(Bug?) 1500 engine power same speed with default engine

[Samseng Yik]

Or Engine Power give other benefit but not the moving speed ?

[😰]

It's not the same speed. It's just that the speed boosts are very small and usually not worth it on the default boat.

[Samseng Yik]

By the law of physics and momentum,
1500 power VS 800 power should at least provide 50% speed bonus.
The developer really eager to kill zee captains.

[😰]

Not really. You don't know the equation responsible for converting engine power to ship speed -- it's probably not linear. Someone on Reddit said they'd go and do some testing; I hope they come through, because I'm quite curious about it!

[Boink]

"Your ship will go faster but use more fuel"


I assume there's some kind of <weight> / <power> calculation going on with a <max speed> hidden variable, but if the gain is minimal, while the fuel consumption is raised, you're actually looking at a downgrade.


I was just about to buy the 1,000gp engine to make my trips faster: great to know it's not worth doing. -.-


(Seriously? It's like balance wasn't done here)

[GriP]

I've got the 1500 engine power and it's definitely faster. Not sure the 1000 one would be worth it, though (probably not).

Incidentally, the game says somewhere (can't remember where) that the bigger engines are more useful for larger ships, since without a large engine the big ships are slow as hell.

[😰]

I wouldn't say slow as hell, but yeah, they are slower. It might be the text for the engine-shop.

I view the need for more powerful engines on larger ships in the same light as I view the need for more crew on larger ships -- they're both increased expenditures required to maintain a more formidable vessel.

[Wlerin]

I'm working on teasing out the formula right now. Still a long way to go, but what I can say is that 5000 power gives about twice the speed of 1000 power, at least when installed on a craft of Weight: 5000.

[Boink]

Just did some experimentation with the smallest ship and the 1,000 gp (power 1500) engine.

The fuel consumption is ludicrously fast and the speed gain is tiny.


Tip for new players: do not upgrade your engines until you need to (when you buy a heavier vessel).

[Wlerin]

If you think that's ludicrous, try the Compulsion. That said, Fuel Efficiency (given by a certain officer and a certain Aft component) is a lot more effective than it says on the tin. The officer's listed 5% fuel efficiency seems to result in about 7.5% lower fuel consumption. At 60% Efficiency (possibly 65%? I goofed with the officer at some point during the experiment), a 5000 power engine uses the same amount of fuel for a given distance that a 1000 power engine does, but crosses that distance in half the time.


Still wouldn't put anything but the default engine (or maybe one of the special ones) on the starter ship. No need to.

[😰]

Yeah, I experimented with engines in my first couple of playthroughs, but with my current, successful captain, I didn't bother getting a new engine until I got a bigger ship for Certain Purposes.

The thing is that we don't know what fuel efficiency means either, since it's not something direct like "-5% fuel consumption rate" -- who knows what efficiency really refers to? So there's a lot of variables whose relationships need to be figured out -- engine power, fuel efficiency, ship weight, ship speed, fuel consumption rate. And it's not really the kind of game where I can motivate myself to meticulously test the mechanics; there's so much other stuff I want to be doing.

[Wlerin]

I'm more or less assuming that cargo has no effect. If it does, things get a whole lot messier. As long as it doesn't, it's possible to isolate most of the variables and figure out the underlying mechanics.

[Wlerin]

Another thing, with more powerful engines, it takes them longer to get up to their maximum speed. If your tests are over extremely short distances, they will seem a lot slower than they are.

[Jean-Luc]

The funny thing is the game advises you to make a new engine one of your first investments and the engine description claims it increases speed. Going from 800 power to 1600 power (1500 engine + 100 from officer) on the starting ship and I don't detect any difference. Not saying there's no difference but it's probably so miniscule I can't see it.

[Cryten]

They could be working with a water resistance formula that makes increases in speed beyound a certain point very inneffecient because of pushing through water become exponentially harder due to water compression. This is why most vessels in real life that dont hydro plane arnt that much faster then each other and most businesses go for size over speed.

[Trollified]

are you guys calculating the short boost speed? There is max speed and "all power to engines" speed. There is a huge difference between them