better engine efficiency vs size

[letsdance (OP)]

i love the option to have different engines with different efficiencies.    but some things could improve alot.    as it is, there are many possibilities, but you don't need more than few of them.  

1.    when i use a HS 50 engine instead of 2 HS 25 engines i need 33 % less fuel.    that's cool.    but when i use a HS 2 engine instead of 2 HS 1 engines, i save only 1 % fuel.    that's negligible.   i'd never use a HS 2 engine, i just design a HS 1 one and be more flexible.     the efficiency increase should be similar to have efficiency considerations also for small engines.    

2.    on the other hand, the saved fuel from HS 25 to 50 is so much, that it rarely makes sense to build a HS 25 engine, and certainly even less anything inbetween.    

even if i don't need a HS 50 engine, i'll just take it instead of the HS 25 and have a faster ship that needs less fuel.    because for ships with 2,500 tons and more, the ship becomes FASTER and needs LESS fuel if i use one HS 50 engine instead of one HS 25 engine.    the ship will be a bit more expensive to build and a bit larger.    but that's rarely an issue compared to the advantages.    the larger engine does needs more fuel per hour of course, but since it's faster you need less total fuel to travel the same distance (in less time!).  

3.  it's also sad that engines are capped at HS 50.    it usually makes no sense to build large ships (as long as they have a HS 50 engine) that need many engines, because you can as well make a bunch of small ships without losing anything.    some components are cheaper if you build them larger, but that doesn't outweigh the inreased flexibility of multiple smaller ships.    smaller ships are also better from a tactical point of view.  

i would like to see huge commercial ships, bulky and slow, but efficient.    part of this could come from "logistic times", but in many cases the most important factor is fuel usage.    we have less powerful engines that need less fuel, which make "slow and efficient", but they don't make "large".  

having said all that, here's my suggestions:

1.    to make decisions more interesting, increase the efficiency differences between small engine sizes.    if the 1-50 range should be kept, a root function like efficiency = root(HS-1) x 7 would do nicely.    this results in values like (rounded)
HS / fuel used in %
50 / -50
35 / -42
25 / -35
15 / -30
10 / -20
5  / -15
2  /  -7
1  /  -0

that's a small change and there's a bit more reason to use different sized engines.    i also think from HS 25 to 50 it's sufficient to have only every 5th HS as option (25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50).    i can't imagine anyone would ever build a HS 47 engine.  

i'd like that alot better, but this does not solve the problem, that a HS 50 engine will be faster and needs less fuel than a HS 25 engine beginning with a certain ship size (in this case a bit higher, like 5000 tons).    nor does it give a reason to build large ships.  

2.    for that, the calculation for fuel usage needs to be different.    where "E" is the efficiency (currently HS / 100), the used calculation is:
fuel usage(HS) = fuel usage x (1 - E)

a calculation for a larger range of possible HS would have to look like:
fuel usage (HS) = fuel usage / (1 + E)

this calculation could be open-ended, but it also needs a root function to scale nicely.    if i use E = root(HS-1) x 7 (like above), values then look like this
HS / fuel used in %
1 / 0
2 / -3
3 / -5
5 / -8
10 / -13
15 / -17
20 / -20
25 / -22
35 / -26
50 / -30
75 / -35
100 / -39
125 / -42
150 / -44
200 / -48
250 / -51
300 / -53
400 / -57
500 / -60
750 / -65
1000 / -68
1500 / -73
2000 / -75

now if you build a huge engine, it can make a big difference and you'll probably still use the ship a few engine techs later.    note that for this, the build cost should scale with sze, but the research cost for the engine designs should scale with the saved fuel, not with size.  

there is another problem, which is that for bigger ships it's often better (faster, less fuel needed, cheaper to research and build) to use multiple lower power engines instead of one higher power engine. the only solution (besides completely changing the system) i find for this is to restrict all ships to one engine each. currently that's not possible because of the maximum engine size. with my suggestion it would be possible.

[alex_brunius]

IMO the engine / fuel efficiency needs to be consistent not only down to size 1 engines, but also all the way down to 0.1 MSP engines ( 0.005 HS engines ).

I also think very small ship ship engines of 1HS need to have alot more difference then 3% less consumtion for double the size.

It should be a big difference in efficiency for fighter engines of 50 ton, FAC engines of 250 ton and a destroyer / escort engine of 500 ton.


I would define the "Normal" engine where fuel consumtion is neither higher nor lower as HS 10 ( 500 ton ) instead.

Then it is easier to make smaller engines consume considerably higher amounts or even several times more for a 1HS fighter engine if we want more detail here.


It would also be nice to have more detail on fighter sized engines, for example a 1.6 HS engine (80 ton) might be required to design the fighter you want. ( but on the other hand we don't need a size 49.6 engine since the difference between 49 and 50 is much smaller ).

[letsdance (OP)]

i agree, but if the differences from size are even more significant than my suggestions, it leads to large engines needing almost no fuel at all, or small engines needing needing too much.  in my final suggestion, the difference from 25 to 50 is only 8%, compared to that it's not optimal, but ok to have 3% from 1 to 2.  if we want more differences between smaller engine sizes, it would be better to do it by build or research cost.    

engine power to speed is a linear in aurora.  a root function would be more like real life and therefore feel more "right".  but that would be a fundamental change, i can't image it will ever happen.  and i don't think it has to, we have to accept that transnewtonian laws are different

making HS 10 the default size, and adding a penalty for smaller engines is dangerous / require more effort, because the program code probably expects to find a negative modifier. and it's not really different, it would just change the overall fuel needed by the "base value" (13% in my list).

engine power vs fuel consumption is another topic.  i like the idea of weak efficient engines, but already the x0.25 power engines need so little fuel (once you can build them) that i don't ever see myself using a x0.2 or less.  maybe this tech line should be removed and available from the beginning as option.

[letsdance (OP)]

is there a way to stop the forum from adding a blank after every dot when i save my posts?

[Erik L]

is there a way to stop the forum from adding a blank after every dot when i save my posts?

Yes. You should see that phenomena disappear from now on.

[ComradeMicha]

is there a way to stop the forum from adding a blank after every dot when i save my posts?

Yes. You should see that phenomena disappear from now on.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but: Will the blank be gone for everyone or just for letsdance?

On topic:
I haven't done the math yet, but anything that'll stop ridiculous research costs for large components while at the same time making both miniaturization and scale effects viable will get my vote!

[Erik L]

Yes. You should see that phenomena disappear from now on.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but: Will the blank be gone for everyone or just for letsdance?

It is an anti-spam measure that goes away automatically after 10 posts. So neither of you should be affected by it any more.

[IanD]

At the moment you design an engine and then cruise the Galaxy at top speed rarely ever reducing it, since there is no incentive. I would like to see all drives have an economical cruising speed (a sweet spot) and a top speed. This would mean you could engage top speed when going into combat but otherwise enjoy a greater range if slower progress. This would only apply to military vessels as all commercial engines should be designed to run at their fastest economic speed as a matter of course.

Regards
Ian

[letsdance (OP)]

the big advantage of my suggestion is, that i'm just playing with numbers. implementing it is probably database entries that can be done very quickly.

all suggestions, that change how engines work, need code changes that are alot more effort (and need more considerations to avoid unexpected troubles).

besides this, your suggestion could be interesting if well implemented. but the basic version reduces the impact of my decision when designing a ship (engine decisions don't matter as much if i can operate at fuel saving speed anyways), which is bad.

[alex_brunius]

besides this, your suggestion could be interesting if well implemented. but the basic version reduces the impact of my decision when designing a ship (engine decisions don't matter as much if i can operate at fuel saving speed anyways), which is bad.

I don't think that is the case at all, since to maintain balance the overall fuel consumption constant would need to be raised to counteract if all military engines can cruise significantly more efficiently a majority of their time.

Thus even if a military engine consumes say 3x more fuel in "max speed combat mode" it would need to consume perhaps 80% of the fuel it does today at efficient cruise speed ( assuming roughly 10% of the time will be spent in "combat" or maxspeed ).

Otherwise the total fuel consumption before and after is drastically changed which no one have suggested!


It would obviously have a balancing impact on crafts that spent 100% of their time in combat/max-speed, but that is IMO a desired effect. IMO fighters and FAC are far to fuel efficient today and with to little difference from bigger engines/ship.

For example currently a fighter/FAC at magneto plasma level despite using maximum power modifier will get 34 hours flight time from 40% HS spent on engine and just 10% of HS spent on fuel. ( Real world fighters have closer to 30-50% mass as fuel and just a few hours flight time, F35 for example have the opposite situation with 8% engine and 37% internal fuel ).

[letsdance (OP)]

the current solution forces me to consider fuel usage for ship designs also for travelling, and find a balance. yours doesn't.

with your suggestion i'd just use the most powerful engines in every ship, and they will still travel fuel-efficient. if i put the most powerful engines on every ship under the current rules, i'd have serious fuel supply problems.

maximum range is also not a real issue if i can always trade speed for fuel consumption.

the only way i can see your wish to work, is if i can put 2 different engines in my ships and then choose which one is used. this way you can have different travel speed. it requires some planning for ship design, because taking extra engines is probably a significant change. in reality it would mean that fuel usage for powerful engines doesn't matter alot, because you won't use it alot.

[alex_brunius]

with your suggestion i'd just use the most powerful engines in every ship, and they will still travel fuel-efficient.

In that case you didn't understand the suggestion at all.

The intent was that an engine that today consume 10 times as much fuel at max speed will also consume 10 times more fuel at "efficient cruise speed", compared to a more efficient engine design.

While cruise speed is more efficient then max speed, both are still using the same base consumption values modified by a multiplier, So that part of the game that is working fine and is not really touched.



The point I was trying to make in my previous post is that if you only make warship engines more efficient when travelling but keep maximum consumption the same, then sure fuel will be less of an issue but that is not a good solution. A better solution is to strike a balance and arrive at a similar total fuel consumption that you have now, by mostly making max speed more expensive ( a minority of a warships time ), but also making cruising speed a little cheaper ( a majority of warships time ).

[letsdance (OP)]

A better solution is to strike a balance and arrive at a similar total fuel consumption that you have now, by mostly making max speed more expensive ( a minority of a warships time ), but also making cruising speed a little cheaper ( a majority of warships time ).

lets do some calculations. how much of total travelling time do you expect warships at full speed?

[alex_brunius]

lets do some calculations. how much of total travelling time do you expect warships at full speed?

That is ofcourse individual, but for me personally the amount of travel that will be "time critical" is perhaps 10% of total averaged across all warship tonnage (not counting survey ships). But I guess it would also depend on how large the difference is between max and efficient ( both in terms of speed and consumption ).

My earlier very basic calculations/estimations:

Thus even if a military engine consumes say 3x more fuel in "max speed combat mode" it would need to consume perhaps 80% of the fuel it does today at efficient cruise speed ( assuming roughly 10% of the time will be spent in "combat" or maxspeed ).


The calculations I used is the following 0.1*3.0 + 0.9*0.8 = 1.02

[letsdance (OP)]

Thus even if a military engine consumes say 3x more fuel in "max speed combat mode" it would need to consume perhaps 80% of the fuel it does today at efficient cruise speed ( assuming roughly 10% of the time will be spent in "combat" or maxspeed ).

i don't see how the fuel consumption is a real change if total fuel used is the same, and the fuel used for 90 % of the time is only different by 20 %. how much more speed do i get for almost 4x fuel usage? 4 times as much? or only 75 % like the current scaling for engines?

but that means warships are slower to move around and alot faster in combat than now. which has a much bigger impact on gameplay than all fuel usage considerations. it would require to redo many aspects of combat mechanics. that's a bad idea. it can only be done in a way that keeps combat speed the same as now (difficult to predict). which means the main impact of your suggestion is that warships travel slower when it doesn't matter?