Hi guys. I'm real new so I apologize if this is in a FAQ somewhere. I couldn't find it, but I might not know where to look:
I just got Magneto-plasma drive tech, and I'm designing a new line of engines to use it. I'm going to do a 10,000-ton missile cruiser, and I want it to do around 2,500 kps with a range of 50 billion km. I did a little spreadsheet to help me choose the efficiency setting that'll minimize the amount of tonnage I spend on engine and fuel.
That spreadsheet is telling me that what I want to do is a single size-32 512-EP engine with a power mod of 1. 00. (Actually, it's telling me to go for 1. 05, but I don't have the tech for that. )
I was thinking I might save some research time by using the same drive in my 5,000-ton escorts and the 10,000-ton cruiser, and just use two of them in the cruiser. That cuts the research load way down. Spreadsheet says to make a size-20 256-EP engine with a power mod of 0. 8 in that case.
Now, if I use two of those smaller engines instead of one bigger one, I lose around 600 tons, but that's not the end of the world.
I notice that nobody does this single-engine thing. When I look at people's sample designs, I usually see large stacks of smallish engines. One guy, who seemed to really know what he was talking about, had 17 smaller engines on one of his monster ships.
So my question is: What does everyone else know that I don't know? Is this about battle damage? Is a one-engine ship more vulnerable to crippling failures? Is this about not wanting to spend piles of RP on the larger engines?