Midgame engines

[Anna]

I used to use grid according to some guide, and while grid is good it seems there are better alternatives.

VASIMR (Pondermotive) is much cheaper in research, and with early hydrogen containment is almost as good as grid. 2.2 / 7.2+10% vs 4.3 / 7.7 for cheap long range stuff. Almost no thrust though.

As from more expensive I was surprised, but Advanced chemical is amazing, thrust is huge, and since it comes with second hydrogen containment in the same tech it's very fuel efficient at 12.3 / 4.4+50%

Pegasus seems to be the good overall, because both thrust and exhaust velocity could be upgraded, but it requires more research.

What are your thought on mid game engines?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Anna:

As from more expensive I was surprised, but Advanced chemical is amazing, thrust is huge, and since it comes with second hydrogen containment in the same tech it's very fuel efficient at 12.3 / 4.4+50%

The chemical rockets are Reaction Products drives, they can't use the hydrogen containment modules.

[Mortmal]

Using the orion engine, they say on guides its not good cause of the use of rare metals and fissibles as fuel, but if the mines output are good you have plenty enough for that.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Mortmal:

Using the orion engine, they say on guides its not good cause of the use of rare metals and fissibles as fuel, but if the mines output are good you have plenty enough for that.

Until you don't lol

[Mortmal]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Mortmal:

Using the orion engine, they say on guides its not good cause of the use of rare metals and fissibles as fuel, but if the mines output are good you have plenty enough for that.

Until you don't lol

well end game you realize you could have done things better, more mines instead of stations , and the yield greatly vary every different games. It can happen you dont have enough anymore indeed.

[LorDC]

Originally posted by Anna:

I used to use grid according to some guide, and while grid is good it seems there are better alternatives.

VASIMR (Pondermotive) is much cheaper in research, and with early hydrogen containment is almost as good as grid. 2.2 / 7.2+10% vs 4.3 / 7.7 for cheap long range stuff. Almost no thrust though.

As from more expensive I was surprised, but Advanced chemical is amazing, thrust is huge, and since it comes with second hydrogen containment in the same tech it's very fuel efficient at 12.3 / 4.4+50%

Pegasus seems to be the good overall, because both thrust and exhaust velocity could be upgraded, but it requires more research.

What are your thought on mid game engines?

I wouldn't consider Grid or VASIMIR mid-game drives TBH. They are more of an early game ones.
In general, you want to prioritize high-thrust engines over high-ev in early game. That is because strategic mobility (granted by later) is of little use when you can just bring a colony ship wherever you go. Also, early high-ev drive do not give you fast enough transfers to matter anyways.
So, go for fission lineup. Advanced Pulsar is good early option. Pegasus/Fission Spinner next. And Fission Lantern/Flare/Firestar as top of the line.

[LorDC]

Also, thrust rating = 1 + log2(thrust_kN) and ev rating = log2(ev_kps).
So, difference between thrust value corresponding to ratings of 2 and 4 is actually FOUR times.

[dudeworthington]

I wouldn't claim to be amazing at the game but fwiw:

I used a grid drive to colonize Mercury. All other ships were corvette swarms equipped with advanced pulsar. Without exception these would always be built on location of whatever planetary body they were defending. During this period there was also a lot of reliance on static defenses. The asteroid belt was entirely on its own. Sometimes modules or even entire bases would be lost.

The next ships I built that had a different drive were Zeta Helion battleships. These ships could both fight and transfer to other planetary systems. I don't know if this is strictly optimal but the option exists to skip mid game drives. There is a certain trade-off built into the game such that going for the end game drives will also overlap with wider technological progress while the mid drives are mostly a detour. I can't help but feel that I'm playing the game incorrectly, but at the time I think is a useful point of comparison when making the
case for mid game drives.

[LorDC]

Originally posted by dudeworthington:

I can't help but feel that I'm playing the game incorrectly, but at the time I think is a useful point of comparison when making the
case for mid game drives.

What you did isn't incorrect in any way. With how the game is currently balanced, using mid-game (advanced fission/early fusion) is more of an option rather than a strict necessity. The only thing it enables is to switch to high-wall-of-kinetic-death earlier rather than later.

[lemurs2]

Last I played Pegasus is very hot, so probably not as good as it looks.

[Asuzu]

I don't bother with shipbuilding until I have engines that can propel a defensive dreadnaught in Earth/Mars/Ceres/Mercury orbits with ~60 dV and ~10 intercept speed.

Focus on building up economy, science, mission control, and space mining first and warships last.

Normally I start with EU rush as the first biggest conglomerate without additional research. You also deny the AI many countries this way, and build up good MC in smaller countries while stitching the EU together. After that it's PAC with Indonesia included, then India. I dissolve Russia between EU and PAC. PAC and India contain 2/3 of the world population and scale like crazy into the lategame. Last ones I bother with are USNA, South America, African Union, and last is Caliphate eating the African Union.

You need to research Magnetic Nozzles and Nuclear Fusion in Space to get Triton engines that can actually propel a proper ship. Normally armed with Coilguns to punch through everything including Assaults and Motherships.

You need Z-Pinch Fusion reactor and Triton Pulse drive in the middle of the tree to propel a proper dreadnaught. Search the science and engineering tress for related technologies.

If everything goes alright I can have defensive fleets in orbits of major inner system planets before 2037, so aliens never get the chance to land on Earth. That's on Normal diff though, so if you plau Hardcore/Brutal your mileage may vary, and you might need some armies to deal with aliens on the ground.

Good luck and have fun purging filthy xenos!

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by LorDC:

I wouldn't consider Grid or VASIMIR mid-game drives TBH. They are more of an early game ones.

Yes, I would totally agree they are both early drives.

Originally posted by LorDC:

In general, you want to prioritize high-thrust engines over high-ev in early game. That is because strategic mobility (granted by later) is of little use when you can just bring a colony ship wherever you go. Also, early high-ev drive do not give you fast enough transfers to matter anyways.

If you mean prioritizing for combat then I agree. However, I would give only a little smaller priority for Grid Drive (and it's much, much better than VASIMR) because the strategic situation in the early game highly depends on player ability to build mines on new bodies fast and light Grid colonizers are very good at allowing that even on distant bodies - if nothing was changed in regards to relevant alien behavior in versions more recent than 0.3.116 (but I am going to recommend it to be changed) they are enough even for colonizing the most distant bodies in the Kuiper Belt.

Originally posted by lemurs2:

Last I played Pegasus is very hot, so probably not as good as it looks.

You must have played quite a while ago because Pegasus is currently by far the best of early combat drives, especially for small ships - it's open-cycle so in the current implementation heat is almost of no issue for ships with it. It's actually better than it looks.

[lemurs2]

Yea, I was distracted by other games, last I played Pegasus was a trap.

[Spiffy]

Pegasus is good for a defensive swarm of small interdiction ships but I don't know what drives are good for a colonizer and fleet to hunt/deter aliens, I have yet to get that far.

[Captiva]

I go for fission spinner and pegasus if I can early/mid game.

If you can unlock them and have the fissile, the neutron flux and neutron flux torch are decent and insanely good drives respectively.

With the neutron flux torch you will be using only a hundred or so fissile and water and you can easily be 1k plus kps even with bigger ships.

The other options for late mid game are the triton pulse and zeta boron fusion, zeta helion but require tech and more tech and even more tech to get them.