FUEL 1.0 (8.12.1995)

What is FUEL?

FUEL is a tool for VGA-PLANETS. It is based on the PHOST formulas. FUEL 
calculates for a given distance the best combination of warp factors which is 
the one where the less fuel is needed. For instance, it might be better to fly
at 5-6-6-7 speed instead of flying constantly at warp 6. However, the best is
not to carry more fuel than will be consumed until arriving, i. e. the mass of
the ship at every moment has to be as little as possible. FUEL takes into
consideration (as PLANETS does not!) the loss of weight by fuel 
consumption. This is going to happen in intervals or steady if 'accurate 
fuelmodel' has been chosen. Fuel consumption is also influenced by the 
engine's techlevel, ship mass and the number of turns the journey is meant to 
last. If you follow FUEL's suggestions PLANETS' ETA may show a red 
'never'. Do not care! This is going to switch into soothing green just before 
the arrival.

PHOST and TimHOST

Since FUEL is based on the PHOST formulas it is most appropriate to PHOST 
based games. Though PHOST tells itself identic to TimHOST in all points that 
are not explicitly mentioned, this does not turn out to be true with regard to 
fuel consumption. To be more exactly calculation of both the waypoints and 
fuel consumption differs little from TimHOST's. But to reassure you: The 
differences, however, are very little and are probably caused by TimHOST's 
rounding behavior. As my experiences were in comparing PHOST with 
TimHOST, the differences can even be told insignificant. It never occured that 
a ship did not arrive (as long as there are gravity wells this should not be a 
problem anyway). However, if your game is PHOSTed calculation of fuel 
consumption is exact.
Except from calculating waypoints and fuel consumption FUEL also shows 
temporary waypoints. This becomes important if the destination point lies out 
of PLANETS' scan window. Those temporary waypoints are marked with a 
little star (*).

How to use FUEL

The use of FUEL is much self-explanatory. To avoid errors during run time I 
have protected fields from incorrect input and put reasonable limits on it. 

MASS: 30-4999 KT
WARP: 1-9
TURNS: 1-19
FROM/TO x/y: 0-3999

FUEL may be used by mouse and/or keyboard. Using the keyboard, fields and 
buttons are selected with <ALT> plus <highlighted letter>. <TAB> jumps 
from field to field. To put the focus on the input form, mouse-click on it or
just press any button. Drag&Drop is enabled for the x/y-coordinate fields. With
<Hide> FUEL may be reduced to a comfortable size. <Quit> and <Optimize> 
are available in both sizes of the form and effect the same result.

IMPORTANT!!!

FUEL is free and may be used and copied without limitation for non-
commercial purpose. Nevertheless I would be very happy to get email from 
any person using FUEL and finding it reasonable (even if he has not yet 
succeeded in becoming a happy creature for that very reason ;-) ). Please do 
not hesitate to send me your comments.

	email: michael_moetje@hh2.maus.de (Michael Moetje)