Fuel Scoop

**Fuel Scoops** are special system blocks that allow an entity to harvest Hydrogen as well as other substances such as oxygen and water.

## Overview

Fuel scoops are multi-purpose blocks designed to gather various kinds of gases and liquids. Their primary function, as the name implies, is to gather hydrogen gas from large gas clouds that spawn close to a solar system's Star. Their secondary function is to gather other types of gasses and liquids that the player will need in order to survive.

### Setup

The Fuel Scoop can be placed on any entity. It can be scaled but not stretched. *Currently, it does not require energy to function*.

The fuel scoop will do nothing on its own, but if connected to a fuel tank, it can serve its purpose. In order for the Fuel scoop to begin gathering the fuel tank it is connected to will need to be properly configured to handle the substance the scoop is trying to collect.

Pressing **[F]** on the fuel scoop will bring up the fuel scoop menu. Here the player can change the fuel scoop's mode. By default, all fuel scoops are set to **"Harvest"** mode. The other option is **"Expel,"** which will set the fuel scoop to expel the contents of all connected fuel tanks.

### Usage

Once the player has submerged the fuel scoop into their desired substance all fuel scoops connected to storage tanks will automatically begin harvesting. **Fuel scoops built in enclosed environments will not be able to harvest**. When fuel scoops are harvesting they will have a visual effect of gas accumulating around them. Once all storage tanks are full, fuel scoops will automatically stop harvesting. *There is no current way for entities to transfer their fuel reserves to another entity.*

#### Harvesting Hydrogen

Players must first locate a fuel cloud to begin the fuel harvesting process. Fuel clouds are mainly found near a system's Star and are quite numerous. Each gas cloud is massive and contains vast amounts of harvestable fuel. They are so huge that players can target them by pressing **[R]** and autopilot to them. Once inside all fuel scoops that are connected to Hydrogen tanks will start collecting.

#### Harvesting Water

Water can be harvested from any natural source. The main method players will be harvesting water is from the oceans on Planets. As long as a fuel scoop is submerged in water it will begin to collect it. However since water has mass to it submerging a fuel scoop into water will naturally repulse the entity it is on. This means that Ships and Hovercrafts will start to tilt over or even pushed out of the water. The reliable method of water collection is to build ground bases.

#### Harvesting Oxygen

*As of 23w41a, it is not possible to gather oxygen using fuel scoops yet.*

## Logic

   Button(Pulse) | System remains active as long as the button is pressed.

## Event Gate Triggers

 **[Signal] Is Expelling** | Sends a logic signal when the fuel scoop is expelling gas from a fuel tank.

## Tips

* Since the visual effect does not always appear it is more reliable to use Event Gates to indicate vital occurrences such as when the fuel scoop is harvesting or is even inside of a gas cloud.
* The block thickness of the fuel scoop is slightly larger then other similarly scaled blocks. This makes creating flush fuel scoop setups extremely difficult.

## Bugs

As of 23w41a:

* The "Expel" option will only release Hydrogen regardless of what type of resource is in a connected tank.

1. ↑ *Likely subject to change in the future*