The most efficient engine

[Chuck]

This question is probably going to be more opinion based, unless im missing pretty important information, but oh well. I would like to see peoples ideas and discuss it.

What is the most efficient engine? In terms of volume and/or cost per engine power.

This is not including battery/rtg combo because thats kinda cheating in the cost department because the cost per engine power is basically infinite because other than building it, it has no cost.

This question could also be asked as 'what engine do you use and why' if youre not looking to get too math heavy.

[fleatoad]

The engine will depend on what you need it for most can be made to be very efficient then its down to how much power you want. If lots you go steam. CJE can be very efficient but takes up lots of space. RTG are very expensive you are looking at 1/2 million cost for 40k energy. You can make 40k energy from 2 large steam turbines for less than 1/10 of the cost.

[The man, the myth, the leg]

From what i know CJEs have the best peak material efficeny, but arent very flexible in terms of space, are very easy to cripple and have similar specilisation issues as fuel engines

Steam pistons can have both good material and space efficecny as long as you constantly run them at peak load

Fuel engines can either be material or space efficent, but not both

[Eudaimonia]

There is volume efficiency, there is material efficiency, and both are measured after X minutes of time.

RTGs and custom jet engines both come out with horrible stats within the time it takes to win a campaign, but they still exist because there are some very niche situations where they can be useful.

At a tiny scale, especially if very flat, steam turbines with batteries are the best because you can't make any other functional engine.

If you have a little more volume and can make a functional fuel engine, that is your best option. Which type of fuel engine, that would be up to your tactics.

Once you reach about 10k engine power requirements then steam engines usually have better stats than fuel engines.

And finally if you can fit them, the best engines are large piston steam engines. They are straight up designed to be the best, because they are the least laggy. Steam is already a lot more CPU friendly than fuel, and the low block count also helps a lot. This makes it so that the bigger craft that are generally more laggy and able to fit them will want to use them, making them less laggy than they could have been.

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But remember that you have to think about engines completely differently in adventure and campaign. In adventure they are always there, so steam engines will passively drain materials. In the campaign when craft are pulled out of play there is no passive drain, craft don't use engine power when stationary, and when they move they do so with a fixed 500ppm no matter what the efficiency of the engines in it is.

[dog]

- If you need a lot of *power* in the smallest space, an 8-piston large steam engine wins. If you need a little battery charge for your railguns or whatever, add *ONE* generator. Two generators loses you power. You can make these not use power when out of combat by using valves and ACBs.

- If you need a lot of *batttery charge* then use steam turbines. The most space-efficient one is 13x5x5. If you put an electric engine on your batteries, you can run your ship off your turbines while the crank engine is off.

- RTGs are crap. Useful maybe in something very small, but aren't small things supposed to be cheap? RTGs aren't cheap. And you still need batteries (more $$) and an electric engine.

- <10k power is nothing, making fuel engines underwhelming. And the obvious frame rate hit. And that sound. And they're huge for their power output. And have thousands of 1m blocks. Avoid.

- CJEs don't make much energy, but they are nice for small jets/etc that can't fit an engine. Getting a couple hundred power out of the CJEs to power the steering thrusters can be really useful. Using a CJE as a "backup" power source for "redundancy" is idiotic.

[FluzzBeam]

I use a 5x5x17 stackable supercharger engine that costs 5k mats, it does 11k power for 820 Power/Mat, and 18,5k for 400 P/M.

But I like to make relatively cheap ships for their size, with very low running cost. And I haven't been able to make a more efficient steam engine.

[Arte]

Put simply.

Steam, for Material cost, Power and volume cost

Only drawback would be Running costs but in the campaign it isn't a Major Issue

Conflicts shouldn't be drawn out.
Making Weapons that are very power hungry is not ideal but if you can strike the killing blow in minutes within a conflict it could save you heaps on material.

And that requires lots... of power.

Big inefficient Powerful engines are more efficient than losing.

Steams the go to.

[Quazy]

the best power for space i found was using a large boiler turbine. i think it was a 5x5x5 block of boiler and generator and could output about 24k e/s that was all you need to armor.

batteries are easy to line the bottom section of your ship for a low center of mass and fills irregular spaces. and electric engines are redundant and easy to fit gives full power from the start.

but expensive to run. great but they drink mats.
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