Best drives without exotics or antimatter?

[Smig]

First playthrough here. Been very disappointed with the drives I've been researching.
I've been using the Barone Plasmajet Torch, which was a huge step up from whatever I was using before, but still feels like I can't get the kind of DV for going head to head against the aliens.

I've been burning years in research working my way towards the Protium Converter Torch but I'm just now realizing the respective power plant requires exotics, which I have few of.

I've just chosen against the antimatter line of research because I have none of that and I haven't looked into getting it but that might have been a mistake.

Any advice on the best drives if I'm low exotics?

[83athom]

You aren't supposed to have the Δv to go head to head with the Aliens, you're supposed to find a "good enough" path to fight a guerrilla war with them and close off their endless reinforcements. The Barone Torch I can see where you aren't happy with it, it's basically just a Lars Drive with better fuel efficiency. Some good choices though;

Deadalus Torch is pretty good while staying in Internal Confinement Fusion, and Icarus Torch is good if you can get Hybrid Fusion easily.

Orion Drives if you have abundant Fissiles, the H-Orion (unlocked by Fusion tech) is probably almost the single best drive for thrust (outside of the Protium Torch) and the Minimag Orion (unlocked by Z-Pinch) is very efficient for small ships while still having a really good amount of thrust (especially the Advanced one).

Neutron Flux Torch at the absolute apex of the Fission line of engines and is very similar capabilities to the Protium Torch, but its weight makes its actual use sorta iffy to fit on anything other than your captial ships. The Neutron Flux Drive is a decent alternative for everything else though (but does lack in comparison with the raw power and efficiency).

[LorDC]

With ICF7 even PCT costs something like 0.4 exotics or so. Daedalus x6 costs like 0.15. So its not that expensive.
Otherwise you can try FlowStab Z-pinch + Firefly which costs like 0.05 exotics.

[Ericus1]

Whenever it comes to drives, there is not really a "best" outside of the end-game fusion or antimatter drives like PCT, which will use token amounts of exotics, because those are the only ones that can do everything, by every metric, well.

Before then, the question you have to ask first is "What do I want to use this drive for?" because the answer to that question can heavily dictate what drive works best for that purpose. If all you want to do is defend LEO, you don't need anything better than one of the high end fission drives to have a "best" drive. If all you want to do is "go somewhere far away for not a ton of fuel", something like Grid or Helicon can do it quite capably.

Answer that question first, and then it's much easier to tell you want drive suits that purpose. And where you are in the tech tree, what drives you have available to you, and what stage you are in the game can dramatically changes those answers too.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by 83athom:

The Barone Torch I can see where you aren't happy with it, it's basically just a Lars Drive with better fuel efficiency. Some good choices though;

Deadalus Torch is pretty good while staying in Internal Confinement Fusion, and Icarus Torch is good if you can get Hybrid Fusion easily.

I would suggest to not use old names because they are confusing to new players and apparently to yourself: OP has Borane Plasmajet Torch which, IIRC, replaced Icarus Torch which is in no way "basically just a Lars Drive with better fuel efficiency".

Daedalus is now Helion Nova Torch and it's not just pretty good but, as earlier, the best drive for small ships (when powered with the best Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor).

Originally posted by 83athom:

Orion Drives if you have abundant Fissiles, the H-Orion (unlocked by Fusion tech) is probably almost the single best drive for thrust (outside of the Protium Torch) and the Minimag Orion (unlocked by Z-Pinch) is very efficient for small ships while still having a really good amount of thrust (especially the Advanced one).

You are also making mistakes here because:

1. H-Orion is in-game still a pulse fission tech, not fusion, despite mentioning thermonuclear warheads

2. You are apparently forgetting that all Orion Drives are only 1x so even H-Orion has not much more than half thrust and one-fifth combat thrust of much earlier Pegasus 6x.

Originally posted by 83athom:

Neutron Flux Torch at the absolute apex of the Fission line of engines and is very similar capabilities to the Protium Torch, but its weight makes its actual use sorta iffy to fit on anything other than your captial ships.

Even if you compare it to Protium Nova Torch (because I couldn't believe it to be Protium Converter Torch) they differ substantially in every single way creating vastly different capabilities, eg.
1. open vs close-cycle creates vastly different demands on radiators
2. Water vs Hydrogen makes hydrogen storage modules unavailable
3. high demand on radioactives might need to be supplemented by ISRU
4. very bad combat thrust in comparison to the mass of the whole drive system makes NFT entirely unsuitable for the maneuvering combat while PNT can be good on any ship
5. inherent mass of the drive can't be lowered in any way while mass of the PNT drive system can be hugely lowered with better tech

[83athom]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

I would suggest to not use old names because they are confusing to new players and apparently to yourself: OP has Borane Plasmajet Torch which, IIRC, replaced Icarus Torch which is in no way "basically just a Lars Drive with better fuel efficiency".

Yeah, I think I read the "Borane Torch" part and mentally autocorrected it to the "Boron Torch" which is a separate engine. Honestly haven't played a lot of this game since 2022 and only started playing again recently because of the upcoming update.

Originally posted by Pawleus:

You are also making mistakes here because:
1. H-Orion is in-game still a pulse fission tech, not fusion, despite mentioning thermonuclear warheads

2. You are apparently forgetting that all Orion Drives are only 1x so even H-Orion has not much more than half thrust and one-fifth combat thrust of much earlier Pegasus 6x.

1. H-Orion counts as Pulse Fission, but requires the global research into Fusion in order to unlock. Similar with Minimag, it's technically still Pulse Fission but it requires Z-Pinch global to unlock.

2. H-Orion also has 120kps exhaust velocity with 100% efficiency compared to the Pegasus's 16 kps with 85%, you'll get a LOT more Δv with the 1x H-Orion than the 4x Pegasus despite their similar raw cruise power outputs (which was the point of the topic). The H-Orion also doesn't require power itself letting you just pick the smallest powerplant you have that will dedicate it's entire power output for your weapons. Pegasus has a lot more combat thrust when you stack on the multiples for sure, but it doesn't have the Δv capability to really make use of the thrust in combat effectively.

I'm not saying to drop everything and just use H-Orions; just that they're a decent engine people overlook as "just a meme" without giving it a second glance. OP seems to have had the issue of focusing too much on rushing down directly to the "endgame" tech without looking at all their available options. Main reason I'm currently using H-Orions with my present fleet instead of switching over to the Firestar or D-Nova Torchor N-Flux Lantern that I recently unlocked is because I was in a water crash from not having good water sites but a truly stupid amount of Fissiles thanks to Luna spawning with basically 0 resources other than 1 site with Metal + Fissiles and 1 site with Nobles and then Mars spawning with a site with a massive amount of Fissiles and only like 2 sites with half decent water. Now that I have a lot of Asteroids with good water seeded with Automines that finally completed I can start swapping over to a more normal engine

[wei270]

didn't H-orions use to be supper heavy in mass, is that changed?

[Asuzu]

From what I understand in current meta, the best drive for midgame is Gas Core latest tier.

After that you got to run gazillion researches to get to proper Torches, Tritons, etc. that will propel something heavier than a turd in space at ~60 dV which is considered bare minimum for an orbital defense fleet. Like, it's enough to fly to Moon and back, or Mars moons, or change orbits in Mercury with its huge ranges.

I never bother building early ships, considering it a waste of resources, just stay chill with allys and other AIs, push research.

My goal is to research down to a Lancer with a huge MK2 Coil in the nose, small MK2 Coil in the hull + a PD laser, good Gas Core drive, and some useful components.

A 6-8 strong fleet of those will defend midgame orbits perfectly fine against anything ally or factions throw at you. Huge nose coil rips any large ships a new one, and small coils delete anything smaller when saturated.

Lategame marks antimatter drives, this is where you can start thinking to take the fight back to allys, and start chasing them all over the Belt and push towards outer planets.

P.S. Oh, and for the love of Buddha, don't use Orions, they will bleed your uranium resource dry in just one trip. Unless their ridiculous consumption was fixed in later patches, they are the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ worst.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by 83athom:

1. H-Orion counts as Pulse Fission, but requires the global research into Fusion in order to unlock. Similar with Minimag, it's technically still Pulse Fission but it requires Z-Pinch global to unlock.

No it doesn't. The Minimags do, but H-Orion doesn't.

2. H-Orion also has 120kps exhaust velocity with 100% efficiency compared to the Pegasus's 16 kps with 85%

Just a note: Efficiency has no direct impact on flight characteristics. It only has anything to do with reactor/radiator size.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by 83athom:

1. H-Orion counts as Pulse Fission, but requires the global research into Fusion in order to unlock.

No, it doesn't. Check in-game in the current version before answering in the future, please - it will spare you embarrassment and our repeating corrections of you.

Originally posted by 83athom:

2. H-Orion also has 120kps exhaust velocity with 100% efficiency compared to the Pegasus's 16 kps with 85%, you'll get a LOT more Δv with the 1x H-Orion than the 4x Pegasus despite their similar raw cruise power outputs (which was the point of the topic). The H-Orion also doesn't require power itself letting you just pick the smallest powerplant you have that will dedicate it's entire power output for your weapons. Pegasus has a lot more combat thrust when you stack on the multiples for sure, but it doesn't have the Δv capability to really make use of the thrust in combat effectively.

Except, you didn't say anything about deltaV, just about "probably almost the single best drive for thrust" which is obviously wrong.

You are also wrong that ships with Pegasus can't have deltaV to make use of its thrust in combat effectively which you would know if you've ever seen my examples of the maneuvering missile combat (look at the Pavonis forum).

Originally posted by 83athom:

I'm not saying to drop everything and just use H-Orions; just that they're a decent engine people overlook as "just a meme" without giving it a second glance. OP seems to have had the issue of focusing too much on rushing down directly to the "endgame" tech without looking at all their available options.

OP already has a way better drive than H-Orion and I don't think you have a way of knowing what he has researched before Borane Plasmajet Torch.

Originally posted by Asuzu:

After that you got to run gazillion researches to get to proper Torches, Tritons, etc. that will propel something heavier than a turd in space at ~60 dV which is considered bare minimum for an orbital defense fleet. Like, it's enough to fly to Moon and back, or Mars moons, or change orbits in Mercury with its huge ranges.

I never bother building early ships, considering it a waste of resources, just stay chill with allys and other AIs, push research.

So many times in the span of 2 years I proved to you that you didn't need anything even close to 60km/s deltaV for orbital defensive fleets (in any version of the game it was far below 20km/s even for the maneuvering combat) and you still persist in your strange reveries. What strikes me is that if you were right then even Ion Drive small ships can easily have more than 60km/s deltaV and be effective in the static combat in the very early game so what's the point in waiting for "proper Torches"?

Edit: Ah wait, I've just remembered: a large one (ship) fetish.

Originally posted by wei270:

didn't H-orions use to be supper heavy in mass, is that changed?

They are somewhat heavy but with ~200 Tons certainly not super heavy - in comparison, Neutron Flux Torch 1x has 1600 Tons and Molten Salt Fission Reactor II for Pegasus 6x has ~700 Tons