Helium-3 mines?

[a random potato]

I have the tech. I have a lvl 3 station in an interface orbit (lowest orbit possible) of Jupiter. I don't see the option to build it. What am I missing?

[Ericus1]

Which version of the game are you on?

[a random potato]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Which version of the game are you on?

0.4.38 is what the patch says at the bottom of the boot up/main menu screen

[Ericus1]

So that's the release branch. I don't think the H3 mines were introduced until 0.4.40 or .41.

[a random potato]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

So that's the release branch. I don't think the H3 mines were introduced until 0.4.40 or .41.

Yeah, I was just noticing that the amount of actual fissiles on the entire map is insufficient to run a large space economy, and get enough antimatter to do anything useful with.
My most current play through had me running completely out of fissiles because I was trying to get some antimatter production up.
You can't run mine bases of any size outside of the earth orbit without nuclear or fusion power, so I had a lot of fusion reactors, then heavy fusion reactors, both of which still take fissiles. Add to that the burden of super-colliders, and I had no spare fissile production to build ships with. I had to turn off the antimatter production to get SOMETHING. (edit- This precludes ever using any drive that has fissiles as fuel, there just isn't any)

It may just be the random allocation of amounts on my map seed, but this has the feel of an unbalance waiting on a fix like "get a helium 3 mine and all your reactors on bases and ships now don't need fissiles from other mines now"

[Ericus1]

IIRC, most fusion drives don't use any fissiles for fuel before the patch that implements the H3 mine. Antimatter is quite fissile heavy because of supercollider consumption. You can build late game Titans with fusion drives that use trivial amounts of fissiles.

[a random potato]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

IIRC, most fusion drives don't use any fissiles for fuel before the patch that implements the H3 mine. Antimatter is quite fissile heavy because of supercollider consumption. You can build late game Titans with fusion drives that use trivial amounts of fissiles.

Eyup. Still figuring out a bit which of the bewildering number/type of drives are appropriate for which roles.
It has taken me a while to get the hang of all the other game systems, but it is time to figure that part out.

Thank you for your time, I appreciate it.

[Ericus1]

The drive charts here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mTyKNpRoOmvnuhQ4JBqX_eewmLrSvI8z

Are actually quite handy to get a feel for the various drives. The latter charts compare drives performance against various ship masses so you can see how effective they are at moving larger and larger ships.

Most of the drives either have niche use cases - filling very specific rolls or purposes - or offer different paths along lines of techs. For example, you generally would not go down both the molten core fission and gas core fission lines; you would pick one of those and advanced down their drive paths. So for instance if you choose gas core Burners are the first solid if mediocre drive that can "do it all", i.e. has decent combat acceleration and decent delta-V and thus range. Then the top drive of the line, Firestar, is good for finally getting ships up to about battlecruiser size decent combat performance.

For drives which you use largely depends on first answering the question "what do I want this ship to do". For example is this ship a local defense ship that will never leave the orbit of the planet it was built around? Then you don't need much delta-V but want higher accelerations. Is this ship meant to go long distances, like a colony ship? Look for high exhaust velocity and delta-V, but accelerations aren't that important. Etc.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

So for instance if you choose gas core Burners are the first solid if mediocre drive that can "do it all", i.e. has decent combat acceleration and decent delta-V and thus range.

I wonder, what players that like Burners use their "decent" combat acceleration for? Especially when they can earlier have really decent combat acceleration of Teardrop, good combat acceleration of Fission Spinner and amazing combat acceleration of Pegasus.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Originally posted by Ericus1:

So for instance if you choose gas core Burners are the first solid if mediocre drive that can "do it all", i.e. has decent combat acceleration and decent delta-V and thus range.

I wonder, what players that like Burners use their "decent" combat acceleration for? Especially when they can earlier have really decent combat acceleration of Teardrop, good combat acceleration of Fission Spinner and amazing combat acceleration of Pegasus.

And those all have way worse EV. He's talking about an all-rounder.
Also, Burner requires FAR less faction research than Pegasus, and is guaranteed instead of 50% for Spinner or 80% for Teardrop (though that one can be guaranteed with Science and Autonomous Research Groups) and then 30% for Pegasus.
You really ought not give advice that is predicated on unlocking non-guaranteed faction projects, that can't be made guaranteed either.

[corisai]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

And those all have way worse EV. He's talking about an all-rounder.

Who need this all-rounder while Helicon is more then enough for midgame? Or I'm missing and devs "fixed" and banned a deceleration burn interception?

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Pawleus:

I wonder, what players that like Burners use their "decent" combat acceleration for? Especially when they can earlier have really decent combat acceleration of Teardrop, good combat acceleration of Fission Spinner and amazing combat acceleration of Pegasus.

And those all have way worse EV. He's talking about an all-rounder.

Yes, and he is talking about its "decent" acceleration (or rather Thrust) which I am curious for what purposes is decent because for me it's indecently low (so not "all-rounder" at all) - it would perhaps help me (and perhaps others) to understand why some people like Burner which for me is very bad because you have much cheaper specialized options that are better for the early static missile combat and for the early maneuvering missile combat (Grid or Helicon is much better for interplanetary transfers with the static combat, Teardrop is much better for local transfers with the maneuvering missile combat at which Burner is awfully bad).

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Also, Burner requires FAR less faction research than Pegasus, and is guaranteed instead of 50% for Spinner or 80% for Teardrop (though that one can be guaranteed with Science and Autonomous Research Groups) and then 30% for Pegasus.
You really ought not give advice that is predicated on unlocking non-guaranteed faction projects, that can't be made guaranteed either.

As you noticed Teardrop can be guaranteed and is FAR cheaper than Burner - you certainly ought not give advice for a worse option that is much more expensive at the same time.

Even if much cheaper non-guaranteed drives are not unlocked (and Pegasus is still cheaper in research than Burner by a small amount) you don't loose much because you can always go for a more expensive worse but assured option (however Firestar is certainly not guaranteed with its 40%) - one does not preclude the other.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Teardrop is much better for local transfers with the maneuvering missile combat at which Burner is awfully bad.

How much worse even is Burner than Teardrop in acceleration? Burner has half the combat thrust, but 4x as much EV meaning 1/4 as much propellant is needed. That extra mass eats away at the thrust advantage.

As you noticed Teardrop can be guaranteed and is FAR cheaper than Burner

6250 faction research vs 4500 is not that much of a difference. And unless you have total control over global research, one of the other factions is probably going to pick Gas Core Systems once you have Molten Core Systems and so the world will need to get through that price tag anyway.

(and Pegasus is still cheaper in research than Burner by a small amount)

No it isn't? Pegasus is much more expensive in faction research. Pegasus needs 500+1000+2000 for the reactors, 3000 for Teardrop or 7000 for Fission Spinner, and 12000 itself, or a total of 18500 or 22500, compared to 6250.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Teardrop is much better for local transfers with the maneuvering missile combat at which Burner is awfully bad.

How much worse even is Burner than Teardrop in acceleration? Burner has half the combat thrust, but 4x as much EV meaning 1/4 as much propellant is needed. That extra mass eats away at the thrust advantage.

IIRC, the most you can get for a missile Escort with Burner and 1 tank (that give about 13km/s deltaV) is 2.1G while for Teardrop with 3 tanks (that give between 9.5 and 10.7 km/s deltaV depending mostly on a hydrogen storage module) is 3.4G. While 3.4G and 9.5km/s allows you to fight with Riverjacks without entering the effective range of Irridescent Stars (even after 0.4.47) against even 4G ships so your Escort can be even unarmored, 2.1G is much too low for that so you have to give it armor lowering its acceleration even further.

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

6250 faction research vs 4500 is not that much of a difference. And unless you have total control over global research, one of the other factions is probably going to pick Gas Core Systems once you have Molten Core Systems and so the world will need to get through that price tag anyway.

Almost 40% increase in the faction research is already substantial but additional 20000RP for the global tech before you can even do it just kills the idea. Yes, you don't have to invest your RPs into the global tech but you will then have to wait for it researched much longer and time is also cost (I often say it's the most precious resource, also in TI).

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

No it isn't? Pegasus is much more expensive in faction research. Pegasus needs 500+1000+2000 for the reactors, 3000 for Teardrop or 7000 for Fission Spinner, and 12000 itself, or a total of 18500 or 22500, compared to 6250.

OK, I admit the amount of RPs you invest in the global Gas Core tech might vary widely so comparing RPs needed for Pegasus and Burner isn't fair but it's also not fair to limit their comparison to the faction research alone. Generally, I will stop comparing Pegasus to Burner because their stats too much differ unless you will consider Burner for the maneuvering combat (it's so bad in it you shouldn't) - Pegasus should be compared with Firestar.

[corisai]

Gas Core tech have a hidden advantage - you need it for tier 2 Advanced Fission powerplant.

But such massive gap in technology requirements between t1 and t2 have zero sense for me (neither fission providing same power density as solar energy) so I'd modded it to require Molten Core / Gas Core (for T3) instead of Gas Core / Advanced Fission Reactors.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Almost 40% increase in the faction research is already substantial

As a percentage, it's a fairly large difference, but in absolute terms 1750 RP just isn't that much by the time this should be available.

but additional 20000RP for the global tech before you can even do it just kills the idea. Yes, you don't have to invest your RPs into the global tech but you will then have to wait for it researched much longer and time is also cost (I often say it's the most precious resource, also in TI).

As I said, unless you have total control over the global research priorities, one of the other factions will probably pick Gas Core Fission Systems and then it needs to be paid for anyway, and you the player are probably going to pay the largest portion of that in an effort to regain control over global research. So I wouldn't really include the global tech cost as part of the cost for getting Burner, it's really just the delay.