Fuel Consumption Planning

[Sevant]

My last suggestion turned out to be something that already existed (sorry). I tried to do my research this time, and I don't think this exist, and I don't think it's on the "already suggested" list. Please feel free to throw rotten food at this post if I'm wrong (I assume no responsibility for damage incurred to your computer).

I would like to be able to dictate which fuel tanks drain first in my space-planes from the construction bay. First, I know I can already turn off fuel tanks, but that is a very clunky way of managing fuel in flight, especially since you can't toggle fuel tank's on and off using action groups. Second, I know I can use fuel lines as long as I separate my tanks with non-fuel-transferring parts, but that is relatively inconvenient. Third, I know I could fix this with a mod, but I'd prefer to see this functionality added to the official game build.

As far as implementation goes, I suggest a separate "Fuel Staging" tab in the build bay (just like the "parts", "action groups", and "crew" tabs). In this tab you could select an engine, and it would bring up a list of all the fuel tanks from which that engine is capable of drawing fuel. You would then be able to click and drag those tanks into stages (just like the staging for normal parts), such that the engine could draw fuel from more than one fuel tank at a time, but would completely drain the tanks in stage one before taking fuel from any of the tanks in stage two etc.

The difference between fuel stages and part stages would be that fuel stages do not require manual switching between stages. The engine moves to the next stage as soon as it can no longer draw fuel from any of the tanks in the stage it is currently in (i.e. when the fuel tanks in that stage are all empty, have been manually turned off, or are no longer connected to the engine).

On a slightly different but related note, it would be really cool to be able to change fuel staging (and action groups) in flight as well. This would be particularly useful when docking multiple ships to create one large vessel. Again...I'm sure there's a mod for this (or an add-on rather), but it would be sweet in vanilla.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I like this idea. It can generally be done with fuel lines but at times it is tricky or not doable in the way that is wanted.