Engines and all the stuff around them

[True_poser]

tl;dr - use antimatter engines and transient trait.


Ok, after the first major update engines started to be different.
And that's great.
However, there are many things left unexplained about them in the client.

Engines differ by:
- speed (transient trait effectively doubles it)
- speed in anomalies
- maneuverability
- power usage
- cost
- initiative rating

The only important thing is speed, and I'll explain why everything else does not matter.


Speed
The speed of your ships is important not only in combat, but in exploration/expansion too.
The game uses seamless galaxy, which means for travel your ship "just" spends 20 turns moving in a specified direction.
But also the ship has supply range - i.e., how many turns can it fly directly away from your nearest colony.

That means your ship can fly floor(ship_speed*20*supply_range_turns/sector_height) sectors max!
Sector's height or width seems to be 1250 moves if you're interested.

So if you just can't reach that system, maybe, it'll make sense to change engines in your colonizer.

Engines do change their speed when they are researched:


See that little underdog, graviton engines?
Yes, that's why no playable race starts with it.
At level one without supply bays you'll only fly one sector from your home planet!
And if you wish to colonize something even with two supply bays on your colonizer you'll be forced to search something suitable in two sector radius.


So, what does transient trait add?
Oh, it does wonders. Your ships fly twice as fast!
But not only that.

Ship without supply bays can do only 5 turns.
On level one (when you need colonizing most) that means 3 sectors for nuclear engines, 2 sectors for fusion and organic, 1 sector for graviton engines and 4 sectors for antimatter.
But add transient to the mix, and you get 6 sectors for nuclear, 4 for fusion and organic, 3 for graviton and 8 for antimatter.
You have from 4 to 9 more chances to find a suitable planet instantly with transient.

I'd do a cool chart describing range in sectors, but they're just incomprehensible.
I can send you a gnumeric or excel spreadsheet where everything is neatly described.


Speed in anomalies
We don't have much anomalies, so that's irrelevant.
Here's a graph, though:



Maneuverability
Despite fusion engines having "good" maneuverability and antimatter "poor", that doesn't mean anything.
I've built ships of all twenty types (4 sizes * 5 engines) and I can assure you that maneuverability comes from moves per turn. I.e., from speed.


Power usage
Power usage by engines is negligible if you didn't overload your ship by beam weaponry.
Even in that case, more speed the better. You want to get close to hit the enemy, you can sacrifice some guns.

Also, you could read in engine description that it "works best" with certain type of generator.
In-game it means engine uses half of the energy it would use with any other generator.


Cost
No, engines do not cost much.
The nuclear engines are the most cheap, antimatter and graviton cost the same and are the most expensive, and fusion and organic cost the same and are in-between.
However, the spread in scouts is 0.01bc, in transport it's 0.05bc, in cruisers it's 0.2bc and in motherships it's 0.4bc.

Don't worry about engines cost, really.


Initiative
Well, it's a tricky one to test (therefore I don't yet know, does transient trait affect this; I'll check later).
I don't know how's who attacked who reflects on initiative.
However, let's get back to the engines.

Fusion engines are the worst, so they got the initiative rating 2.
All other engines have initiative rating 4.
Ship's initiative is engine_initiative*ship_size.
Ships with the least initiative rating get to move first.

That means ships get their moves in following order:
- fusion scout
- other scout or fusion transport
- fusion cruiser
- fusion mothership or other transport
- other cruiser
- other mothership

With fusion engines very quickly falling behind all other engines in speed, I can't think of a situation where it would have mattered.
Missile boats? Really advanced torpedoes? Snipers with heavy beams?
I don't know.


Oh, and before you ask:
- nuclear engines - Humans only
- organic engines - Barbeck only
- fusion engines - Barsig, Kamzak, Kuntari
- antimatter engines - Gargal, Lezgoon, Tantik
These races have matching generators from start, too.

[True_poser]

Ok.

First, I stand corrected about initiative.
It may be quite important if you're keen on attacking by small fleets of small ships.
Having your scouts blown apart by fusion transports is interesting, but doesn't give you victory.

So, fusion+transient may make an interesting combination.


Second, I managed to do a somewhat legible chart of radius in sectors vs techlevel, engine type and transient trait.
Here it is:



Keep in mind, it's radius.
Map ingame is 20x30 sectors all times except "low number of stars" where it's just 10x10.
Effective radius of 7-8 means you got a whole quadrant in your pocket.
Effective radius of 15 sectors allows you to travel almost around all the map if you're somewhere in the middle of it without any allies or additional colonies.

[keller]

I love the way you have broken this down. Would you say that the engine speeds need a little tweaking?
Now as to why nuclear engines are great for combat, they have the most awesome turning ability. Say you design a ship with a couple port and starbort weapons, if a ship during combat is out of arc, you can turn your ship 2 or 3 times and be able to hit the target ship with all weapons. With other engines, this is pretty much not the case.

[True_poser]

Would you say that the engine speeds need a little tweaking?

Well, yes, I think.
I don't like linearity of the development, I don't like featureless of engines.
I'd like to have some bumps in research and some things to choose.

Well, I'd like to tweak many things, starting from invasions and up to economy.
However, this will result in a quite different game and I don't think the current AI will cope with it.
Anyway, if my family and work will allow it, I'd, however, like to try as soon as .har unpacking will be available.

Now as to why nuclear engines are great for combat, they have the most awesome turning ability.

I didn't find it to be so amazing, but I may be wrong.
I'll recheck maneuveribilty.

Say you design a ship with a couple port and starbort weapons

Actually, even if I do build a beam ship (seriously, try antimatter torpedoes, they're awesome), I do two frontal heavies for planetary bombardment and spread light mounts all around.
As armor and shields here absorb percents but not some fixed values, damage from lights will always come through.
Also, I find turning controls kinda awkward.

[True_poser]

Nah.
All types of ships with all types of engines with matching or non-matching generators make a 360 turn in 32 moves.
The bigger the ship, the more awkward pointer position needed to turn it correctly needed, though.

So, far I couldn't find what maneuverability means in-game.

Here's an obligatory chart:

[keller]

So, far I couldn't find what maneuverability means in-game.

Basically it is how much your ship can turn left and right during combat.

[True_poser]

Well, yes.
But it is 32 moves per 360 degrees cost regardless of ship's size and engine.
So it's a function of speed.

[keller]

Yes and no. Speed determines how far the ship can travel in space , basically how fast it will get from one system to another
Manuverability on the other hand only effects how many degrees your ship can turn during combat. So if have nuclear engines, you can turn your ship a lot more than if you have an engine with a lower manuverability rating. Not sure what the exact amounts are but I would say you can turn your ship around 270+ degrees with a nuclear engine and around 170 degrees with an organic or antimatter engine. Now while this doesn't seem like much a difference, when you don't have a bunch of weapons that have a full 360 degree arc the nuclear engine will allow you enough turning ability to be able to turn (repeatably) and bring all your other weapon arcs to bare.

Antimatter rocks at giving you the fastest traveling ships and I use them on my scout ships and colonizers but lets hope you have some torpedoes (360 degree arc) when going into combat otherwise you will have some weapons that might not even have the opportunity to fire.

Now you may be able to go farther in combat with antimatter, but little good it will do if you can not turn your ship into position to fire your weapons. The engines with the worst turning ability in my opinion is the organic engines.

Hope this helps clear things up a little. I would like to see at some point the actual amount of degrees that a ship can turn be included on the specs and information of the various engines.

[True_poser]

Ok, here's how I done things.
I:
1) select a ship built specifically for this purpose, so I certainly know it's engines
2) record the numbers of moves left
3) turn the ship 180 degrees
4) repeat steps 2 and 3 until I'm certain in the consistency of the results

All my data says that turning 180 costs you 16 moves, turning 90 costs you 8 moves, so it's just a function of moves per turn, i.e., speed.

I'll recheck this on lower tech levels, but I doubt I'll find something there.

[keller]

Ah, now this is where it gets a little confusing because turning the ship costs movement points. However no matter how many movement points your ship has it will still only turn a certain amount( depending on the engine type). Long story short, I would at some point like to see the turning ability of ships completely independent of the ships speed so that it does not deduct any movement points. What are your thoughts on this guys?

[True_poser]

Nope, I was not right.
Looks like 32 rounds per 360 is only true for scouts on level 1 and for every type of ship at level 10.

Somehow in the levelling up progress the cost of turning diminishes to 32 per 360, but it may be inconstant for different types of engines.
Oh, well, I'll check it once I have time.

I would at some point like to see the turning ability of ships completely independent of the ships speed so that it does not deduct any movement points

Inertia stabilizer/inertia negator as in MOO2?

I don't know, actually.
I'd like the turning cost to be dependent on how much free space is there on the ship (so the old ships after weapons mniaturization will still have some edge).

I'd like all these things to be transparent and shown to me as a player, that's all.

[keller]

I honestly think that the turning ability should be an entirely different technology. A simple thruster that can be damaged in combat (the more damage the less you could turn) and the same with engines (the more damage they take the less you go forward). At present, both turning and moving forward are either both available or both not available (depending on if the main engine is damaged)
What are your thoughts on this ?

[True_poser]

I don't like it.
Sure, in reality you'll have main engines, maneuver engines, etc.
But we already have Space Empires, where it's done ad absurdum.

I'm ok with rough classification (and rebalance) like:
- Nuclear engines are jack of all trades
- Graviton engines are op, but you'll have to boost them up to 7-8 for them to be better than competition
- Fusion engines are like nuclear, only worse, however they give you the first strike
- Organic engines start strong, but quickly reach their max speed, however they turn like nothing else
- Antimatter engines make you a straight-shot arrow, like Vlad's Annihilator car in Carmageddon -

[Kris Lighthawk]

Very informative post about engines, but under the section about the range engines give you, you completely fail to mention the logistics teck, which is very important to how far away from your colonies you can travel, as it gives you one extra turn per level to all your ships… (logistics level 6 effectively doubles the range of ships without supply pods)
For most engines researching logistics gives you more range than researching engines teck. You should do both for the most effective range boost, but logistics should be prioritized

[keller]

For most engines researching logistics gives you more range than researching engines teck.

Higher tech levels only increase the speed at which a ship travels through the galaxy, but as you say, logistics is what actually determines how far it can go. Think of it like a drag race - no matter how fast they go there is a finish line and the distance of the finish line from the starting point would be determined by the logistics tech level.

[True_poser]

but under the section about the range engines give you, you completely fail to mention the logistics teck

Nah, I don't.
Logistics just gives you +1 turn per its level for any ship and supply bays do add turns depending on the ship type (+5 for a scout, +2 for a transport, +1 for a cruiser, +0.5 for a mothership).

I didn't do graphs for 15+ turns, because that's basically the whole universe with any engine.

How exactly do you achieve your nine turns range (a transport with two supply bays or a transport with one supply bay and level 3 logistics) is irrelevant.

[Beam316]

but under the section about the range engines give you, you completely fail to mention the logistics teck

Nah, I don't.
Logistics just gives you +1 turn per its level for any ship and supply bays do add turns depending on the ship type (+5 for a scout, +2 for a transport, +1 for a cruiser, +0.5 for a mothership).

I didn't do graphs for 15+ turns, because that's basically the whole universe with any engine.

How exactly do you achieve your nine turns range (a transport with two supply bays or a transport with one supply bay and level 3 logistics) is irrelevant.

Well 1st very usefull info about the engines and also very well thinked @True_poser, but the whole Universe is many more than the whole galaxy wich is the case in this matter anyway

[True_poser]

Well, a proper galaxy (even a dwarf one) is even more stars than we can imagine, let alone simulate and govern.
A classic novel, "Lost: Fifty Suns" is based on this, btw.

However, the game universe is just 600 sectors with 210 stars max (less stars than in 25 ly radius from Sun), so what?


Let's return to supply bays and logistics.
tl;dr: don't worry, pay attention to the range shown in design screen and use graphs above.


Logistics is an inalienable part of any race build.
You get +1 turn in supply range for free (so the base supply range is 4) and then you get +1 for each level, up to 14 turns.
That's why I chose to do charts for just 5-14 turns.

Ok, now to supply bays.
Supply bays take 20 space and you can have 8 of them max, as you have no more slots for special equipment.

1 supply bay does +5 turns for a scout.
1 supply bay does +2 turns for a transport.
1 supply bay does +1 turns for a cruiser.
1 supply bay does +0.5 turns for a mothership.

So, how far we can go?
A scout has 20 space (30 with aux pods), so they can carry only one supply bay.
That means 5(base)+1*5=10 turns flight range max.

A transport has 100 space (150 with aux pods), so they can carry up to 7 cargo bays.
That means 5(base)+7*2=19 turns flight range max.
However, if you want to add a colonizer module, that will limit you to 5 cargo bays, i.e., 15 turns flight range max.
Still more than enough, also, you have enough space to drop in survey instruments.

A cruiser has 200 space (300 with aux pods), so they can carry 8 cargo bays without any need for sacrificing a valuable slot for aux pods.
That means 5(base)+8*1=13 turns flight range max.

A mothership has 400 space (600 with aux pods), so it's the same, 8 cargo bays.
That means 5(base)+8*0.5=9 turns flight range max.


What happens if we mix ship types?
It's pretty easy to determine too.
1 supply bay is 100 supply units.
So, a scout uses 20 supply units per turn, a transport - 50, a cruiser - 100 and a mothership - 200.
So we sum up all consumption in a fleet, sum up all supply units and divide latter by former, floor it and add up base range.

Imagine a fleet of two scouts, one with supply bay (10 turns), another without (5 turns), logistics 1.
That means floor(100 units / 40 consumption) = floor(2.5) turns = 2 turns.
2+5 = 7.

Ok, let's add up a transport with two supply bays to the mix (9 turns).
You get floor (300 units / 90 consumption) = floor (3.33333) turns = 3 turns.
3+5 = 8.

So, if in order to boost up range of your mothership fleet of three, you can add seven supply transports.
You get floor (4900 units / 950 consumption) = floor (5.158) turns = 5 turns.
That means 5+5 = 10 turns and you don't sacrifice combat capabilities of your motherships. All guns, man!

It's clever and realistic.
However, it's useless as by a fraction of seven supply transports (15.4 vs 1.9 bc, actually) you can just drop a refueling outpost somewhere.
So it goes.


What happens if ships with different logistic levels are mixed?
It's hard to do as ships are upgraded to the new logistic level automatically without any starbase as on .104 version, however I guess then the lowest base range from logistics is used.

[keller]

Supply bays take 20 space and you can have 8 of them max, as you have no more slots for special equipment.

1 supply bay does +5 turns for a scout.
1 supply bay does +2 turns for a transport.
1 supply bay does +1 turns for a cruiser.
1 supply bay does +0.5 turns for a mothership.

Thank you for clarifying this

That means floor(100 units / 40 consumption) = floor(2.5) turns = 2 turns.

Ok, for those who do not have the faintest idea of what he is saying with all these calculations I decided that it would be useful to break this down a little so that those who have never done programming or taken algebra can understand what he is saying a little better.

floor is a common command in many programming languages which instead of rounding a decimal up will instead round a decimal number down to the nearest whole number (regardless of what the decimal point value is)
So, floor 2.1 will equal 2, 5.4 will equal 5, and 4.9 will equal 4.
the "/" sign is for division so 10/5 would mean 10 divided by 5 which would equal 2.
The "*" sign is for multiplication. So 10*4 would be the same as saying 10 times 4 which would equal 40
anyway this is the basics of it, so with this in mind you can get a basic idea of the formulas that he is using and what he is actually saying.

[Zaimat]

Combat Maneuverability only comes into effect once you fire, launch fighters or get fired on. (True_poser) your testing does not seem to indicate ships in combat (they may be in battle but aren't under the combat effect yet).

The ratio is a multiplier of normal cost which varies based on ship size (maneuverability good= 1x, average = 2x, poor = 3x). So poor maneuverability is quite a difference.

Also good maneuverability (fusion engines) have an added bonus of cutting ship initiatives by half (great for alpha strikes).