Good day DDF, long time no post.

I hope everyone is enjoying the Alpha so far, we're still working hard, but have managed to find time to put together another topic for your viewing pleasure. This time it's Wingmen.

BASICS
Wingmen in Elite will provide players with the ability to, for a price, protect themselves with AI companions. For a limited period, these companions will escort the player and aid them by attacking aggressors. Players will need to be careful who they hire though, some will follow the letter of the law, others may decide that you are a juicy target, betraying you when you least expect it.


HIRING
Hiring a wingman will work in the following way:

Wingmen will be advertised through the bulletin board system present at all stations. The number and type available will be determined by the development and wealth level of that system.
High development = increased chance of high quality wingmen appearing.
High wealth = a greater number of wingmen appearing.
An AI wingman can be hired for a limited period to act as allies. The price will be determined by the distance/location the player needs escorting to and the quality of the wingman on offer (more on this further down).
There will also be a max. duration on the contract, calculated from the distance needed.
Both the destination location and the max duration will be stated on the bulletin board before the player commits to the hire.
Player’s with an active bounty or wanted criminal status in that system will only be able to hire wingmen of a criminal persuasion. See Criminality.
They will stay with the player until the destination has been reached, the length of the hire has expired, or until they have been forced to eject/been killed.

BEHAVIOUR
Once hired, wingmen will fly in formation around the player, attempting to follow them wherever they go and defending the player from aggressors.

The following rules apply to their behaviour:

Wingmen will retaliate against unprovoked or illegal attacks against themselves and the player.
They will always have enough fuel to follow the player’s hyperspace/FSD jumps.
Whenever the player enters a station, they will patrol in nearby space and wait for the player to exit again.
A maximum of two wingmen slots are available per player.

QUALITY
Not all wingmen are created equal; each will have their own quality value that determines their ability and ship type. The player’s faction relationship at the location of hire will define the quality of the available wingmen.

FACTION REPUTATION
Faction reputation will provide a straight, sliding scale of quality to the players. The higher it is, the better the available wingmen will get. As trust is gained, better pilots become available:

The higher the reputation the better quality (and more expensive) the selection of wingmen available. Low reputation will mean only civilians or petty criminals, high will mean professional pilots and experienced criminal mercenaries.
In ship terms, low faction reputation only allows access to wingmen with Sidewinder’s, Eagle’s and Adder’s, as well as a basic set of weapons and loadouts.
High faction reputation will allow access to wingmen with more capable and powerful ships: Cobra’s, Viper’s and Fer-de-Lance’s, with decent weapons and loadouts.

CRIMINALITY
Criminality will not only affect the types of wingmen available to hire, but also how a wingman will react to the players actions.

CRIMINAL REPUTATION
As well as quality, a player’s criminality reputation will provide an opposing scale of good to bad. An extremely low criminal rep. will attract the most professional pilots and mercenaries, those not willing to break the rules and the most trustworthy. An extremely high criminal rep. will attract the most criminally minded pilots, willing to ignore criminal acts, but also most likely to betray a player.

Each wingman available will have a certain threshold of criminality that determines whether they’ll work with you.
Being wanted or having an active bounty in a system will mean that only those wingmen with a criminality value above a certain threshold will agree to escort the player.
The wingmen with the highest or lowest criminality threshold will only be available when a player has very high faction reputation. Thus the best quality wingmen are only ever going to be very trustworthy or very criminal.
At middling criminality reputation, only a low quality of wingman will be available, no matter the faction reputation. This is to stop the middle ground from providing the best available pilots (i.e. willing participants in killing sprees).
The following player actions undertaken whilst an escort is present will cause a reaction (see Wingman Reactions):
Attacking a ship without cause
Arriving in a location with a currently active bounty.
Being reported for a crime

WINGMAN REACTIONS
Where a wingman stands on a criminality scale will determine their reaction to the player’s criminal behaviour whilst escorting:

High criminality means they will ignore crimes and breaches of contract, even going so far as to help out, possibly scooping up left after cargo. There is a high chance they will attempt to attack or pirate the player at some point during the contract.
Mid-high criminality means they will ignore crimes and breaches of contract, but will not get involved in any criminal acts by the player. There is a low chance they will attempt to attack or pirate the player at some point during the contract.
Mid-low criminality means any crimes committed or breaches in contract will cause them to end the contract and abandon the player. There is a chance they will report the crime to the system authorities. They will not attempt to attack or pirate the player during the contract.
Low criminality means any crimes committed or breaches in contract will cause them to attack the player and report them to the system authorities. They will abandon the contract at this point. They will not attempt to attack or pirate the player during the contract.

Additionally, all wingmen will consider acts of aggression against their own faction, or any allied factions as an act of aggression against them. This will end the contract and cause them to become an enemy to the player.


QUESTIONS
Thoughts and feelings on the quality vs criminality scale? We think it should give us the types and quality of wingmen we want, but it’s open for debate.
Should faction reputation be the only determining factor to the quality of available wingmen? Or should the price tag be the only limiting factor?
How many wingmen should a player be able to hire at one time?
Besides escorting to certain destinations, are there any other functions a wingman could undertake?

Go forth and discuss!

Hello DDF!

I've revised the fuel proposal based on all the feedback you've given. The main points of change are that fuel is now analogue based through and through and that fuel mixing will result in proportional qualities. Everything else is pretty much as it was.

Cheers,
-Mike

ELITE: DANGEROUS - FUEL
MODULE
Every ship has a module within it for handling fuel storage and use across the ships systems colloquially called the Fuel Tank. The module itself has the following properties:
A Main Tank that can store a specific amount of fuel in an appropriate unit (e.g. tons)
This defines the operating time and/or range for a space ship before refuelling is necessary
An Active Fuel Reservoir from which current ship operation draws from
Unique in size for each type but large enough to give each ship similar operating times before a refill is necessary
NORMAL SHIP OPERATION
During normal ship operation a small amount of fuel is used continuously based on the demands of the power plant
This amount of fuel is always taken from the Active Fuel Reservoir (AFR)
The higher the power draw the faster the fuel is used up
A single unit of fuel (e.g. 1 ton) will last a significant amount of time (e.g. an hour) under normal operating parameters (e.g. 75% of full power)
Once the AFR is drained, fuel is diverted from the Main Tank to refill it completely (so long as there is fuel remaining within it)
A warning is given to the player if after an AFR refill the remaining fuel in the Main Tank is equal or less than another complete AFR refill
Another warning is given when the AFR refills and there is no fuel left in the Main Tank
If the AFR is drained along with the Main Tank the ship turns all modules except Life Support off
The player can’t manually turn anything else back on any more
Life support is operating on emergency battery power and can only maintain operation for a limited time (e.g. 15 minutes)
After the battery power has gone the ship fully shuts down and the player will asphyxiate and die if they remain on board (in non-ironman mode they would automatically launch the escape pod at this point)
SUPERCRUISE
Supercruise drains fuel from the AFR at an accelerated rate (e.g. changing the operating time from hours to minutes)
Otherwise it’s much like normal ship operation
So long as fuel can be drained from the Main Tank to refill the AFR supercruise can be maintained
If no fuel remains in the AFR or Main Tank then supercruise will abort and the player will be unable to use it any more
HYPERSPACE
To hyperspace travel the player uses fuel from the Main Tank directly
The fuel required is based on many factors including Ship Mass, Hyperdrive Class and distance using the following formula:
Fuel Cost = Class Modifier * (Distance + Fixed Cost) ^ Class Power
Class Modifier - A constant for each class of hyperdrive module
Class Power - A value higher than 1 that shapes the curve of fuel cost against distance
Fixed Cost - A value equal to (Ship Mass / Mass Rating)^2 where Mass Rating is the optimal mass the hyperdrive is designed to move
If the Main Tank is empty the player will be unable to hyperspace jump (even if they have fuel in the AFR)
REFUELLING
Players can refuel their ship at stations and refuelling outposts
Fuel is always bought up to whole units
The Main Tank can be refilled separately to the AFR
Players can refuel their ship by scooping fuel directly from stellar bodies (stars, gas giants, nebulae)
The ship must be fitted with a fuel scoop
The player uses the fuel scoop to refill their AFR based on how successful they’re doing
Rates of refilling is based on player skill and the stellar body in question
Once the AFR is 100% filled whilst scooping the entire amount of fuel within it is put into the Main Tank so long as there is room
Further scooping will again start to refill the now empty AFR
If no room is available in the Main Tank scooping must stop
Players can acquire fuel via a fuel transfer with another docked ship
Players can utilize a distress beacon to signal for any nearby ships to help with refuelling
The beacon isn’t a guarantee and could in theory bring the player more trouble than they’re currently in with their fuel concerns (but could be the only hope left of rescue)
Regardless of the method used to contact or approach another ship they must first be docked with the other ship successfully
The ship can initiate a fuel transfer with the other docked ship through mutual agreement
This can be gifted or can be made a part of a trade depending on the interface/comms channels used to initiate the transfer
Fuel is transferred from one ships Main Tank directly into the other ships Main Tank
There is no way to transfer fuel from the AFR of one ship to another
Once the fuel transfer is complete an empty AFR will automatically refill as per usual with the newly acquired fuel from the Main Tank
TYPES OF FUEL
To add variety and player choice to the fuel mechanic different types of fuel are available to be purchased/scooped/acquired. The following rules apply to different fuel types:
The default fuel sets the benchmark on which other types of fuel operate; it is considered standard
Other fuels are either of a lower or higher quality than the standard fuel
Lower quality fuel has a penalizing modifier to consumption rates, i.e. if standard fuel will keep a particular power plant running at 75% power for 1 hour, a lower quality fuel with a modifier of +20% consumption would only last 50 minutes
Lower quality fuel also has a penalizing distance modifier for hyperspace jumps, i.e. if standard fuel gives a 1 light year jump per an amount of fuel, a lower quality fuel with a modifier of -50% distance would only jump ½ light year per that amount of fuel instead
Higher quality fuel has a beneficial consumption modifier, i.e. a ship will run for longer on it compared to standard fuel
Higher quality fuels also have a beneficial distance modifier
Regardless of quality certain types of fuel may have additional effects or byproducts that need to be dealt with (e.g. irradiated waste that must be stored in empty cargo canisters or risk contaminating the ship and its crew)
The entire Fuel Tank module can only operate on a single quality level type of fuel
The player can acquire fuel of a different quality level to that already in their system but conveniently all fuel qualities can mix with the quality level being the average of the two
MODIFIERS
As described above fuel quality can determine a number of modifiers that affect the performance and/or efficiency of the ship. However these modifiers can be provided by other systems such as the ship hull, drives and hyperspace module. The modifiers are formally described below:
Consumption Rate - a percentage modifier for altering the base rate of consumption of a fuel during normal use
Jump distance - a percentage modifier for altering the base jump distance per fuel used during hyperspace travel
The modifiers are applied individually to the base values as determined by the fuel quality before being applied (e.g. two sources of -50% jump distance will actually only result in a 75% reduction overall in distance rather than 100%)
E.g. explorer class ships hulls typically have beneficial modifiers to jump distance and consumption rates opposed to military grade hulls that require more fuel consumption in general to civilian ships
FUEL TANK MALFUNCTIONS
The Fuel Tank is like any other module in the ship (although it’s usually built into the superstructure and is thus typically not upgradable) in that it can suffer damage and malfunctions. These malfunctions are listed below:
Minor malfunctions:
Faulty fuel line - temporarily starves the power plant of fuel thus reducing available power gradually until no power is available (modules turn off in priority order) until the fault fixes itself (variable time limit for the malfunction)
AFR fuel leak - temporarily drains more fuel from the AFR than normal as fuel is effectively leaking from the reservoir until resealed automatically (variable time limit for the malfunction)
AFR refill fault - temporarily stops the refill process when the AFR is empty resulting in starving the system as in a faulty fuel line malfunction above but can only happen when refilling the AFR (variable time limit to the malfunction)
Major malfunctions:
Main Tank leak - temporarily drains fuel from the main tank over a long period of time before automatically resealing
Main Tank fire - the Main Tank ruptures and ignites in a dangerous inferno completely destroying all units of fuel in the Main Tank (AFR is unaffected). The fire is a separate ship wide malfunction described in another document and this malfunction is really just augmenting it by also having all the fuel in the Main Tank lost to the fire

Thanks for the feedback, hopefully this is more in line with what people were expecting.