Bottomless Fuel Tanks

Simply tying the needle so it would stay at full just doesn't make it infinitely full. No matter how high gas prices get.

In real life, we obviously have to top up our car's fuel every now and then. But in video games, this isn't usually the case, no matter how jarring it would be. As an Acceptable Break from Reality, game developers tend to make use of this trope for practical reasons, mostly to simplify gameplay or to make it more accessible and keep things as well-paced as possible, though in some games fuel is implemented either as a glorified countdown timer, as in the case of arcade games where play time is limited to a few minutes, or to add immersion or realism and thus an element of strategy such as in a survival game where conserving resources is a must. Certain titles however would have vehicles slow down to a crawl instead of going to a complete stop, perhaps as a milder penalty compared to a Game Over or being stuck in a race.

This is fairly common in most games, so only exceptions, inversions or non-standard examples may be listed. Compare Automaton Horses for when the same basic principle is applied to animals instead of vehicles and Bottomless Magazines for guns.

See also Gasoline Lasts Forever.

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Exceptions

Action-Adventure

• Arcade Game Scramble (1981). Your ship has a limited amount of fuel. You can get more by destroying enemy fuel tanks.
• Arcade Game Zaxxon (1982). You fly through an enemy fortress with a diminishing fuel supply. You can refill by shooting fuel tanks.
• Apple II computer game Jumpjet (1983). Your jumpjet is refueled by connecting to the umbilical of a passing tanker plane, much the same way fighter jets do in Real Life.
• Armor Games' online Flash game Indestructotank. In all versions your tank has a limited fuel supply and you must complete the level before running out of fuel.
• Infinite vs limited fuel for your aircraft is one of the many difficulty settings you can customize in the IL-2 Sturmovik series.
• The Bigfoot section of Duke Nukem Forever sees Duke drive his giant car to the Hoover Dam, having to disembark and look for gas three times due to how much fuel it guzzles. Running out of gas are prescripted events, however.
• OIDS: The V-Wing has a limited amount of fuel, and can only get more by landing next to a fuel station or by returning a full load of OIDS to the mothership.
• In the classic Vertical Scrolling Shooter River Raid, the player must occasionally fly over fuel stations without accidentally shooting them (but can still shoot them after refueling for bonus points).
• Super Scope 6 has the game "Engage", where each level is timed by your ship's fuel. You have to shoot down all enemy ships before running out, and between levels a supply ship comes to fully refuel your tanks.
• In Lunar Lander, you use a limited fuel supply to fire rockets to control your landing.

Adventure Game

• GARAGE: Bad Dream Adventure: Every movement you make depletes your fuel tank. There are a few pit stops here and there to refuel.

Licensed Games

• Ghostbusters (1984): There's a mechanic in the NES version's driving sections whereby the Ghostbusters have to refuel their car by running over barrels of gas laying on the road. Miss too many of them, and the guys will have to get out and push the car back to home base.
• Maryellen Rocket Rally for iOS^note There also exists a port of the game for Android, albeit released exclusively for the American Girl Nabi tablet also has fuel pickups strewn throughout the level similar to Hill Climb Racing. Collecting them allows the player to get their rocket even further into space.

Idle

• The Tree of Life: Your car's fuel in the D minigame goes down by 1% every second, decreasing its speed. You have to push a button to recover a percentage of fuel.

First-Person Shooter

• The vehicles in the Borderlands series mostly play this straight, but their boost meters are another matter entirely. Once you've depleted... whatever resource the boost is using, you have to wait for it to recharge before you can use it again, in defiance of all known laws of physics. Borderlands 3 subverts this with the fuel tank attachment which allows the technical to boost for as long as it wants.

Racing

• Many racing simulation games such as Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport have limited fuel capacity as well as tire wear, so the player must strategize when to drive through the pit stop. Some games, like Project CARS, even have the weight of the fuel as a concern so while more fuel can increase stability, it also increases rolling resistance so you may want to run with as little fuel as possible when tuning your car's setup.
• The rather obscure PC and Game Boy game Harley-Davidson: Race Across America utilised a fuel gauge. For the most part it works, but it was poorly weaved into the game, and you have to crawl a dozen or so miles to the nearest gas station especially on the Sportster, though unlimited fuel can be enabled through a cheat. Later Harley-licensed video games did away with this, fortunately.
• Road Fighter made use of the aforementioned glorified countdown mechanic, or to put it another way, the leaky gas tank approach. The fuel meter runs down significantly quicker should the player go faster (not to mention that it presents a greater risk of crashing), and running out of gas would, unsurprisingly, lead to a Game Over.
• Fuel is a vital resource in the mobile game Hill Climb Racing, with jerry can pickups strewn throughout the course. It makes sense considering that the game's objective is to travel the furthest distance possible.
• Daytona USA typically averts this, but Daytona USA 2 has lap settings that enable, among other realistic elements, a finite amount of fuel. Going into the pit lane will refuel your car.
• Averted in Stunt GP, only with batteries rather than fuel, since the cars are RC miniatures. Accelerating normally consumes a small amount of battery as you go and can last you several laps, and using the turbo boost increases consumption dramatically; if you run out, the car will crawl at a snail's pace. There are two ways to recharge the battery: a refueling tunnel near the starting line of every course, and performing mid-air stunts (though depending on the course, this may not be an option). In Championship mode, you can also buy better batteries and powercells for your ride to extend its runtime.
• The original Test Drive has technically unlimited fuel, but gas stations are used as checkpoints where, presumably, you fill up before the next section of your drive.

Real Time Strategy

• Command & Conquer:
  • Most vehicles can move indefinitely, but flying units will usually need to rearm at their home building once they run empty. Early games require helicopters to land when not attacking.
  • Red Alert: While the trope holds true in gameplay, one mission has you attack a Soviet convoy transporting sarin gas in the area for refueling and resupplying.
• Empire Earth has a variation: Airplanes have a limited amount of fuel (though it can be increased), and when it runs out, the plane automatically heads straight for an airport no matter the distance (or obstacles) between it and the landing zone. Not only that, but ordering it to return to a runway will instantly drop its fuel to zero. It can even be used to get aircraft to a different planet on space maps (which use Space Is an Ocean).
• Used to be played straight in Hearts of Iron IV prior to version 1.6 as fuel wasn't directly represented in the game, instead oil was used as a raw material in the production of vehicles, planes and ships, the reasoning being that as this equipment gradually broke down from wear and tear it would have to be replaced by new equipment produced using oil, which would serve as a good enough abstraction to the use of fuel. But eventually it was decided that this abstraction wasn't quite cutting it so fuel was introduced as its own proper resource in version 1.6, averting this trope.
• Fuel is one of the important resources you have to manage in KanColle so your ship girls can operate successfully.
• Rise of Nations: Played straight for land vehicles, but averted for aircraft, which have a maximum service range after being launched from an airfield or aircraft carrier. Their time over target is proportional to their distance from the airfield, and they will not respond to any orders while returning to base to refuel.

Role Playing Game

• In Mass Effect 2, you don't have to worry about fuel when traveling within the star system or between mass relays, but it becomes an issue when traveling between star systems within a cluster. Run out of fuel and you will have to expend some of your gathered resources.
• In Fallout 2, the Chosen One can buy a Highwayman after going through a Chain of Deals to get the parts and forking over $2000. The car runs on a battery (one of the few Pre-War cars that did while the oil in the world dried up) but requires a charge from Small Energy Cells (5 for max) or Microfusion Cells (2 for max). That said the fuel cell regulator, found in Klammath's rat caves, can squeeze double the power out of the battery before it needs a recharge.
• When you start Final Fantasy XV, your car will need to refuel on a regular basis; running out of gas will force you and your party to push the car to the nearest gas station. With the Magitek Generator upgrade, however, you will never need to refuel again. The Regalia Type-F upgrade comes with a Magitek Generator pre-installed.

Simulation Game

• Orbiter, simulating spaceflights as realistic as possible, features limited reaction mass for spacecrafts. There is an option for unlimited fuel, but it introduces its own problems (as a spacecraft loses fuel, it also loses mass, giving it better maneuverability; with infinite fuel, your tanks possess maximum mass forever).
• One important thing in FTL: Faster Than Light to worry about is to not run out of fuel necessary for FTL jumps. If you do, you will have to wait for the opportunity to refuel while being a sitting duck for the ever-advancing rebel fleet. Fuel for sublight travel, however, is not an issue; as long as you can put in at least one bar of reactor power (which never runs out) into your engines, your ship has a chance to evade any projectile coming its way.
• Kerbal Space Program has fuel as a vital, limiting resource for your various spacecraft, where your ability to go anywhere, including orbit, is heavily dependent on your ability to make the most of the fuel you can reasonably carry. Orbiting fuel depots is a viable strategy and so is the ability to mine other planets/astriods in order to produce more fuel offworld.
• Euro Truck Simulator, its sequel, and the transatlantic American Truck Simulator always features fuel consumption and the rate is normally dependent on both the weight you're hauling and engine activity, meaning the remaining distance may not always be accurate but there is an option to have fuel last exactly the distance that is displayed. As you level up, you can also invest in a fuel efficiency trait, cutting down the frequency and cost of having to stop for diesel.
• The Farming Simulator series has diesel for your tractors and other machines as an important resource. In vanilla, you can only refuel by driving to a given map's gas station which may not be possible in some of the more cumbersome vehicles, this issue can be resolved by using a ThunderCreek fuel trailer to transport diesel to your farm, especially useful if a machine has run dry in the middle of a field.
• The helicopters in RC Helicopter operate on batteries, which gradually drain over time until they're depleted, at which point the player will fail the level. This functionally makes most of the levels timed missions. On top of that, the player must pay for any battery depletion that happens during each level.

Text Based Adventure

• In the Star Trek Text Game, warp drive, shields, and phasers all drain energy. You have to dock at a space station to refuel.

Turn Based Strategy

• In Advance Wars, vehicles can only move for a certain number of turns before running out of fuel, though there exist supply units that can refuel and rearm them. Flying units will crash if they run out of fuel.
• GhostControl Inc.: You need to make sure your car has enough gas to get around. If you run out, you will be towed to the nearest gas station, which costs you money.

Vehicular Combat

• Strike Series: Averted. You will regularly have to refill your vehicle during a mission, or you'll crash, although Easy Logistics make it as simple as winching up fuel tanks into your helicopter, where it is automatically added into your fuel tank. Played straight with the F-117 in Jungle Strike however, which has both infinite fuel and ammo, presumably since the game play mechanics were designed for a helicopter and not a constantly moving plane. However, to balance out difficulty, the plane will wreck if you hit a building, whereas doing that with the helicopter just deals a small amount of damage.
• Atari's Vindicators arcade games have player-controlled tanks with diminishing fuel. If the player's tank fuel supply empties out to nothing, the tank will remain mobile, albeit very slowly, for roughly twenty seconds. If, during that time, the player fails to collect any fuel or is shot by an enemy, the player's credit ends.
• Auto Destruct has a dedicated fuel gauge in the instrument cluster, and the player can refuel in exchange for some hard-earned cash at one of the gas stations around the city. If the car runs out of fuel, it loses most of its power, forcing the player to limp to the nearest pump at quarter-speed and hope there isn't a steep hill (or hostiles) in the way.

Wide Open Sandbox

• Grand Theft Auto:
  • Vehicles in general have bottomless gas tanks, and only certain missions like "Dildo Dodo" in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and "Supply Lines..." in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas have the player controlling vehicles with limited fuel supply. The original versions of GTA: San Andreas used the "leaky tank" fuel mechanic^note fuel depletes at a certain rate while the plane is flying, but not when it's on the ground, whether or not it's moving, but later editions changed this by having the fuel deplete on being used rather than over time, allowing players to use it sparingly and glide whenever possible. The mobile and remastered Xbox 360 ports had the fuel tank's capacity increased to make that mission easier.
  • Grand Theft Auto V allows the player to shoot the gas tank on most vehicles, causing them to leak fuel and eventually come to a stop; Vehicles are for the most part run on infinite fuel, however.
• Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise averts this: your buggy will need fuel to run, and if you run out of gas while driving around the wastes, it's a Nonstandard Game Over. Thankfully, there are gas stations dotting the wasteland where you can gas up.
• Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven and Mafia II also used a fuel gauge for the sake of realism, though unlike Race Across America the games are far less punishing when it comes to fuel consumption, not counting the Gas Guzzling Trautenberg side quest in the first game. For the most part it is rare to end up running out of fuel during a normal playthrough unless the gas tank gets pierced by bullets, indeed making the fuel mechanic more for the sake of immersion than anything else.
• Vehicles in TerraTech can run forever without having to refuel. Averted with booster rockets and the optional tanks that power them, which can run out but gradually regenerate their fuel while not in use.
• In No Man's Sky, the launch thrusters, the pulse engines and the hyperdrive all need an appropriate fuel type in order to work. All of them can be produced with resources that can be easily found in every system (tritium in particular can be collected by blasting asteroids so commonly found in space), and the need for launch thruster fuel can be omitted by landing on designated pads.

Non-Video Game Examples

Film — Live-Action

• In The Last Jedi, this trope is inverted—unusual for a pretty soft sci-fi work like Star Wars. During a Stern Chase in which the heroes must stay ahead of their enemies to remain outside effective weapons range, it's repeatedly noted that "fuel" is dwindling. This leads to not one, but two Abandon Ship incidents when smaller vessels run out of fuel. Their crews are safely transferred to the flagship.
• Zombieland and its sequel takes place in a Zombie Apocalypse that unusually for the genre is pretty darn lax in terms of infrastructural damage. In addition to food and power being readily available, gasoline is never a concern, and one scene in the first movie shows that gas stations are still perfectly functional.

Fan Works

• In the Discworld as re-envisaged by A.A. Pessimal, the Ankh-Morporik City Air Watch is well aware of the limitations of their broomsticks and of what has been called The Lancre Limitation. It is known that a Witch gets very little warning of when she's flying on empty tanks: everything cuts out suddenly and abruptly. The Air Watch has thousands of hours of flying experience and each Witch has an intuitive awareness of how far she can push any issued broomstick until the magic needs to be replenished. In The Price of Flight, Sergeant Hanna von Strafenburg has the experience to know when to end an aerobatic display and recall her pilots to base for a recharge. Captain Olga Romanoff has learnt the hard way that there can also be thaumic engineering failures in the airframes: she had a critical broomstick failure when flying over Lancre. Even so, Olga is still looking for reliable and accurate instrumentation that might fit a sort of dashboard mounted in front of the pilot. Otherwise young novice pilots might easily fall into the trap of thinking the power is infinite and bottomless.

Literature

• In the Discworld, a Witch's broomstick only has a finite amount of magic available to power it. However good or experienced the pilot, once it's gone, it's gone, and she might as well be flying a brick. Magrat Garlick realises this in Wyrd Sisters when an experiment in in-flight refuelling means that Granny Weatherwax has drained every last thaum out of Magrat's stick, which then plummets. It can be inferred that a Witch gets very little warning of when she's flying on empty tanks: everything cuts out suddenly and abruptly.

Tabletop Games

• Thanks to the Clap Your Hands If You Believe manner in which Orks can warp physics in Warhammer 40,000, there have been incidents where Greenskins have hijacked ships and flown it for a considerable distance despite the ship in question being out of fuel simply because they thought there was promethium in the tank and never bothered to check the fuel gauge.

Web Original

• In SF Debris' review of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Parallax", Chuck compares the episode's assertion that you can escape a black hole's event horizon by making a crack in it to saying that you can make your car go further after running out of gas by cutting a hole in the distance you traveled.

Western Animation

• Stōked: In the episode “Groms Gone Wild!”, when Johnny is left in charge, due to Andrew “Bummer” Baumer leaving for the weekend with Lo’s family, the employees decide to take advantage of Johnny’s niceness and goof off instead of doing their jobs. One notable instance has Lo, who was mowing the golf course, leave the push lawnmower running, which somehow keeps going and even picks up speed to chase after a poor golfer. After Johnny has enough of the other’s laziness, and threatens to quit leaving them to explain their mess, Lo goes back to the golf course to find the lawnmower somehow still going for 24 hours and has to even lasso it to get it to stop. One possible explanation is that Lo’s family is rich enough to afford to get a major fuel efficient lawn mower, possibly even one that can run off a drop of fuel forever, with Mr. Ridgemount being interested in the project and spending top Canadian dollar researching this project to save money for his hotel.

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