Spaceship engine

[Ailab]

I'll be more happy, if the spaceship engines would more realistic according to these points:

• The engines must placed balanced on the ship, like the thrusters. So if they're not balanced around the centre of mass, it would make a rotation around that (but isn't usable as stronger thrusters, because you can use that only with the W key, and the thruster-system doesn't calculate on this (as now))
  
• The engines require fuel, what are available on all station cheaply. But you consume fuel only for acceleration (standard and FTL). This would bring the game more realistic. (The energy consumption matter furthermore, but it will mean not the driving-power but the small fly-modifactions, what the player doesn't see)
  

 

What are your opinion? :)

[Kamo]

• Engine equilibrium is effectively a realistic point, but would stymie the creativity of every asymmetrical ship builder.
  
• Fuel would need cargo bays for all ships, something that'd need completely new shipbuilding standards that'd make most line ships, buses and cargoless utilitary ships useless.
  
• Managing fleets, however, would be a complete logistical nightmare unless the AI is also overhauled to (auto-)refuel itself, use certain ships as tenders, etc.
  
• Station auto-docking would be nice as ships that are just built would otherwise need fuel they won't have to dock to the station to receive their first fuel unless the builder placed the ship really well.

[DivineEvil]

Why? What will that achieve? Realism for realism sake is meaningless.

 

There's no point in limiting the options for engine placement. Realizing your first suggestion would basically necessitate symmetric builds. Despite the fact, that most players do that anyway, what is the meaning behind this complication?

 

Same with fuel, what is the point of introducing this requirement? As I see it, it would only lead to frustration and utterly ridiculous situations where you get stuck somewhere with no ability to get fuel. That's it, you have a ship, that has no fuel, and you have a personal drone, that cannot carry fuel. Benefits?

[Ailab]

You're right mostly.

But that is annoying that [to have a bad generator with no inertia dampener] is better then [to have a medium generator with a good inertia dampener], because the generator overheats and the inertia dampener brakes the ship...

[Kamo]

But that is annoying that [to have a bad generator with no inertia dampener] is better then [to have a medium generator with a good inertia dampener]' date=' because the generator overheats and the inertia dampener brakes the ship...[/quote']

Inertia dampening definitely is expensive energy-wise, thrusters and dampeners should help each other brake the ship instead of the former disabling the latter.

But right now hyperspace is the big problem. It was hard before the 0.19/0.20 increase, especially for Irongrade ships, and now it's almost impossible to jump without murdering those poor sinkers :'(. I had and still have to redo so many lowtier lowmass ships it's not even funny.

If it's supposed to be normal that small ships cannot FTL, it'd mean carrying them should be an option, therefore in this case ship docking is sorely missing ???.

[DivineEvil]

You're right mostly.

But that is annoying that [to have a bad generator with no inertia dampener] is better then [to have a medium generator with a good inertia dampener], because the generator overheats and the inertia dampener brakes the ship...

Perhaps, but your suggestions do not address this grudge in any way.

 

Inertial dampeners are expensive equipment only feasible for ships of 8 system slots and greater. Usually most ships below this margin can fare perfectly well with their Pitch/Yaw thrusters also braking them. Pitch and yaw rates stays more-or-less the same for the larger ships due to ability to place Thrusters further from CoM for the same % of the volume used. However, braking doesn't get such spatial benefits, so it tanks severely.

 

So, you need Dampeners to brake such capital ships effectively. They do take up a lot of energy, but large ships can easily afford to permanently install a single decent Generator System, that negates the upkeep without effort.

 

You never need an Inertial Dampener greater than 1/40 of the ship volume (2.5%), compared to Generator Blocks, that should occupy at least 10%. If you want a good maneuverability on any ship, that takes about 15% of your ship in Thrusters. Inertial Dampeners aren't really that demanding.

 

Well, aside from being the greatest weak spot on the mid-tier ship, breaking from a sneeze and costing ridiculous money to replace...

[ComfyDema]

I'll be more happy, if the spaceship engines would more realistic according to these points:

• The engines must placed balanced on the ship, like the thrusters. So if they're not balanced around the centre of mass, it would make a rotation around that (but isn't usable as stronger thrusters, because you can use that only with the W key, and the thruster-system doesn't calculate on this (as now))
  
• The engines require fuel, what are available on all station cheaply. But you consume fuel only for acceleration (standard and FTL). This would bring the game more realistic. (The energy consumption matter furthermore, but it will mean not the driving-power but the small fly-modifactions, what the player doesn't see)
  

 

What are your opinion? :)

 

Pretty much as DivineEvil said, first point is just realism for realism sake, meanwhile you have ships romping about hurling plasma and to quote the game itself as a source literally "lighting" weapons at each other so the realism point is quite moot. On top of this to again reference DivineEvil, almost everyone already builds with either centralized, or balanced offset thrusters as it is right now anyway.

 

To your second point, you can literally just say "don't need fuel, engines in this universe are 100% energy efficient and run purely on electrical power of their own generators. It would be interesting to see a mechanic where a consumable FTL fuel could be purchased to BOOST jump range, but the idea of having to possibly double my ships mass purely in cargo just to travel via FTL doesn't sit well with me so I'ma say no to this idea.