Engine power vs fuel efficiency

[Vensalir]

So I was looking at a spanking new 2000hp engine for my ship, but I'm not sure how much more fuel it will consume compared to the 1000hp one. Can anyone tell me if it's a viable buy and how much will it increase my fuel consumption ?

[Wlerin]

Which ship (specifically, how heavy)? Also keep in mind that the faster you get places, the less you have to spend on supplies and less Terror you have to deal with. Fuel is a lot cheaper and easier to obtain than supplies are, at least in the West. (In the East, supplies are easier... go figure.)

[Vensalir]

I'm still using the starter ship. Having trouble piling up enough echoes to buy the Corvette

[JavaDevil]

It'll eat your fuel, but fuel management is also dictated by the routes you take. Plan your voyages ahead of time, always keep your next stop in mind (and close), and depart with more fuel/supplies than you think you'll need (I usually leave London with 10/10) and you should be fine. Also, turn your lights off more to help save fuel a little bit.

[Wlerin]

I would get a bigger ship first. The starter engine goes well with the starter ship. I've a list of speeds vs. fuel consumption rates, but it's for the 5000 weight ships. Consumption rates will be the same, but your ship will be a little bit faster.

edit: Here.[i.imgur.com]

bph is barrels (of fuel) per hour. rph is regions per hour, i.e. how many times you can go horizontally from one of the orange lines on the map to another, per hour. It was the best measurement of distance I could think of.

[Vensalir]

Will work on getting a bigger ship then. Thanks for the tips

[CabbageFoot Kerman]

According to data given by Wlerin at 5000 weight efficiency of the engine scales down exponentially as engine power goes up, I wasn't sure what to make of the first 2 data point, but when comparing lets say the 1000 power to the 3500 power engine I calculate that 3500 is 1/6 as efficient for distance per fuel unit. I wonder if this trend is the same in lighter ships (meaning that high output engines heavily tax fuel cost in exchange for lower food and sanity cost) or if lighter ships see a less exponential decrease in fuel efficiency. I tested downgrading my freighter to the lightest ship while equipped the compulsion (3500) engine and I felt maybe only a tiny bit faster. Which points fast engines being super fuel inefficient regardless of weight, but maybe it takes more power to get a heavy boat going on the lower engine powers.

[Barrogh]

There is another thread where some experimental data was shared. I suggest you to check it, data is interesting.

Basically, it seems that as long as you use frigate, cruiser or dreadnought (ship with aft slot), 800p steeple engine with avid suppressor beats the hell out of any other travelling setup except maybe Fulgent Impeller with all the extra fuel efficiency you can get. Even then suppressor is probably competitive because even though overheated Impeller eats fuel faster than priests of Chapel of Light can imagine doing it to, erm, other things, you're saving some on supplies and time you need to burn your lamp (and at least you have an option to boost). And for _____ sake, suppressor doesn't kill your hearts and, even boosts veils.

It seems to me that other engines are only worth bothering with if you use a ship without an aft slot. Even then, it's typically only Serpentine or below.

Also consider that you typically don't get ganged at zee, and even then your guns can't target different targets at the same time, making aft guns all but useless...

There is something wrong with all this, IMO. But hey, I'm just happy that there is at least one reason to use anything but steeple-engine plus suppressor.

[the-truthseeker]

Yeah, pretty much, unless you are always activating your full power, the Fulgent Impeller is the best cost-effective engine to get with WE ARE CLAY and the Milebreaker if not worried about the -10 Hearts Penalty (unless needing the veils boost due to the reduction of the ship using Avid Suppressor instead.) This bump in engine power and efficiency and crew supplies reduction is the overall best non-flank-power option layout as listed here.

[rueckm]

Originally posted by Wlerin:

I would get a bigger ship first. The starter engine goes well with the starter ship. I've a list of speeds vs. fuel consumption rates, but it's for the 5000 weight ships. Consumption rates will be the same, but your ship will be a little bit faster.

edit: Here.[i.imgur.com]

bph is barrels (of fuel) per hour. rph is regions per hour, i.e. how many times you can go horizontally from one of the orange lines on the map to another, per hour. It was the best measurement of distance I could think of.

@Wlerin

Your results (especially regions per hour) are dependent on the routes you take. They are only reliable if you travel always exactly the same route.
Based on your data, one can calculate the effective fuel efficiency (Unit: Barrels per Power and Minute (bp(pm)) = bph * 60 / Power) showing that the more powerful engines are more efficient. The 800-Engine consume 0.058 bp(pm) while the 3500-engine consumes around 0.032 bp(pm)
PS: this makes only sense if you were always traveling "in the same gear".

[Barrogh]

Originally posted by rueckm:

@Wlerin

Your results (especially regions per hour) are dependent on the routes you take. They are only reliable if you travel always exactly the same route.
Based on your data, one can calculate the effective fuel efficiency (Unit: Barrels per Power and Minute (bp(pm)) = bph * 60 / Power) showing that the more powerful engines are more efficient. The 800-Engine consume 0.058 bp(pm) while the 3500-engine consumes around 0.032 bp(pm)
PS: this makes only sense if you were always traveling "in the same gear".

Pretty sure he was using "region" as a distance measurment unit and traveled in a straght line through them.

What you are pointing out looks like measurment inaccuracy. Granted, trend still stands even if results are skewed in opposite direction.

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by rueckm:

@Wlerin

Your results (especially regions per hour) are dependent on the routes you take. They are only reliable if you travel always exactly the same route.
Based on your data, one can calculate the effective fuel efficiency (Unit: Barrels per Power and Minute (bp(pm)) = bph * 60 / Power) showing that the more powerful engines are more efficient. The 800-Engine consume 0.058 bp(pm) while the 3500-engine consumes around 0.032 bp(pm)
PS: this makes only sense if you were always traveling "in the same gear".

Here is the raw test log:
http://pastebin.com/XTGmH3Pn
This describes the route I took (of course since the map is different from game to game it's not very useful). It was a direct N<>S straightshot, starting and ending by colliding with relatively straight east-west surfaces.

And my analysis, from which that screenshot was taken:
http://pastebin.com/XVLuRK1i
"Regions per hour", as Barrogh says, was an attempt to create a comparable measurement unit that other players would find meaningful. I did not actually travel a full region, but compared the length of the course travelled to the width of a region in map pixels (all regions have the same dimensions, though the N/S edges are not clearly marked).

Once I had established that there was no reason to test 1st gear separately, I was always in 2nd, and the numbers given in the final analysis are all for 2nd gear.

I do not see the purpose in calculating bp(pm). Even if the relation between speed and power is not known precisely, it is clearly not linear, so raw power is not a meaningful component in any attempt to find "effective" fuel efficiency. It would seem to me that the correct unit for efficiency here would be "regions per barrel", i.e. rph/bph, which is quite a bit simpler than whatever that mess is, and clearly demonstrates the inefficiency of larger engines:
3500 engine gives 0.516 regions per barrel on the Merchant Cruiser
800 engine gives 1.286 regions per barrel

It would be useful to take time into account as well due to Terror and Supplies, and perhaps that's what you were trying to do with bp(pm), but in effect all bp(pm) does is divide bph by power, and of course dividing by a much larger (but irrelevant) number will give a smaller result.

[rueckm]

Thanks for the reply.

Indeed, I was trying to create a Unit to reflect the speed as well, because I am trying to find out which combination of ship and engine allows me to make a maximum amount of echoes in a minimum amount of time trading between ports (I was already aware of the bpr values of the engines).

A fuel efficient (weak) engine frees up more cargo space (for tradable items) at the cost of your ships speed. I believe that in the end the longer travel time dominates vs. the bigger cargo space for i.e. mushroom wine, especially if one refuels at the iron republic, mount palmerston etc. (not to mention the cost of reducing terror).

Maybe I was to nit picky or I overthinking the problem.

[rueckm]

By the way:
I just noticed an error in my calculations, so forget everything I said ;)

[the-truthseeker]

Originally posted by rueckm:

By the way:
I just noticed an error in my calculations, so forget everything I said ;)

I'm not good at this kind of math-set up so I was excited I missed something. You tease you!