Drives and Ratings

[g0d0fnerds]

So, I made a simple and silly assumption when looking at ship drives: I looked at the Thrust (Rating) and the Exhaust Velocity (Rating) stats and I assumed that the Ratings were essentially the Game Mechanic equivalents of the Thrust and EV. Like in a board game, where you might give a car's speed as 30 mph (3 inches).

But then I sat down and really looked at it and saw that the Ratings apparently have NOTHING to do with Thrust or EV, So what do the Ratings mean??

[Badger BrownCoat]

are you effin' playing Car Wars?
in the guides is a drive chart; the ratings might be meant to "help guide you' i suppose but after a mistake or two myself, i just went to the horse's mouth
GLHF

[Sutr]

In some ways I do think the rating system matches but does not take into account, the energy requirements which seem to be the main thing you have to pay attention too. If I had to guess after researching all the drives and power plants in order to compare them it seems that a lot of drives are supposed to go with certain power plants to maximize efficiency (except firefly its garbage).

[Capitalist Overlord]

This should help. I had to redo tech and went for more middle of the road techs.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?l=swedish&id=2868559848

[Eltoron]

It's not linear but seems like Thrust Rating correlated with actual Thrust.
And Exhaust Velocity directly correlated with Rating. Engine with rating 4 has twice as much EV as engine with rating 3. And x0.5 of engine with rating 5.

[Morti]

It's logarithmic +1 means x 2, if you look at the details, you'll see that when 2 engines it adds 1 to the thurst power rating, and +2 with 4.

[Premu]

And to make things even more complicated - there's a third value for the energy output of the drive. The more heat it produces the heavier the radiator gets. Some drives might have a high thrust and exhaust values, but in reality they don't really work well because the ships become a lot heavier than with slightly less powerful drives.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Premu:

And to make things even more complicated - there's a third value for the energy output of the drive. The more heat it produces the heavier the radiator gets.

And to make it even MORE complicated - different engines using different rules :) Some are simply ignoring their own heat generation at all. Some add it to reactor heat generation using own efficiency, some are using reactor efficiency.

[munch15a]

so does anyone want to share a list of like the 5 drvies they like and what there good for ?

[Soul]

Daedelus torch is all you need

[corisai]

Originally posted by munch15a:

so does anyone want to share a list of like the 5 drvies they like and what there good for ?

a) Ion>Grid engine (optional: VASIMIR line, it's better early but worse once you get good fission reactor). Perfect engine for early colony ships (but don't expect them to land on planets :P ) & probes.

b) Early game: Advanced Pulsar (Solid Fission line) OR Fission spinner>Pegasus (Molten Core line). Second is better but comes online a bit later. Your first real combat engines for orbital defenses - now you can build a beam/kinetic warship too.

c) Gamebreaking mid-game engine: Neutron Flux Torch (Advanced Fission line). Chew fissiles like no tomorrow but allow to technically win the game around ~2035 via strategic bombing of alien mines (as you can have ~3-4k dV and outrun anything aliens have).

d) Mid-game: Orion engine as part of NFT route. Again - consume Fissiles but now you can do some battles around outer planets.

c) Mid/late-game: antimatter up to Advanced Plasma Core. Near perfect engine but use AM for refueling.

d) Mid/late-game: Zeta Boron / Zeta Hellion fusion drive (Z-Pinch tech, Deuterium-Helium-3 / Proton-Boron and Magnetic Nozzles tech). First REAL fusion engine. Good enough to even try to win this game :)

e) Late-game: Daedelus Torch. Almost ultimate engine (not much better then NTR / AM Plasma Core but don't have issues with expensive fuel). ~550k RP to get it since game start :) So veeery late game tech.

Some engines around also could have some use, but not so good.

[lightvsdarkness]

corisai is right.
Thrust and delta V numbers are good & all, but you *really* must take into consideration:
1) Power requirements (mass of the reactor means mass of the ship means engine is useless)
2) Power plant efficiency (mass of the radiators means ...).
3) Propellant type aka fuel. Antimatter engines are great, but you need LOTS of antimatter for a fleet and you won't have LOTS of antimatter.
-
So, most of the engines in the game are REALLY NOT GOOD.
Don't fight aliens in space until you have glorious *Zeta Helion fusion drive* tech. Then maybe upgrade to Daedelus Torch, but it may not worth it.
-
And use Spikers! You need antimatter tech for Antimatter Spiker + Zeta Helion + Hydron Trap win combo.

[corisai]

Originally posted by lightvsdarkness:

Don't fight alien in space until you have glorious *Zeta Helion fusion drive*. Then maybe upgrade to Daedelus Torch, but it may not worth it.

Don't disregard NFT / Orion completely. If you're lucky with fissiles in your game - they're definitely very worth it.

[lightvsdarkness]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by lightvsdarkness:

Don't fight alien in space until you have glorious *Zeta Helion fusion drive*. Then maybe upgrade to Daedelus Torch, but it may not worth it.

Don't disregard NFT / Orion completely. If you're lucky with fissiles in your game - they're definitely very worth it.

Yes, if you got lucky with grabbing lots of fissiles before other factions - NFT is probably the best drive in the game for you. May be efficient to not spend research on other drives.
Although I prefer to sell fissiles in the early game to gain money for implants and great orgs.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by lightvsdarkness:

Don't fight alien in space until you have glorious *Zeta Helion fusion drive*. Then maybe upgrade to Daedelus Torch, but it may not worth it.

Don't disregard NFT / Orion completely. If you're lucky with fissiles in your game - they're definitely very worth it.

Yeah but I wish we had the option of once we decide what engine we want to use, to hide the huge mess of the rest of them. We might need to choose one or two engines out of everything they toss at us but once we do, the rest can be hidden permanently.

[g0d0fnerds]

Okay, since I have a number of people who seem like they know what they're talking about, I'm concerned that I've put myself in a corner. I'm the Resistance, nowhere NEAR ready to fight the Aliens, and the threat meter has just reached 5. I'm getting warnings that unless I scale back my activities, I'm going to get hit.
The Aliens have already made it clear that they're not going to tolerate me having an Earth orbit space station anymore. What exactly provokes the Aliens besides killing them? Burning out Xenoflora? Building mining settlements? Building ships? What can/can't I do, here?