Calculating engine speed

[Boassin (OP)]

Phew, took a while to get this post online.   The forums seem slower than usual. 

My question is about the engine speed formula.   According to my limited knowledge of Aurora, the correct formula seems to be:

Speed = (Total Engine Output / Class Size) * 1000

When i run my 160 tons vessel with an engine of 4 power through the formula i seem to be getting different results.   Aurora is telling me it's speed is 727 km/s while my calculator says 25. 

I feel silly for asking this, but what am i doing wrong exactly?

EDIT: Alright, only just after posting i noticed i used the wrong variable when talking about Class size.  Using the Target Cross Section variable i seem to getting the correct results. 

This is not really what i'm looking for though, because i can only calculate the speed AFTER i applied the engine to the ship.  Which i need to research first. 

Is there any way to tell how fast a ship will go, without designing and researching the engine first?

Thanks in advance!

[Prince of Space]

You ninja'ed my response about Hull Spaces (HS) vs. tons.

I had been working on and off for a few years on a formula for outputing engine designs tailored to desired ship specs. The original idea was posted by Jumpp in this thread:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=5482.0

However, a number of forumites have found math errors in my original posting:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=7594.0

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=7647.0

I have moved on to developing a different approach, but you might find my scribblings useful for deconstructing the underlying engine math.

[Boassin (OP)]

I'm sorry about the ninja, any explanation you can give me are welcome!

Ahh great, thank you.  I believe this is what i'm looking for.  I didn't realize the calculations were this complicated. 

I'd like to increase my understanding of the game a bit more before i dive into the math, but for now this wil do fine i think.

Thanks for the assistance!

[Prince of Space]

That first sentence was intended with a smile. I'm glad to see you figuring things out on your own. Here is your belated emoticon: 

Bear in mind that my intention was to correlate a number of related formulas: engine speed, fuel consumption rate, maximum range, etc. Don't let my affinity for overthinking scare you.