Fuel engines: basics, optimization, and game breakers

Hello, my name is Mnemonicgiraffe. I graduated from an ivy league college with a masters in advanced fuel theory and minored in speculative fuel theory. In this guide, I will run the beginners through the basics of fuel engines, the intermediates will learn advanced setup, and even the most hardened veterans might learn a bit about what is believed to be the pinnacle of material upkeep efficiency.

Introduction

The internal combustion engine is a complicated machine that burns fuels, and uses their stored energy to create rotational motion of a crankshaft, which then can be used to power a number of different things. In from the depths, fuel engines were the first and most commonly used method of energy generation. They are very efficient, fairly cheap, and can be used for a small plane engine, a massive, guzzling laser power source, or an experimental device that can create energy out of thin air. Either way, fuel engines are a capable and versatile energy source for all world conquering needs.

UPDATES

*August 2020 Edit, future updates*
With more recent updates, the fuel engine system has changed enough that a large amount of the basic information in this guide is now inaccurate. I'm going to start going through and updating this guide to reflect the current system, which I hope to have done in a month or two. I may also create a new guide while leaving this one up, I'm sure there are both people who have this saved and reference it and those who somewhat correctly assume any guide thats two years old would be outdated by now.


*May 2020 Edit, RIP penturbo, RIP mega refineries.*
Over the last few months the devs had made a number of rebalancings to fuel engines that significantly change how some of the mechanics work. While these changes have not been pushed for the stable branch yet, I'm going to start updating this guide in preparation. For starters, now that turbos have a limited amount of gas they can process, and they have been nerfed in general, chained turbos are no longer capable of making immensely cheap power. This effectively renders the penturbo design, or any chained turbo design dead.
In addition, they have also changed how refineries work, such that the fuel per material is effectively capped at 15. This means that especially in middle and long game fuel engines are much more expensive to run. I also need to update the refinery section accordingly, although I think ill wait till that actually hits stable.



*Jan 2020 EDIT, THOUGHTS ON THE USES FOR THE PENTURBO*
Two and a half years later, and yes, as of january 2020 all of this information as far as I can tell is still accurate and useful. Specifically, the quadturbo/penturbo design i detail at the end of the guide still works as it always did. You can still make pipe-monster engines that get in the ten-thousands of power per fuel at high RPMs.
However, what I wish to clarify here is not that the penturbo design works, but rather than as I finally got around to getting into campaign and finally completely conquering neter, I realized that you don't need this elaborate engine design to get damn-near free engine power.
Instead, what is much easier is to just make a base or ship somewhere you can move around that just has a giant refinery with like, 30 catalytic crackers. This basically gives you free fuel, which means you degenerates can use all the simpleton, paleo-tier fuel injector engines that you want and not care about the fuel costs whatsoever.
I could see a use for these in vehicles that have to go off the grid, or can't use batteries and RTGs for size or weight restrictions, or maybe you could use them to make supply easier on yourself in a localized material campaign by not having to refuel your giant PAC-ship every battle.
But in general, it seems like the easier solution to low fuel costs is a massive refinery and a supply chain, as a refinery can be on some backwater station, but the engine takes up space that could be used for guns and more guns.
Giraffe out.

Fuel: A valueable resource

Fuel is a resource seperate from material, similar to energy or ammo. It is created by using a fuel refinery, a combination of the fuel refinery masterblock, catalytic crackers, cokers, desalters, flare stacks, and pipes.
This is a fuel refinery (right) and two fuel storage blocks (left). 4 important things to keep in mind:
If it is underwater, it will stop producing fuel.
Altitude negatively affects its refining speed and efficiency.
The refinery creates dangerous gas from the refining process, which must be released from it.
The refinery creates a significant amount of heat, and explodes when destroyed.

Now for a few components that make the refinery more than an oversized ammo processor.

On the left, once again, is the fuel refinery itself. To its right are the catalytic cracker and the coker, then the desalter, then a flare stack.

Flare stacks are what release dangerous gas from the refinery. On the refinery's hud, it shows the dangerous gas levels. it also shows the efficiency level based on altitude and components, as well as the refinery's health. If gas levels get above 50, the refinery will take damage. be sure you have enough flare stacks. Flare stacks do not modify production speed or efficiency, just the safety of the refining procedure.










The desalter is a component you attach to the side of the refinery. In addition to a small efficiency bonus and speed penalty, it decreases the amount of gas build up and increases how effective flare stacks are. This allows for needing fewer flare stacks, which is a bonus since they are an additional heat signature for missiles to track.










The coker is another component that goes on the refinery. It has its own fuel per material used bonus, and another penalty to refining speed. You can use multiple of these.










The cracker is very similar to the coker, but has a larger efficiency bonus and a larger speed penalty. You can use multiple of these. Using one of each of these components combined, Fuel gained per material is doubled (assuming constant altitude)









Remember that a setup with more components is less wasteful of material, but very slow and expensive. If you are only refining a small amount of fuel, need a lot of production in a small space, or just dont care about fuel costs, a refinery and stacks by themselves is the better choice. Remember you can add however many cokers or crackers you like to further increase efficiency. You can add multiple desalters, but only one will provide a bonus.

Basic components

These are all of the components that might be used to create an effective engine for whatever situation it is optimized for. From left to right we have:
Fuel engine masterblock (White) Crank shaft (Dusty gray) Cylinder (Red) Exhaust (Orange) Fuel injector (Yellow) Carburettor (Green) Supercharger (Purple) Turbocharger and Inline variety (Blue) Adapter (Rusty) Radiator and large variety(Bronze).

Step by Step

The control block of any fuel engine. This goes at the front of the engine. Interacting with this block will show a very useful hud about that engine.









The crank shafts go in a line in front of the engine. If they are not connecting, make sure you are putting them on the right side of the engine, and that they are facing the right way. More crank shafts allow for more connection points for components.









Cylinders go on any side, or the end of the crank shaft. Cylinders are what burn the fuel. They waste more fuel at high speeds. They also have heat levels, and can overheat and shut down. At high temperatures, they have less output. They have connection points on all sides for extra parts. Using an adapter, you can make the cylinder farther away from the crank shaft, as shown. You cannot use two adapters in a row. The bottom side must face the connection point. (Crank shaft or adapter)









Exhausts go on any side of a cylinder. There is a large selection of different shaped pipes to choose from. Exhausts vent the used, hot gas away from the cylinder, cooling it. Exhausts can either flow away from the vehicle, or into a turbocharger. If you have a cylinder with no exhausts, it will overheat and shut off very quickly.









At this point, you have an engine that provides a small amount of power with poor efficiency. In the next section, I will show you how to use more components to make your engine more powerful and economic.

Advanced components

These are some more advanced components you can add to your engine to make it more powerful and use less fuel.

These are fuel injectors. They can be added onto any side of a cylinder. They have no opprotunities to add more components, which limits their maximum potential. They each create 200 power, but have only slightly more fuel eff. than a cylinder by itself, 108-76ppf for two injectors per cylinder, versus 99-69ppf for just a cylinder. They have two connection points, which means they can benefit two cylinders at once. It should be duly noted than since they increase the total fuel consumption rate, the cylinders will overheat much faster if you do not properly exhaust them. With two injectors each, while at max power they can overheat in just two to three seconds with no exhausts, accompained by a loud bang sure to make you jump the first time you hear it.









These are carburettors. They can be added on any side of a cylinder. They have five places to connect to cylinders and five places for additional components. carburettors are generally the parts you want for your engine, unless you need they extra double power from fuel injectors. They are the parts that allow even more connections to make your engine better. With two carburettors and nothing else for each cylinder, the engine has 119-83ppf, more than injectors or just cylinders. With two per cylinder and no exhausts the cylinder overheats in about nine seconds. They each only make 100 power, but are worth the cut in power output due to the possiblity of adding the following items to them.









These are Superchargers. They can be placed on any side except the bottom of a carburettor. all sides can connect to carburettors. Super chargers are simple, single block components that increase the efficiency of the engine when running at low speeds by providing the engine with extra air. With two carburretors to a cylinder and two superchargers to a carburretor we get 240-92ppf. You'll notice that at high speeds the efficiency is barely changed but at low speeds it has more than doubled. This effect increases if you add more superchargers, such as in the picture below.


















These are turbochargers. They increase ppf at high speeds. They are two blocks long. The normal variation has very specific connection points, unless you are doing something very interesting the black section should connect to a cylinder and the white portion should connect to a carburettor. The way turbochargers provide engine bonuses is that they act as an exhaust for the cylinder. They use the gas from the cylinder to give a bonus to the carburettor they are attached to, then vent it out an exhaust on the side.









You'll notice from this photo that despite attatching one carburettor and two turbochargers for every cylinder, the ppf levels are the same as with just carburettors. This is because there is no exhaust gas flowing through them, which means no bonus. When we ramp up the power to max, the readout on the hud, showing a ppf of 165-115 (Photo pending). You'll notice that the high rpm levels are closer to the low rpm levels because there is a bigger bonus at high speeds. There is another kind of turbocharger, however. It has the same general function as the normal type, but is shaped differently such that instead of the exhaust input being connected to the cylinder in most cases, it makes it easier to have the exhaust input seperate, so that gas can be pumped in however you wish. This can create unbelievably efficient engines scoring in the thousands of ppf. If enough people request it, i can add a section on how to make these kinds of engines.

Finally, the radiator is a component that delivers additional cooling to the cylinders, at the cost of some ppf. They come in small and large versions, and can be attached to just about any part of the engine.

The penturbo cylinder design and advanced exhaust mechanics.

The Penturbo design is a cylinder design that abuses the game's exhaust and turbocharging mechanics to consume virtually no fuel at high RPMs. The function of any turbocharger is to take in exhaust gas in one end, use it to boost whatever carburettor it's linked to, and then spit it out the other end. With traditional turbochargers, you place the input directly on the cylinder, means each turbo charger uses gas from one cylinder to boost one carburettor. But by carefully placing inline turbos, you can have the input open, and pipe in however much exhaust gas you want. The Penturbo cylinder design has a single carburettor and 5 inline turbochargers. However, the underlying principle here is not having a ton of turbochargers, but how you use your exhaust. To tell you the truth, the secret isn't the Penturbo design, but the idea of first connecting as much exhaust from cylinders as possible into a single pipe, then individually routing it through each and every turbocharger. For example, let's say you have a 4 cylinder engine with turbocharger cylinders. With normal turbos, you would get a bonus of 1 unit of gas (not the same unit as in the game) in each cylinder, giving a boost somewhere in the range of times 1-3, depending on number of turbos and engine RPM. But if we give each turbo a boost from 4 cylinders, we might get a boost of times 4-12 for each cylinder. Now if we had a 16-cylinder engine, well, things can get out of hand. It should be noted that the more cylinders you link together, the more massive the boost is. Now before we get into how to build the penturbo, i would just like to remind you to experiment on your own, and see what designs you can come up with. There's nothing like being able to have your own original way to break the laws of physics.

Buidling the penturbo

First, we start with a single cylinder, with a carburettor directly above it, as shown. Then, add exhausts around the side like this, or in a similar fashion. Make sure one corner is left open, this is for that exlusive fifth turbo.









Now add your five turbos. Three should be upright so the exhaust at the end is pointing up. The fourth should be latched onto the carburettor sideways, so that the exhaust at the end is pointing outward. Put the fifth on the side facing towards the open space in the exhaust ring. Make sure the exhaust on the side is facing into that gap. This is to avoid splitting the exhaust, which would half our bonus.










Now for this single cylinder engine here, we only have it's own exhaust to route into itself. If you have multiple cylinders of this, this is the part where you would make a central exhaust pipe. To start just route the pipe with all the exhaust into any turbocharger exhaust, in doesn't matter which. I chose to route it into one of the top ones here.








Now all you have to do is take the output of that turbo, and route it into the next one, and from there to the next and so on. Note that for larger engines, it can be very complex to do all the pipework required. Also, don't expect symmetry unless you're okay with half a bonus or you're an absolute logic puzzle mastermind.









Important, remember to take care of the exhaust at the end of the line. In the end it is still exhaust, and needs to begone.









At this point, or whatever point you finish building, you might want to go and take a look at the crazy stats shown on the engine block. However, right now nothing seems so incredibly spectacular. Why? Because the engine isn't running, so there's no exhaust to use for bonuses.









Let's put up a shield to get the engine running. In case you haven't noticed, this thing isn't exactly a beast when it comes to power capacity, so don't expect to power your massive jet collection with this. Now that the engine is at max RPM, you can see why you just spent half an hour figuring out how to do pipes.









That's over 700PPF at max RPM. And this is just a tiny, 100 power engine.

Conclusion

That wraps it up for fuel engines. If you are still confused about how they work, the best thing to do is just load up the game and mess around until you find what works for you. If you've got a burning question, a suggestion for the guide, or just a kind word for the author, leave it in the comments below. I understand this guide was more than bit wordy, so please, if something doesn't make sense, or you think a picture would help, leave a comment.

Guides coming soonish:
AI
Steam Engines
Aircraft
Advanced Cannons
CRAM cannons
Tanks
Particle Cannons
Submarines

[MnemonicGiraffe]

It sure is a trip the first couple dozen hours, make anything cool yet?

[molotov_mox]

I JUST CHECKED THIS GAME OUT HOLY **** MY BRAIN

[MnemonicGiraffe]

Unfortunately, this guide is a bit outdated, so the penturbo design no longer works as turbochargers now have a maximum amount of gas they can consume. I'm starting to consider coming back and redoing this guide for the new system.

[ShitpostStatus]

And I thought I knew how to make efficient engines...
Apparently not

[Showdown Samurai Sam]

Haven't been on PC in a while but I should probs get back to it

[Showdown Samurai Sam]

Yea

[MnemonicGiraffe]

well then i suggest either decreasing the number of cylinders and carbs slightly and adding superchargers or decrease cylinders and carbs a lot and add more turbos

[Showdown Samurai Sam]

Nah no batteries at all

[MnemonicGiraffe]

oh are you charging batteries? Theres a setting in the fuel engine master block called "battery charge" that limits how much engine power can be used to charge batteries. By default it's at 10%, you should set it to something like 50% or 100% for all your engines.

[Showdown Samurai Sam]

True true... Idk it'll take a long time to get it to perfection, I find it a bit annoying sometimes cus I'd like the engine to work at 100%thr but the game is like ha nah you don't need that much power, which tbh I don't so I could probably make a smaller engine that is even more efficient but find it annoying because to me it doesn't really make sense that you set the drive to 100% but the engine stays below 10%