Suggestion: Reusable fuel cans

1st Official Post

    Just a thought, when I use a fuel can, I find that what I'm guzzling through isn't my supply of fuels... it's my supply of tin, which I need for making bronze, for alloys, for reinforced stuff to build big high tech buildings/nuclear plants/weapon test sites out of. This really puts a damper on my fossil fuel use (I often have piles of coal dust and wind up inefficiently burning coal straight as is).


    In reality, when someone uses a gas can, they don't throw the can away, and it doesn't make sense for the can itself to be burned, so why do we lose our cans when we use them?


    It might make more sense to make gas cans craftable and work like a bucket. A can could be crafted by 8 tin, with the one missing one being in the upper left corner. Then, to compensate for balance, perhaps each can would be filled to clumpiness with 4, 6, or maybe 8 clumps, surrounding the empty can. When a fuel can is used, we get back empty cans. This way we make a one time investment on tin and actually guzzle our fuel when we guzzle fuel. The empty can sprite could just be a greyscale version of the cans we already have.


    Thanks for reading this either way, just thought I'd share.

    Great idea. Simple and effective

    It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt

    there is however, a problem. to refuel you use the crafting grid which only gives one type of item in return. that would mean either the can or the item that is refueled :(

    It should be stackable both empty and with fuel
    craft like this:


    _ _ T
    T _ T
    T _ T


    T=Tin _=Nothing
    this should give 2-4 Empty tin cans


    then you fill it like


    C C C
    _ T _


    C=Compressed Coaldust/Compressed Plantclump


    if a filled fuelcan is burned the Generator should throw out a empty can if there is no space for it (like charging multiple RE batteries)
    btw.we need smileys for showing crafting

    I suggested this a while ago the only problem with this is that it prevents fuel cans from being stackable one of their best advantages but maybe we could have the empty cans eject like batteries in generators

    Well, I suppose a possibility would be to have it spit the can back out if there is not room, just like batteries do, or put them in an adjacent chest.
    After all, that code is already mostly written, I believe, for batteries, aside from using a different slot.

    Quote from mastercluff

    there is however, a problem. to refuel you use the crafting grid which only gives one type of item in return. that would mean either the can or the item that is refueled :(

    The same way a cake dont waste the milk buckets, the recipe of jetpack, for example, could not waste the fuel cans...

    I heartily agree! I've actually never made Single Use batteries because crafting Fuel seemed like a complicated and unnecessary waste of both time and resources. If this change went through, I would make my first Jetpack A.S.A.P. :D

    Reusable Fuel Can´s would be absolutly neat indeed.
    Also it would give Automation in combination with Buildcraft a new Level of complexity and saves us a lot of tin :)


    So i support this idea :)

    This definitely needs to be implemented. I've noticed the thing about cans being eaten before and have been wondering when this "bug" (as I assumed it to be) would be fixed since then.

    i love this idea why not add the crafting recipe like this



    . .
    . . = 2 reusable fuel cans
    . . .


    .=tin ingot heres how to fill /
    /
    / ; /=compressed plantclump or compressed hyd coalclumps= fuel for coal or biofuel if using plant material

    • Official Post

    Ow, i should probably drop a few notes here:


    Fuel System DID get reworked already.
    It uses refillable Tin Cans, which can be filled by using the Filling Machine ("Canner") in conjunction with fuel cels (Cells are some sort of "one-time-usage, stackable bucket" containers for liquids). Tin Cans can not be stacked, but filled individually, resulting in different amount of "fuel" provided, depending on the ingridents you used to fill them (f.e. coal fuel > plant fuel).