Recommended drive progession? Tech tree is... enigmatic

[MechaLenin]

Is it true that reactors unlock certain drives? I don't think I ever researched Pulsar drive, yet it seems to be best drive I have.

What's the recommended drive progression? I'm mostly talking about drives for combat ships, letting me slap more armor on.

What's the best, all around upgrade to advanced pulsar and how to get it, as I don't think tech tree contains all of the info.

[Zuul]

Wakuseino eredeti hozzászólása:

Using that chart, it looks like the final targets are the Firefly Torch branching off of Z-Pinch, the Protium Converter Torch branching off of Inertial Confinement Fusion, or the Pion Torch, branching off of Antimatter Propulsion. Firefly Torch has the best EV in the game, Protium Converter has the best Thrust, and Pion Torch is roughly in-between the two.

Hm, what would be a good progression to those, though...

Keep in mind the chart isn’t linear. So the firefly for example has roughly 10x the EV of the protium, the protium has over 100x the thrust. You may have already noticed that, just figured I’d point it out though,

[ulzgoroth]

Note that the engine techs are in the tech tree...the full tech tree.

The early engine techs I've found useful...

VASIMR/Ponderomotive for long range ships. (Like an asteroid colonizer or anything that needs to cruise between Earth and Mars.)

Advanced Pulsar for orbital guardships.

That's about it. You could use most of the solid fission thermal drives for really limited orbital work, but that's too limiting IMO. And I'm not willing to stick 200 points of water reaction mass on a suicide monitor.

[Toxicity]

I tried the Hydrogen Containment Module with Nova engines. It's greyed out and says that it's only compatible with Hydrogen engines. Is this a bug, and if so, has anyone found a work-around?

[Lantantan]

Toxicity eredeti hozzászólása:

I tried the Hydrogen Containment Module with Nova engines. It's greyed out and says that it's only compatible with Hydrogen engines. Is this a bug, and if so, has anyone found a work-around?

Nova's technically a chemical rocket, see the propellant used in the bottom left. Hydrogen propellant engines are the dumbo, pebble and the particle drive.

[adobo]

Drive progression is based on your powerplant. If the drive needs the same powerplant, its mostly a side-grade based on your luck with RNG. Anything that isn't based on powerplant is a slow long range drive.

[gigamelon1981]

You can check the tech tree, there's a search dialog box in the top right.
It is very helpful to pinpoint what kind of item you want to focus. It will list all the pre requirements as well.

[Mausklickmoerder]

As a rule of thumb, almost everything you can get within the first 10 years is ♥♥♥♥, unless you play on story mode and just want to ♥♥♥♥ around the solar system. There has been a *very* helpful chart (the TI Drive Chart) posted on reddit, go check that one out.

The chemical rockets you get with some research are actually very serviceable for orbital defense ships. You won't need anything more fancy, unless you want to go to other planets with it.

My personal favourite for a somewhat early game interplanetary drive is the Poderomotive VASIMIR. It is pretty efficient and fast, while still allowing you to maneuver in Extreme Earth Orbit.

[Capitan Findus]

Grid drive then later neutron flux drives

[CesareY]

The Protium Converter isn't that good to be honest, each drive needs 3000 TW, and it can only be powered by Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor. With Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor VII your reactor would still weight around 6000 ton. The biggest problem is, the best radiator can only radiate 1GW every 83.3 tons, so the radiator will be MASSIVE! My test ship with 6 Protium Converter drives needs a 250k tons radiator, that's insane. With that much of weight, all the thrust and EV doesn't mean anything.

[wei270]

Brakiros eredeti hozzászólása:

Advanced Pulsar Drive is apparently the best one

what are you talking about Advance pulsar can't move in combat

ok early drive you actually have two choice
rocket - combat
nuclear -mix

Advanced Pulsar Drive is the first Drive that can reliably get you to mars sure, but you don't need to get from earth to mars it is incredibly expensive. All you have to is set up a shipping dock on mars and just build the ship on mars it is far cheaper and now you can do it way before Advance Pulsar.

The nuclear route has some advantage such as Advance Cerve Nerva which is the first all around drive, it can get you to mars but you have to wait for optimal distance, and it does decent in a fight.

or you can do the heavy Dumba still nuclear better you can build some real fighting ship with this one but they will stay in orbit.

the rockets are all very good fighter drives but they are orbial defence only. with the exception of super kronos but you get that a bit later.

the basic early game choice is chemical rock for orbital defence or nuclear for jack of all trade,

then at this point moving foward you have ALOT of choices, you can go fusion, gas fission or liquid fission, and if you are lucky with random tech unlock you can even go for salt water.

i don't know the specs for all of them but fusion is a good long term investment the earlier fusion you get is not good but you unlock other fusion tech which is usefully and later fusion engine is quite good

if you want short turn investment then liquid and gas are a decent bet, but keep in mind you not only need the drive but also the respective generator at this point fission solid core generator wouldn't work for fusion drive or liquid or gass core drive you need thier own drive.

for new players i recommand nuclear(soild fission) in to liquid fission(molden core generator) you get fission spinnier drive which upgrade in to a Pegasus drive

Now Pegasus is the first REAL engine break though it will get you to mars and back with no refuel and it can actually turn you ship in a circle in fight.

[Vacknishkara]

Brakiros eredeti hozzászólása:

Advanced Pulsar Drive is apparently the best one

what do you mean ? the best drive is C:

[ಠ_ಠ Exil]

MechaLenin eredeti hozzászólása:

Heh same. Biggest letdown was Minmag Orion. Completely unusable. Even worse, I think that reactors unlock new drives but I don't want to research them all just to check. It's completely omitted in tech tree.

Reactors unlock new drives and much later I noticed that drives unlock new drives. On that note, despite having all but 3 or 4 drives I found H-Orion to be the best for Earth defense and I'm using Daedelus Torch for long range combat (can't use Pion Torch yet due to little to no antimatter)

[Vacknishkara]

Reactors weight is important as well. the power to weight ratio varies greatly between some techs, and there are techs that are more fit to be equipped on lighter ships. without you needing to carry as well to much fuel.

[Wilhelm]

ಠ_ಠ Exil eredeti hozzászólása:

MechaLenin eredeti hozzászólása:

Heh same. Biggest letdown was Minmag Orion. Completely unusable. Even worse, I think that reactors unlock new drives but I don't want to research them all just to check. It's completely omitted in tech tree.

Reactors unlock new drives and much later I noticed that drives unlock new drives. On that note, despite having all but 3 or 4 drives I found H-Orion to be the best for Earth defense and I'm using Daedelus Torch for long range combat (can't use Pion Torch yet due to little to no antimatter)

lure the mother fleets away from jupiter and put a colonyship there, speedbuild orbitals with lots of defenses and claim the antimatter there.

[Lantantan]

Lagrange points are great for setting up offensive frontline shipyards, nearby aliens barely care.