conventional start, commercial engine only fleets

[Iranon]

Shipyard capacity isn't a problem. I routinely build my ships bulky with 55+% engines. They're less capable than more compact designs and I may need 50% more ships, but they're correspondingly cheaper and faster to build. Total expenditure and build time for a fleet of a given capability is mostly unchanged (and I get fuel efficiency and redundancy for free).

[Jorgen_CAB]

Shipyard capacity isn't a problem. I routinely build my ships bulky with 55+% engines. They're less capable than more compact designs and I may need 50% more ships, but they're correspondingly cheaper and faster to build. Total expenditure and build time for a fleet of a given capability is mostly unchanged (and I get fuel efficiency and redundancy for free).

In my opinion this is a problem with the current model of the drive systems in Aurora and one that most players don't realized yet.

It is by far smarter to use commercial engines in Military ships and just strap on twice the amount of them.

They use much, much less fuel which translate into a much smaller fuel industry needed, much cheaper to research, less crew and maintenance on ships. It is also much cheaper to build commercial jump drives to jump the fleet and require much less research in general.

The only real drawback is a larger heat signature if ships start to bloat in size but since the engines are so much cheaper then adding stealth also is much cheaper too.

In my opinion the game need a redesign in how engine, speed and fuel efficiency work. Military engines must be worthwhile to build on regular ships and not just on really fast ships.

First of all I would like to see a metric that make larger designs cost more the faster they go. Any form of maneuvering on a larger mass will become more stressful on the construction as a whole, there are no real mechanic to represent this.

There also need to be a mechanic that promote military drives and the importance of a larger mission tonnage per ship. Perhaps maintenance facilities could only service a certain size and total tonnage, this would promote more mission tonnage per ship. But it has to be more economical than the fuel you save.

Commercial drives could be more prone to explosions since they are not built for sustaining injury or have the same redundancy in protective systems. This means bigger drives that are easier to hit and will more easily injure a ship further.

I suppose there are other ways you can "fix" these problems. As said... from an economical standpoint military engines are almost pointless on ships from about 10.000 tons and up. Smaller ships still benefit from more powerful engines since there the stealth component is more important and you will need at least a decent mission tonnage part on those ships.

[Iranon]

Scaling of cost and fuel consumption is a little steep in my opinion.

Performance-optimum is 40% of engine weight in fuel, more and you're losing performance as well as wasting fuel. Historical warships often carried more fuel than main machinery by weight.

Similarly, current cost scaling means that about 50% engine tonnage is the cheapest you can do, as long as you can achieve your target speed with power multipliers not far above 1.0... the system doesn't explicitly encourage commercial engines, it encourages a certain ratio of engines to total ship size.
Going above 50% is very reasonable - 60% is even better for fuel efficiency, and with low-power engines 80+% may be worth it for the sake of cheap damage sinks.

[TCD]

In my opinion this is a problem with the current model of the drive systems in Aurora and one that most players don't realized yet.

It is by far smarter to use commercial engines in Military ships and just strap on twice the amount of them.

Very interesting, but why is this a problem? I mean, commercial vs military is just a label, right? If you renamed 50% engine efficiency as "normal" you could say "In most, but not all, circumstances it is best to have a normal efficiency engine. Overpowered engines are only really useful for smaller military ships, or in cases of serious shipyard/maintenance/jump drive size constraint".

I'd much rather see the whole military/commercial engine labeling removed altogether.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Very interesting, but why is this a problem? I mean, commercial vs military is just a label, right? If you renamed 50% engine efficiency as "normal" you could say "In most, but not all, circumstances it is best to have a normal efficiency engine. Overpowered engines are only really useful for smaller military ships, or in cases of serious shipyard/maintenance/jump drive size constraint".

I'd much rather see the whole military/commercial engine labeling removed altogether.

It matters for Jump Drives... you can build really large very cheap Jump Ships for you military ships if they use Commercial Drives. This is both in build and research related costs and it will be a significant reduction in cost.

Given all the research and economical benefits of building and researching cheaper engines you can put more research into engine technology and have more advanced engines and even with even less fuel guzzling engines thus the speed will usually end up higher than it otherwise would if you built more regular engines.

When you look at the whole chain of benefits from industrial, research, infrastructure and ship design you will save allot of resources and as a result have more advanced technology and more ships. Saving on fuel and engine cost and research is that costly.

I simply role-play that ships with weapons MUST have military grade engines, so I never abuse the Commercial Engine exploit on Military combat ships. I will give Commercial Engines to some Military labeled ships but never to combat oriented ships.

Very interesting, but why is this a problem? I mean, commercial vs military is just a label, right? If you renamed 50% engine efficiency as "normal" you could say "In most, but not all, circumstances it is best to have a normal efficiency engine. Overpowered engines are only really useful for smaller military ships, or in cases of serious shipyard/maintenance/jump drive size constraint".

I'd much rather see the whole military/commercial engine labeling removed altogether.

It will matter if you want large and cheap Jump Drive ships. You can save considerable amount of research and build costs on Jump Drives if you can use commercial versions.

If you also have hangars on most of your capital ships then there is no best fuel to engine ratio either...

Anyway, I don't think there is much point in fuel to engine ratio unless you carry too much fuel. Better fuel efficiency always lead to reduced cost in extracting fuel and your overall infrastructure. Cheaper engines also lead to cheaper ship per power the engine output, less maintenance and crew spaces on the ship. You can't just look at the engine to fuel ratio when power settings below 1x is involved.