Impish Axile
Posts: 50
2/10/2015
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Shadow wrote:
Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
The trick is that more powerful engines have poorer fuel efficiency. If you're using a lightweight ship, you'll get less benefit from a powerful engine, so you might want to run a smaller, more efficient one. On a heavy ship, you'll lose so much time using a small engine that it practically isn't an option - but, at least you'll have the cargo space to store the extra fuel!
Good advice as a general rule of thumb, but I guess it's up to us to determine what's the most efficient engine power for a given tonnage. I don't want to repeat myself, but this is information the game should be forthcoming with, as it already is with several other systems. Engine power is currently cryptic, its worth hard to gauge for a given ship. And things are quite expensive to go around experimenting to see what works best on which ship.
I suppose engine power could be made to reflect that speed-efficiency sweetspot (i.e. 1000 power is optimal for a 1000-weight vessel), if I were to assign a more meaningful value to the stat. Less power for that tonnage and fuel efficiency decreases as you're not travelling fast enough for the fuel you're consuming; more power than optimal and you're going faster but spending a disproportionate amount of fuel for it.
Would anyone really oppose something like that?
That definitely sounds like a good idea (although tweaking the weight values might be better, since those only affect one thing, and power values affect consumption rates too). At the very least, that the given weight and power values scale with each other - knowing that eg going from a 1k to 2k in both weight and power, you'll get similar acceleration and speed (but twice the fuel consumption, heh. Presumably wider turning radii, if that's actually implemented at all.)
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FogChicken1
Posts: 29
2/10/2015
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Hmm. That table is interesting - apparently going for a bigger engine in the starter ship does reduce my range a bit.
I still like doing it as I tend to buy fuel as I go, and it means I complete my journeys quicker so my hourly earning rate is higher (not sure if that's enough to offset the extra fuel expense, but I suspect it is).
Turning speed is indeed implemented but I think it depends more on ship type. I love the Merchant Cruiser but it handles like a bathtub (they call it "ponderous" for a reason). The Frigate is much zippier. Larger engines do indeed mean bigger turning circles, as anybody who has tried to navigate out of the Iron Republic port with a powerful engine will know.
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Gregg Johnson
Posts: 263
2/11/2015
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Impish Axile wrote:
Very interesting!
I take it that's just on speed 2 without Full Power, though? And is it from a standstill, or from full speed? In practice, as soon as i can afford to, i have Suppression and spam Full Power whenever I'm not actively fighting, and i assume that's pretty common for all of us without vast stores of patience 
Speed 2 without Full Power, yes. Full Power uses 2x the fuel and boosts speed by 75% (i.e. x1.75). There's nothing that requires testing about that. Half-throttle, similary, is just half the speed and half the fuel-consumption. This last *was* tested, but the results were so consistent that I eventually stopped running them. Full Power is difficult to test. The 2x and 1.75x come from the navigation constants in the data files.
It is from a standstill to a hard collision, so the speeds may actually be slightly higher, especially for the small engines on large ships, but I tried to make the course as long as I could stand to minimise the effects of acceleration.
I also didn't track cargo, and I now have reason to believe that has some effect on acceleration.
Fretling wrote:
If efficiency directly reduces fuel consumption and the power vs. consumption function at the bottom of that chart is correct, though, it predicts 61.4 bph for a 5000-power engine with 65% efficiency [using (5000/28.5)(0.35)].
Yes, that is unfortunately an error in the chart. The asterisk next to 65% means it might have been 60% (I had the wrong officer equipped and didn't notice), and 5000/28.5*0.40 is in fact ~70 bph.
edited by Olorin on 2/11/2015
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Shadow
Posts: 49
2/12/2015
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Somewhat related question: do engine power increases via non-engine items (i.e. officers or clay men) decrease fuel efficiency just like more powerful engines do?
I'm guessing there's no such thing as free speed, but I'd like to be certain.
edited by Shadow on 2/12/2015
--
In Her Enduring Majesty's Service
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Gregg Johnson
Posts: 263
2/12/2015
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I haven't tested it, but I'd assume that fuel consumption and speed both only care about your Power, not where it comes from.
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