This morning for no obvious reason, I remembered the Fuel Rats.

Dave Anderson

The details are fuzzy, but I remember I was still a mid-level player with a ship whose main asset was affordability and opportunities to amass enough money to get the really nice ships.

I was rescued by an Anaconda, the third most expensive ship in the game according to the wiki. The insurance payment on it alone was more than my entire game net worth at the time. In naval terms, it's like a 300ft superyacht coming to the rescue of a rusty fishing trawler.

Dave Anderson

I remember it because seeing the Anaconda slowly pull up to a stop outside my windshield and fire fuel limpets (a) looked incredible in VR out the panoramic cockpit of my rubbish little freighter and (b) this was a player who clearly had the resources to do whatever they felt like in this game, nothing was off limits. And they chose to spend their evening hanging out at the IRC equivalent of the fire house with other like-minded people, running some gas cans to people in need.

That's just neat!

Khionu S :trans_furr_white:

@danderson (disclaimer, haven't read thread yet) I love the Fuel Rats, they saved me a couple times, and then gave me a lecture to make sure I didn't make that mistake again, lol

Jen :TransButterfly: :3hearts: :Green:

@danderson Can confirm. I had to call the Rats when I was halfway between the Bubble and Colonia, hundreds of light years from literally anything. It took me hours, maybe days to get that far.

A rat showed up in about half an hour, and didn't just throw me enough fuel to hop to a scoopable star, they topped off my tank, repaired the neutron-induced wear and tear to my friendship drive, and made sure I knew which star types are scoopable before throwing me an "o7" and heading out.

The Fuel Rats are, hands down, the best of humanity, and fear only the occasional cat-related learning experience.

Dave Anderson

@khionu I got the spiel when I got rescued as well I appreciated it at the time, even though it was all stuff I knew. Even following a script, the intent was clearly making sure you can get to safety and know how to stay safe, and it gave me warm fuzzies that people choose to do this for no reward, and spent time workshopping what might help and educate people

Dave Anderson

@SymTrkl hah, TIL the fuel rat procedures have changed since I last looked at them. I love the landing gear hack to disable risky close-quarters functions!

Also, of course, lol, due 2 cat. Love it.

Bret Mogilefsky

@danderson Note also the existence of the Hull Seals! One of my proudest parenting moments was watching my son, aged 10, take an interest and then a very serious role in the leadership of this spontaneous in-game mutual aid organization.
https://hullseals.space/about/

Morten Linderud

@danderson

One of the games I've played a couple hundred hours in is Foxhole. A MMO wargame with month long wars between two factions.

Regiments make up different functions of the game. Some do artillery, tank operations, boats, and so on.

However the regiment I played was FMAT which just does logistics to ensure the average player has access to everything in the game. Tanks? No problem. Wanna do artillery for fun? Sure.

Quite cool way to play the game.

Quite wholesome.

Miah Johnson

@danderson there is a similar group in EVE Online. Three is no fuel to worry about in EVE but if you go into a wormhole without a probe scanner and probes you probably won't find your way home. But the group EVE-Scout leaves emergency cargo containers with probes, and scanners so you can return.

EvE-Scout Rescue Cache :: EvE-Scout RescueEvE-Scout Rescue Cache :: EvE-Scout Rescue

(evescoutrescue.com)

Greg

@danderson cracking up at this story from the wiki, which states that one person spent literal months stuck in space until the devs released a ship that could reach him for rescue... and then the Fuel Rats declared the mission a "success", as long as you ignore that they left behind more people than they saved in the process lmao