The amount of fuel used when regularly using the thrusters is easily noticeable (when mousing over the fuel gauge) as opposed to not using them. It’s noticeable enough to dissuade their use if a person wants to efficiently use their resources. Maybe I want to more than you - that’s fine. I understand the trick or cheat that could result if thrusters cost no fuel - all the same - I believe there are ways around that undesirable circumstance without making them cost MORE on top of the cost of traveling already. I personally wouldn’t want to test it, but I imagine that if someone started on one end of the Reach and traveled to the other end, both WITH using thrusters non-stop (just having fun, zig-zagging tapping left and right) and WITHOUT, I’m guessing they would use twice the fuel. Maybe I’m wrong.
I think its a better design choice to not discourage their use. It’s a key aspect of the game to learn how to effectively dodge threats. Depending on if your engine is facing upwards or downwards, it can take some time to getting use to properly pushing the correct thruster to go the direction you want to travel for example.
In regards to Full Steam, don’t misunderstand, I don’t mind that Full Steam prevents a player from interacting with a node, I mind that its unenjoyable to have to decide whether you actually want to turn off Full Steam to interact with the node when you have just paid a burst of fuel to trigger it. It would be much more fun to just initiate Full Steam, deal with all its wonky controls and potential extra damage, and be able to turn it off (with a delay), without having to decide if its worth burning an initial allotment of fuel to trigger it. But I don’t mean to go down a rabbit hole talking about nodes - there are plenty of other situations where after triggering Full Steam you immediately may desire to turn it off (through no mismanagement of your own), say, a batch of enemies spawn unavoidably in front of you. I don’t see the reason for making it cost the player to trigger it - why not just let someone have fun - it’s not like its breaking the game that a player use it relentlessly (its kind of a late game component). After having spent the money to purchase that engine, why make the player question whether they actually want to use it.
edited by dustwhit on 11/29/2019