the contract, you go, there will be a ship that's out of fuel, and you will go up to it and you'll fill it full of fuel. And depending on where you are, potentially what system you are in, you might turn up and they didn't need fuel, but they want your fuel bags because maybe it's valuable. What? Someone abusing the service beacon system? How dare they? We might also have ones where you've refueled the person and then maybe some people come to finish the job off or something, some pirates or whatever. And then we have the opposite, which is going to be AI-to-player refueling. This is where you put up a beacon. And this is because the work to get the PvP beacon done is just a little bit extra. So what we're going to do for the first release is have it so you can make one, but we have an AI ship come to refuel you. So the AI ship will come. You'll ask it to dock. You'll dock with it. And then it will give you your fuel for a sort of set fee.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

That second one is certainly interesting for the broader community, but having the missions that spawn an AI who's run out of gas, and actually having something to do with your Starfarer and other potential refueling ships that isn't just waiting for another player to choose not to backspace...

Thorsten Leimann · Lead Systems Designer

It's a long time coming. But we also have the intent of making the player-to-player refueling more accessible in comparison to what we have right now.