Author Topic: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?  (Read 8272 times)

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Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #15 on: May 02, 2019, 06:02:02 AM »
Option 3:
Have a mid sized tanker offloading fuel from the harvesters to a nearby fuel dump which the megatankers then pickup from.
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Offline Cavgunner

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #16 on: May 02, 2019, 09:56:58 AM »
Option 3:
Have a mid sized tanker offloading fuel from the harvesters to a nearby fuel dump which the megatankers then pickup from.


Why?  The process I've described doesn't need the help of an auxiliary tanker.  In relative terms the distance between a gas giant and any of its moons is negligible for any fuel harvester that has an engine.



 

Offline xenoscepter (OP)

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #17 on: May 02, 2019, 11:59:37 AM »
Usually I use space stations for my Sorium Harvesters; adding Fuel Storage modules to it and going to unload them with a tanker if they get too full. That way the Harvester is also the fuel base and has added utility later... although it needs a Tug.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #18 on: May 02, 2019, 04:40:43 PM »
Option 3:
Have a mid sized tanker offloading fuel from the harvesters to a nearby fuel dump which the megatankers then pickup from.


Why?  The process I've described doesn't need the help of an auxiliary tanker.  In relative terms the distance between a gas giant and any of its moons is negligible for any fuel harvester that has an engine.

In general it would be cheaper to move stuff with a small tanker than the entire station, but at the same time I don't think it matter much which way you do it.

In C# I will probably have harvesting stations which I tug in place and a fuel station to which the harvesters unloads the fuel from its own relatively small fuel tanks. I would then collect fuel there once in a while or simply use it as a fuel station. You are going to need specific tanking equipment now anyways so no point in just dumping it in a colony anymore, you might just have it in a separate fuel station.

In VB6 I also just deploy them as stations and tug them in place, they all have their own fuel tanks. I then send a tanker there to collect the fuel once in a while, these small tankers are very cheap to run.

I rarely find much reason to put engines on anything that stay in one place 99.9% of its lifetime.

I also feel it is a bit of a cheat to use colonies this to simply dump fuel... you still should need to house the fuel in some form of tanks. That is why I don't like to do this unless I have a proper base with infrastructure on it, but this is a role play restriction on my side.
 

Offline Cavgunner

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #19 on: May 02, 2019, 05:54:23 PM »


I also feel it is a bit of a cheat to use colonies this to simply dump fuel... you still should need to house the fuel in some form of tanks. That is why I don't like to do this unless I have a proper base with infrastructure on it, but this is a role play restriction on my side.

Or you can just assume, as I do, that any world that you have designated as a "colony" will have at least a token presence of personnel and/or support equipment, even if the game does not represent this.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #20 on: May 02, 2019, 07:30:22 PM »
Or you can just assume, as I do, that any world that you have designated as a "colony" will have at least a token presence of personnel and/or support equipment, even if the game does not represent this.

Yes, the 'unmanned' AutoMine explanation works just fine for me here.  (Though since I'm using tankers I rarely end up using just a 'fuel dump' instead of a proper Colony with Infrastructure and Population.)
 

Offline bankshot

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #21 on: May 02, 2019, 09:27:51 PM »
I only have one sorium harvesting site at the moment (Saturn) and there is a civilian mining colony on Mimas, so that became my de facto fuel dump for my prototype harvester. 

I'm at Ion engine tech, my production sorim harvesters have 20x harvester modules, 4M fuel capacity, and 2x 50HS commercial Nuclear Pulse engines, so they move at 325 m/s.   That is sufficient to get them to the harvesting site, and to/from Mimas if needed but they have enough tankage to be on-station for several years before needing to be emptied.  And so far it hasn't been an issue as I've sent a tanker out to tap them whenever they get full.  I can see that it may become a bit management-heavy as my empire expands but as there is only 400K sorium available on Saturn I'll probably have to set up fuel or sorium shipments from other systems before management becomes annoying. 
 

Iranon

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Re: Potential Advantages of Old Tech Engines?
« Reply #22 on: June 16, 2019, 07:53:31 PM »
Partially obsolete engines may be useful for tanking shots. Engines cost a minimum of 5BP, for 25HtK that's much cheaper than armour. They can also be repaired in space.
A somewhat advanced engine with low power multiplier would be better (0.1 power hits the minimum cost for Internal Confinement Fusion, because costs/crew scale quadratically below 1.0 power), if that's worth the tech investment. If you want to be silly, you can get a fully operational junk star for the cost of a small flotilla: A megaton of engines on a habitat, a few 100k of low-tech beams, just a tiny bit of sophisticated weaponry to avoid being kited.