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VB6 Aurora > Aurora Chat
Sizes for Power Plants and Engines
Borealis4x:
Is it better to make larger power plants and engines for larger ships or to just use more smaller engines and power plants that you have already put on smaller ships?
Father Tim:
Yes.
Or rather, it depends.
Larger engines and power plants are more efficient, but lack redundancy. Multiple smaller systems ensure you don't lose all your capability to a single hit. Custom-designing systems for each and every class requires a fair amount research.
What is 'best' for your empire depends entirely on how your empire defines 'best'.
Michael Sandy:
In the current version, it is generally best to make 1 HS power plants. They get 1 HtK, are cheaper to research, and allow for a lot of flexibility in how much power you need. In C#, there are advantages to larger power plants.
Jorgen_CAB:
Yes... Power Plants in VB6 Aurora don't get better efficiency because they are larger but they will in the next version. So 1 HS Power Plants is enough.
As for engines there is some merit to having bigger engines but on average you are better investing RP into fuel reduction technologies than building extremely large engines and then have to design multiple types of engines for every tech level you come across.
In general the higher your engine and fuel efficiency technology is the more economical from a RP consideration it is to design a big military engine because it takes less and less RP in comparison to researching the next level.
For civilian engines you just design the biggest possible engine because they are so cheap to design and build anyway, good for your fuel economy.
In C# Aurora there will be a much bigger difference of fuel efficiency of small versus large engines so it might become more of a sound investment to design big engines even early on, but never go nuts about it and design one engine for every ship type you use.
When it comes to engines I like to make sure ships have at least two engines for redundancy, engines also tend to be the most expensive components on most military ships so they also dictate the minimum of supplies the ship need to repair them. You need twice the supplies to repair combat damage, this make really big engines a somewhat liability for cost savings and need for more engineering sections on some designs.
davidb86:
--- Quote ---When it comes to engines I like to make sure ships have at least two engines for redundancy, engines also tend to be the most expensive components on most military ships so they also dictate the minimum of supplies the ship need to repair them. You need twice the supplies to repair combat damage, this make really big engines a somewhat liability for cost savings and need for more engineering sections on some designs.
--- End quote ---
I agree with having multiple engines on military designs. For most of my ships of at a given tech level I design around multiples of a standard tonnage (3,000 ton frigate, 6,000 ton destroyer, 12,000 ton light cruiser, etc) thus most ships have the same speed and just use multiples of the same engine rather than researching a custom engine for every design. fuel consumption in VB6 was rarely a problem in my games, so the improved fuel efficiency was not worth the hassle. On reactors, I tried to design a standard reactor (not always a 1 hs reactor) based on the needs of a single beam weapon and recharge rate.
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