I was thinking about something like Fuel

Anti-Matter or Dilithium etc etc....

Every ship should have busard collectors, with that they can go to nebula's and gather fuel.
With your fuel loaded to 100%, your ship has full power untill the bar reaches 10%.

Then your ship power will decrease by some precentage like, 10%.
When the fuel reaches 5% your ship lights should flicker, so you can see its having a power issue.
When it reaches 0% ;

Impulse power will be reduced by 25%
Shield capacity will be reduced by 15%
Weapons will be reduced by 15%
AUX will be reduced by 10%
Lights on your ship will be off (to save power reserves)

Ofcourse, the fuel is for long term, so you dont need to refuel every hour or every battle, it will take a long while before its empty.

Another eliment is to go to your bridge, then go to engineering and then create 25% fuel by using some specific samples. of course this can only be done once every xx hours.

What you guys think of the idea, Post any suggestions if you think some things should be added or changes to the idea..... let me know how you guys think!

I thought those things were always on sorta like a combo of a vacuum and mr. fusion.

It's assumed you refuel when you go back to spacedock, and most starships carry enough to travel at warp from months to years. This would just be a tedious annoyance mechanic.

I dont know that there are a large number of players that would want to deal with management of ships on that scale. It can be assumes that your ship tops off when you reach a starbase or some other fleet port of call.
Also if the TNG tech manual is to be believed, the Bussard collectors are not the most efficient way of dealing with the fuel needs of a starship. They are there as a compliment to regular fleet resupply

Yeah, I don't want to spend any game time tracking how much gas is in the tank. Cool idea and interesting conccept, just not something I would like seeing in the game.

I think they use deuterium as a fuel source that they need replenishing from time to time. They mention it a lot in early episodes of Voyager, and also they have that Ferengi refuelling station at Alhena with the daily mission that gives you the deuterium surplus.

Great for a simulation; bad for a game.

This is handled behind the scenes presumably in-game. This is likely mandatory inn visits in D&D for rest/spells. It really doesn't serve a large enough purpose to make it a necessary gameplay component.

Well, pre-4E (which I haven't messed in any real sense, so can't make a call on) tying to spell count replenishment to something like safe resting spots, and limiting those spots, is pretty much essential for balance since without that Mages and Clerics dwarf the heck out of other classes. Spell limitations are how those classes balance, and if you allow spell management and replenishment on the fly then you basically make things like Fighters and Paladins obsolete.

This is actually why the standard setting on Bioware's Neverwinter Nights was broken beyond belief. You played a Wizard, a Sorcerer or you sucked. Plain and simple.

Of course, the suggestion of fuel across the board in STO isn't like this, and instead is just the antithesis of fun.

Star Trek series mechanics fail.

In the series, the "fuel" you'll notice is never mentioned. The only things we ever hear about are the dilithium crystals (and usually as a plot MacGuffin of some sort).

WHAT THE THEORY IS (remembering that this is all Space Opera Physics, and none of it is reality):

Starships have two "fuels" they use, in a manner rather reminiscent of a steam-powered locomotive. Deuterium (heavy hydrogen) and antimatter are mixed in the warp core in carefully regulated amounts, using the dilithium crystals as both regulator and moderator. Somehow, the dilithoum crystals are supposed to be impervious to the effects of antimatter (a impossibility by modern-day science), but somehow are prone to heat and wear-related failures.

The reaction produced by the matter/antimatter mix produces enormous amounts of energy, which go to heat up the remaining deuterium to star-like temperatures (As a side note, the matter/antimatter reaction is called "200% efficient", since the total mass of both the matter AND antimatter is converted to energy. By comparison, a conventional nuke is 5% efficient at doing this). That deuterium, now known as "warp plasma" is then funneled out of the warp core along conduits to the nacelles, where the energy contained inthe plasma is converted to the subspace fields needed to provide warp drive. On the return, the (now considerably cooled) deuterium is then used to create power for the rest of the ship through various means. After THAT, it's funneled back to the deuterium tanks to repeat the cycle again.

The Bussard collectors collect interstellar hydrogen, feed it to a separate reaction chamber where it's converted to deuterium, and fed into the "fuel" tanks. This is not a whole lot, though, as interstellar hydrogen is very sparse.

The tanks for both deuterium and antimatter are completely topped off every time a ship gets to a starbase. The estimate is that each starship of (say) a Galaxy-class is self-sufficient in terms of "fuel" for a period of two years at normal operating levels, and for six months with everythign going fullk-bore 24/7. "Full Bore" meaning at full battle readiness, phasers armed and primed, and shield up constantly.

That's why your idea simply wouldn't work, either inthe context of STO, or in the context of the series as well, since starbases are seldom six months' away in the Alpha Quadrant. Voyager had it's own issues - and also was designed as a deep-space explorer, thus had other resources to draw upon.