Jet Drive Engine Seems too Powerful

[Swiss]

The jet drive engine is extremely powerful, it alone provides a small amount of knots, but multiple together provides more than the other engines are able too (barring the engine stack) while taking up the same amount of space, and given how soon the player is able to unlock the jet drive engine, it makes researching later engines unnecessary as multiple jet drive engines taking up the same space as the larger engines would still provide more knots.

I suggest instead creating a separate type of slot specifically for this type of engine, similar to how nets take up fishing slots; all engines can be placed in a jet drive slot, but jet drive engines can only be placed in their dedicated engine slots; this will allow the developers to decide exactly how many jet drive engines can be used, and it will allow to larger engines to still be a viable option.

Next, I would only allow the jet drive engine to be researched after all other engines have been unlocked, it would be somewhat poetic that the final engine the player is able to unlock would provide the least amount of knots of any purchasable engine in the game; but more so, it would act as a final minor improvement to the speed for late-game players who are really just moving from place to place fast to get things finalised and done, players who no longer wish to spare effort nor care for the horrors of the ocean night.

And finally, a more optional idea to tack onto this: Any damage that would have otherwise disrupted the operation of a larger engine, would instead be redirected to a jet drive engine (if no jet drive engine is installed in the slot, the damage will not be redirected).
Currently, when filling up all engine slots with jet drive engines, it comes with the added benefit that when one of the slots is damaged, only one of the engines goes offline, instead of a much larger engine that would have been providing more knots at once; this final idea is supposed to retain this as a mechanic for the end game, as a trade-off for the loss of many jet drive engines.

Alternate suggestion: The jet drive engines would act more as attachments, each engine (perhaps over a certain tier) would come with a predetermined number of jet drive attachment points, other engines can take up the slots that those points exist on, preventing a jet drive from being attached, but if the player has played enough Tetris, or Resident Evil, they will be able to figure out the most efficient configuration to keep the attachment points clear.

[General Nuclear]

I have to agree, As soon as i saw the jet drive at the back on the research table, i quickly put aside all my attention from the other things and put all my research points into it, then i swapped out all my engine space for it, only to discover that the horror and most of the overall charm of the game was now gone.

[CrateEyeHowl]

They definitely need some kind of nerf. It's a no-brainer to equip them, since they're almost as fast per slot as the six-slot engine, and far more resilient. I agree with the idea to make them the final unlock instead of a parallel research tree.

[ResolutionBlaze]

Jet Engine should definitely be a sorta "filler" speed option rather than an objectively good and compact one.

Something you should be able to shove if you got a slot or two left but your current engines can't puzzle around to fit.

As it stands, just way too strong.

[Mike Loeven]

TBH it does take some doing to get enough of them to matter they are rather expensive per unit so it balances out. additionally when you unlock Haste engines kinda become a moot point

[Young Donald Sutherland]

The main problem is how early it branches off in the research tree. That makes putting research parts into the other branch a rather sad trap choice.
The other problem is that due to the way damage can disable equipment, the larger engines have a pretty big drawback.

I doubt that the devs are going to overhaul the game to that extent, but yeah, some tweaks there would improve the game's progression.

[Eshtian]

I do like your rework idea, as it provides value to the other engines, However I don't think the jet engine is a problem in base game.

At the end of the day, there's going to be a most optimal set-up in the game. having that be a single slot engine isn't any different from a big one. I do know that bigger engines have the risk of losing a lot more speed from one hit, but the game is generally easy enough that you don't need to worry about that, and I put my money where my mouth is.

I use the engine set-up featuring the larger jet engine, with small jet engines supporting it.

when it comes to upgrade points, I think that's fine. There's still plenty of items to research, and systems like these don't have a definitive quantity that is superior. If you were to cut out half of the engine tree, the research part of the game is still healthy.

[󠀡󠀡]

It should be hidden deeper in the research tree, slightly prior to when the most powerful engine.

[Mike Loeven]

Originally posted by Young Donald Sutherland:

The main problem is how early it branches off in the research tree. That makes putting research parts into the other branch a rather sad trap choice.
The other problem is that due to the way damage can disable equipment, the larger engines have a pretty big drawback.

I doubt that the devs are going to overhaul the game to that extent, but yeah, some tweaks there would improve the game's progression.

I would argue you can fix this by making engines lose X% per damaged slot instead of instantly disabled with one damage. even with the drawback though I still got the engine stack once available