Dewar
Posts: 19
2/10/2015
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Hmm, I hadn't considered it that way, which is weird because I've both programmed in Unity and have a physics minor. I guess what we learn is that the smallest engine that I can tolerate without getting bored is by far the most fuel efficient. But then, the rate that supplies are getting eaten enters into the equation as well. I'm envisioning a huge expansion to the fuel efficiency chart in the other thread, taking into account lights on/off and supplies eaten by the various size crews. It would be an interesting project to take on if I had the cash
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Fretling
Posts: 529
2/10/2015
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You could theoretically have any amount of cash you desired if you edited your savefile.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
2/11/2015
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Okay, I devised and recorded a simple test to determine to what degree acceleration was a factor! I made two runs, beginning at Khan's Shadow and ending when the ship collided with a rock directly ahead of the port. Judging by this map, the exact midpoint of this course is the centre of Ogedei's Bridge. Each run is identical, from the same save, except for the equipped engine - one is with the Elderly Steeple-Engine and one is with the Fulgent Impeller.
Here's the Impeller run - you'll observe that it goes from stationary to stationary in 45 seconds, passing the centre of the bridge at about the 22 second mark.
Here's the Steeple-Engine run - it takes just over 1 minute 30 seconds to cover the same distance, and passes the centre of the bridge at around 45 seconds.
Obviously, this could be more precise (though I did want a course with clear landmarks, and where I was unlikely to run into a pirate before reaching the end - I was already getting interrupted by crew members being possessed by sky-gods.) Still, I think that's a strong indicator that all engines reach their maximum speed quite quickly, and that speed, rather than acceleration, is the chief product of engine power.
Also, I was intrigued that the first run was literally twice as fast as the second, so I equipped the ship with the Admiralty Special plus Maybe's Rival plus We Are Clay, resulting in 2900 engine power - halfway between 800 and 5000. I thought that, perhaps, its speed would be halfway in between too. It was, to within a second or two.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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WormApotheote
Posts: 725
2/11/2015
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that would suggest that it's a linear equation, just that no engine power isn't no motion.
I mean obviously no engine means no motion, since the game stops you from moving, even if you have engine power from the stokers.
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No, I don't pull the Eater of Names.
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Guest
2/11/2015
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Uhhhh.... You might want to look again at the ends of those first two runs. The Impeller-equipped boat takes ~3 seconds to stop after the engines are cut off, while the Steeple-equipped boat stops immediately. I'd strongly suggest stopping the count at the moment the engines die, so 42s and 90s respectively, otherwise you're counting deceleration as well as acceleration (they might cancel, or they might just make things worse). The 2900 looks to have taken about 56 seconds to traverse the course.
The midpoint measurements look to be spot on, despite the difficulties involved in taking them.
My own observations found that 1000 power provided exactly (37.5 rph vs. 75 rph) half the speed of 5000 power. I didn't have the opportunity to test a ship with 3000 power, but I do not expect it would lie precisely between the two, as speed does not appear to increase linearly. I'd predict the average of 1000 and 5000's speed to lie around the 2700 mark.
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At any rate, I'd like to compare your results to mine. That course looks to be approximately 335 map pixels long, compared to a region width of 384 map pixels. Via a long and excessively complex formula... ([spoiler] 3600/(384/(335/Time)) [/spoiler])
5000: 75 rph
2900: 56 rph (using a time of 56 seconds)
800: 35 rph
Huh. I'll be d__ned. 2900's speed is about half the average of the 1000 (37.5 rph) and 5000's speeds. And pretty close to the average of 800 and 5000's (~55.5 rph).
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What I meant earlier about acceleration, was that your results suggested that *weight*, not power, primarily affected acceleration rather than maximum speed. Engines quite clearly determine maximum speed. In fact my own tests (on the same hull) initially led me to hypothesize that acceleration was more or less constant, and that a more powerful engine would take longer to get up to speed while a smaller engine would max out very quickly*. I'm no longer sure that's the case, but either way larger ships do seem to take longer to reach maximum speed than small ones do.
* Basically, for anything smaller than the Impeller, 2-throttle traversal times were exactly half of 1-throttle traversal times, or within a second of half. For the Impeller, 2-throttle was consistently timed at 36 seconds, while 1-throttle was consistently timed at 68 seconds. My full raw test data is here, along with a map of the courses, but I'm afraid they aren't very readable.
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Gregg Johnson
Posts: 263
2/11/2015
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Amusing. It logged me out but still allowed me to post. The above is me.
Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
Gregg Johnson wrote:
Fred, your numbers strongly suggest the main issue is slower acceleration.
I wondered about that, but I took my Dreadnaught, put each type of engine on it, and pointed it at a long stretch of open water - and, no matter how long I let it go, the less powerful engine never reached the same speed as the more powerful one.
Sorry, I meant, as stated in the above post, that the main effect of weight is slower acceleration, based on your original tests. The two ships equipped with the Impeller have nearly the same traversal time (suggesting they maxed out at about the same speed), but markedly different times when equipped with the Steeple engine. Obviously if acceleration is only affected by weight, and you have the same ship and the same amount of cargo, you're not going to see a difference.
edit: *sigh* Except that doesn't really make sense either. I might have to dig into the physics angle later.
Fretling wrote:
You could theoretically have any amount of cash you desired if you edited your savefile.
Echoes are really not hard to acquire at the moment, at least once you have a large enough initial investment.
Dewar wrote:
But then, the rate that supplies are getting eaten enters into the equation as well. I'm envisioning a huge expansion to the fuel efficiency chart in the other thread, taking into account lights on/off and supplies eaten by the various size crews. It would be an interesting project to take on if I had the cash.
Yeah... I thought about doing that. I'd need to test the rate that lights eat fuel a bit. Supplies don't need testing: It's crew/2 per 10 seconds. Well, okay, it's possible that Hearts affects supply consumption, and I also don't know how the game rounds (or *if* it rounds). That would need to be tested. But it wouldn't be necessary to rerun the whole set of tests to construct such a chart.
edited by Olorin on 2/11/2015
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Fretling
Posts: 529
2/11/2015
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The game rounds to the nearest even integer. 13 is 6, 15 is 8, the 1-crew "dinner table" is 0 -- apparently if you only have one crewmember and yourself, you need never eat.
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Swinter
Posts: 66
2/11/2015
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deathbymonty wrote:
Hi devs, really enjoying the game...up to a point. I'm really upset about a few things, though.
1. Engines effect on speed regardless of weight: so I was saving up after some serious grinding to increase engine speed to 1500, AND I have Maybe's Daughter so that's 1600 total...and the ship is really not that much faster. So then I decided I wanted to go really fast and risk it all, and downgraded to the Stymphalos, thinking that since it weighs half as much I'll be able to travel twice as a fast or at least have a huge increase in fuel efficiency. Neither of those things happened, and frankly, I think that is incredibly stupid and frustrating.
It has probably already been said, but on this you're wrong at least  .
Try fitting the 2000 Echo engine on the smallest ship. It's what I did. It Races across the ocean. It's at least twice as quick as with the starting engine.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Swinter
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Gregg Johnson
Posts: 263
2/11/2015
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Fretling wrote:
The game rounds to the nearest even integer. 13 is 6, 15 is 8, the 1-crew "dinner table" is 0 -- apparently if you only have one crewmember and yourself, you need never eat.
Technically that last crew member is you. Thanks, that should be useful.
edited by Olorin on 2/11/2015
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Fretling
Posts: 529
2/11/2015
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Oh, you count? I hadn't realized.
Apparently you yourself need subsist on nothing more than air and fire and dreaming horror.
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Dewar
Posts: 19
2/11/2015
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Gregg Johnson wrote:
Dewar wrote:
But then, the rate that supplies are getting eaten enters into the equation as well. I'm envisioning a huge expansion to the fuel efficiency chart in the other thread, taking into account lights on/off and supplies eaten by the various size crews. It would be an interesting project to take on if I had the cash.
Yeah... I thought about doing that. I'd need to test the rate that lights eat fuel a bit. Supplies don't need testing: It's crew/2 per 10 seconds. Well, okay, it's possible that Hearts affects supply consumption, and I also don't know how the game rounds (or *if* it rounds). That would need to be tested. But it wouldn't be necessary to rerun the whole set of tests to construct such a chart.
Yeah, a lot of it would just be monkeying with Excel to do calculations to come up with what engine is actually the most money efficient. At the same time, I've finally reached that point in my Zeafaring career where one barrel of fuel plus or minus doesn't really matter as much anymore, so of course I have less of an incentive to set it up. Maybe this weekend I'll copy my current Invictus save to a safe location and do some save editing so I can run my own set of tests.
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