Help! Gear Ratios Inverted (Noob to Advanced Engines)

[recman2]

Hello. It appears my gear ratios are inverted so I cannot make my ship go faster without using the 1:1 ratio. For example I have 2:1, 3:1, etc. These are lowering my engine RPS where instead I should be using the gearbox to raise my propeller RPS while keeping the engine RPS constant. Or at least I think so as I every guide I find online says I should be using a ratio of 1:3, 1:2, or something similar, which is not available for me. I only have the inverted versions. I have the arrows on the gearbox facing the engine and if I do switch them the other way it slows my ship in further, as I believe it is raising the torque instead.

Could someone please give me some advise because currently 1:1 is the only ratio that doesn't slow my propeller RPS down, but it also burns through my fuel as the engine RPS is so high. At the moment I'm thinking the game's glitched as every other guide talks of ratios that don't exist for me but if I'm making a noob mistake I wouldn't be surprised either as I only recently started playing and just switched to advanced engines today. This gearbox things has me really stuck though and I can't find any answers through online searches.

Thank you!

[agrimes]

There's no law that says it's illegal to hook up the gearbox backwards. ;)

[aK]

You're confused majorly.

The game only has the numbers in one direction. 2:1, 3:1 and so on. There is no such thing as 1:2 1:3 anymore, in order to do this you flip the gearbox the other way around, which achieves the same thing. Everybody has the same gearbox ratios. You flip the box to invert.

ENGINE to <<backwards facing box @ 3:1<< will spin your wheels / prop 3 times faster than your engine increasing top speed while losing torque.

ENGINE to >>frontwards facing box @ 3:1>> will spin your engine 3 times faster than your wheels / prop, decreasing top speed but giving huge boosts to torque and towing performance.

[Substancer]

I think most people like me look those arrows at first as direction where power should be going, They should be rather seen as symbols of greater and less than reference, or increase/decrease ratio. I don't even think gearbox being "backwards" any more, and most common application of gearbox is to increase rps of engine, something you don't see with real world combustion engines.

[recman2]

Thank you very much for your quick replies. I was reading so many things online that spoke with the ratios the other way I thought my game was messed up. I think I get now that the 3:1 ratio doesn't necessarily mean that the ship will move 3 times as fast as with the 1:1 ratio, which is what I was expecting last night. Now I can continue building happily until I get stuck/confused again, haha. I do love this game.

Thanks again!

[Host]

I think every reply here misunderstood the OP, including you, OP.

If you read this sentence carefully:

These are lowering my engine RPS where instead I should be using the gearbox to raise my propeller RPS while keeping the engine RPS constant.

It's clear that you were using the gearbox correctly and your engine just doesn't have enough torque to drive the propellers at 3x speed. Try using smaller and/or fewer propellers, or more and/or bigger engines.

The large engine has the highest torque at low RPS.

[recman2]

They confirmed I was using the gearbox correctly and there wasn't some other way to use it. I was all messed up with thinking ratios were inverted lmao. I was getting quite confused when both my engine and propeller had lower RPS in the higher gear ratios (just a small engine and small propeller, as large of a ship as you can make in the beginner workshop). But then I did some experimenting with that advanced engine example that comes with the game, and noticed that while out of the water the propeller moved exactly to a 3:1 ratio to the engine while the gear box was set to 3:1, but in the water this was not true. And then I realized there must be drag or other factors from the water and the size of the ship it is pushing. So yea I just realized I need more engines and propellers to move faster lol.

But ok now I get how torque relates to it all. I had a large ship with large engines on simple engine mode and noticed how slow the large props moved. High torque, low RPS for the big stuff, gotcha. Probably time to get the next sized prop for my ship soon. Can you connect multiple engines to one prop? Like say 3 small engines to one large propeller? and if you can would it be optimal to use 3 gearboxes or just one after the piping connects from the engines before the propeller?

Thanks

[Host]

Yeah, I think you generally want to gear the RPS down (gear box arrow pointing away from the engine). I don't think using a larger propeller will help if your engine is already struggling with the smaller ones. You need to match bigger propellers with bigger or more engines, but not sure, don't quote me on that.

For multiple engines you should be able to combine their power right away before any gearboxes.

[recman2]

Awesome, that makes things easy. Ok will probably stick to large props with large engines and small props with small engines. Thanks again

[Tchey]

Hi !

This topic is a bit old, but i'm still confused.

To have faster props, i need :

engine, gear>, props

or

engine, gear<, props

?

[Host]

The latter:

Originally posted by Tchey:

engine, gear<, props

But only if there's enough engine power, otherwise it may be the same speed or even slower than 1:1.

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

Originally posted by Tchey:

Hi !

This topic is a bit old, but i'm still confused.

To have faster props, i need :

engine, gear>, props

or

engine, gear<, props

?

To put it simply: There's never a very simple answer, as sometimes you need more torque to move faster, or at all.

Luckily, boat propellers can be moved with little power, as they have little resistance.

Imagine the arrows on the gearbox as > or < (greater than or less than) icons. Engine < Prop would mean you want the prop to have greater amount of rotations than the engine gives.

Just remember that higher gears (that is, more power) also means less torque. If you have an engine with 11 torque(small diesel engine), a 1:3 gear means you only have 3.6 torque left. This may not be enough to get the propeller to run faster than with a 1:2 gear and 5.5 torque.

[Tchey]

I think i get it now.

My "Turbo" button is actually a "Break" haha... I need to change the label...

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

I forgot i made this at some point. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1989382830

[SEK_SgtFox]

what i found out in alot of testing is that the 6:5 ratio is actually the fastest after 1:1 so use that for a bit more speed and make the gearbox face the engine with the arrows as already said here, also more engines per prop increases their speed aswell up to a certain point

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

Originally posted by SEK_SgtFox:

what i found out in alot of testing is that the 6:5 ratio is actually the fastest after 1:1 so use that for a bit more speed and make the gearbox face the engine with the arrows as already said here, also more engines per prop increases their speed aswell up to a certain point

This entirely depends on load and what the engine is capable of as well as what it's working. For a normal, small prop, If you can run a 1:2 gearbox with 10 RPS, you're better off than running it at any lower gearing and you won't lose any speed whatsoever, and you're better off with significantly lower fuel consumption.