Understanding the fuel engines.

[Redstorm]

As the title says, I'd be grateful if someone could explain to me how to work the new fuel engines because Im lost.

[DoCtOr_CoOkIe]

Well, i suggest you go to youtube and search as they are rather complex to understand in plain text. Still I will try to explain my limited knowledge in a simplistic manner.


1) For fuel engines you first need to decide what type of fuel burners you want and how many cylinders you want (same build order as stable version engines so engine generator > crankshaft > cylinder and so on).

- Carburettor (100 power each) (can attach superchargers and turbochargers);
- Fuel Injector (200 power each) (can't attach anything extra).

Note: While the fuel injector produces twice the power of a carburettor it has a horrendous fuel consumption in addition to this, carbs have the possibility to reduce their acceptable fuel economy even further.

2) If you choose to use injectors jump to step nº 3, if not then it's time to choose what type of attachments to put in with carbs, you have two, the supercharger and the turbocharger, the former mainly provides low and mid rev fuel efficiency, while the latter provides mid to high rev efficiency. So you can specialise your engine economy to run at low revs, high revs or have a general purpose engine being decent at both.

2.1) Now onto placement of said attachments (I don't know about the 1 block turbo placement).

2.1.1) Inline Turbos - place the black turbine in contact with the cylinder, while the end of the white turbine in contact with the carb. Exhaust comes out from the side of the black turbine.

Note: Turbos work as a crappy exhaust in addition to their bonus.

2.1.2) Supers - place the down side of it in contact with the top of the carb.

Note: I'm not too sure it's the only way to connect them.

3) A very important part is cooling the engine, if you don't it shutsdown or even worse, blows up! Now to cool an engine you can use exhausts and radiators. Another important part is that injectors produce a lot of heat since they burn a lot of fuel so you need to make extensive use of radiators and exhausts.

Note: Radiators while they offer even better cooling than exhaust pipes, they cost overall fuel efficiency so remember that when you make your engine.

3.1) To connect pipes you just need to put them into contact with either a cylinder or the black part of a turbo.

3.2) To connect radiators, they need to be in contact with either: Exhaust pipe ends, cylinders, crankshaft or engine generator. You have two types of radiator the small and the large one. The major difference besides size is that the small one has more connections points than the large one.

4) Lastly you have to establish the role it will have by selecting between 2 main categories:

- High responsiveness engine (Good for powering laser or ACB shields);
- Low responsiveness engine (Good for maintaning constant power level).

After you decided you then go to the engine generator block and press q to acess it's menu, there you adjust the settings to your desired objective.


Hope this has shed some light on how fuel engines work

[Admiral Obvious]

I've been playing with the fuel engines for a while, didn't know there were responsiveness settings...

I've made a combination engine using carbs and injection. They deliver some pretty high power compared to the original engine designs, assuming you can run them without burning out.

It's pretty much for balance in my opinion, as it makes running super powered shields everywhere much less of a viable option.

I've yet to see an engine actually explode though, even when I completely overdo the strain on the engine

[DoCtOr_CoOkIe]

Originally posted by Admiral Obvious:

I've been playing with the fuel engines for a while, didn't know there were responsiveness settings...

I've made a combination engine using carbs and injection. They deliver some pretty high power compared to the original engine designs, assuming you can run them without burning out.

It's pretty much for balance in my opinion, as it makes running super powered shields everywhere much less of a viable option.

I've yet to see an engine actually explode though, even when I completely overdo the strain on the engine

Well about the engine exploding, i think it will be a feature somewhere in the future.
Overall I agree with you, with this upcoming update you can't have a perfect ship anymore you actually have to make compromises in it's design.

[Chrozayis]

@DoCtOrCoOkIe, that is very well laid out, I suggest making it into a guide with pictures

[DoCtOr_CoOkIe]

Originally posted by Chrozayis:

@DoCtOrCoOkIe, that is very well laid out, I suggest making it into a guide with pictures

Well thanks, I think I will do that, at the moment I'm just waiting for the new engines to come to the stable build.
On another aspect, I found a guide for the stable build engines. So if the author of that guide doesn't update his guide I'll create my own.