Charlie Beeler, I've got to admit, you've made me a little upset due to your attitude toward this discussion. You obviously think you are right and that IanD's statement is correct, and you blatantly disregard many good points by other members simply because they do not fall in to what you consider to be the realm of the discussion. They were, however, relevant. If the engines had the same fuel efficiency, then they would be completely identical.
In any case, both you and IanD are incorrect in any case, and like you said yourself. . .
The devil is in the details.
For my analysis I will gladly adhere to your rules. Power / Efficiency Modifiers will remain at 1. Fuel Consumption will remain at 1, and engine size will remain a constant 10HS.
However, trans-newton engines are very special. They don't exist in the real world obviously, and exhibit very strange characteristics. The most important characteristic is that they constantly require fuel to maintain their speed. This is very much like a commercial airliner, or an automobile, and very much unlike a traditional spacecraft. This implies that Trans-Newton engines are affected by some kind of Trans-Newton drag.
Now I'm by no means an expert in physics, I have the basic understanding that to maintain speed while under the effects of drag, a force of identical magnitude of the drag must be applied from the other end.
So, in Aurora terms, that TN engine that sports a 500km/sec top speed, is constantly accelerating at 500km/sec^2, and being pushed back by drag at 500km/sec^s
Now, let's look again at the original quote.
No matter what flavour of engine you use for an identical power output you consume the same amount of fuel per Engine Power Hour. What this means is that a conventional engine is as fuel efficient as a Magneto-plasma drive, just you can generate more power in the same space. There is no improvement in fuel efficiency as your engine tech improves.
This doesn't seem quite right. Almost like (in wet navy terms) as saying a reciprocating steam engine is as efficient as a high pressure steam engine is as efficient as a diesel engine is as efficient as a nuclear reactor.
With the recent changes to fuel requirements it is surely not beyond the realms of possibility to increase engine efficiency as the tech improves.
hxxp: en. wikipedia. rg/wiki/Fuel_efficiency
Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the efficiency of a process that converts chemical potential energy contained in a carrier fuel into kinetic energy or work
Now, let's take a look at Conscript Gary's excellent spreadsheets.
A Size-10 Nuclear Thermal Engine can push our 2000-Ton craft 50 billion kilometers at a rate of 1,250km/sec using only 500,000 liters of fuel.
A Size-10 Nuclear Pulse Engine can push our 2000-Ton craft 50 billion kilometers at a rate of 2,000km/sec using only 500,000 liters of fuel.
We already know how much "carrier fuel" we transferred into "kinetic energy or work", it was 500,000 liters in both cases. But how much work did each engine do?
Let's use Joules.
J=N*m
N = Newtons of force applied
m = meters the force was applied for.
So, so how many Newtons?
N = kg*A
kg being the weight of the object
A being the acceleration in m/s^2
Our 2000-ton craft weighs 2,032,093kg (Long Ton, it's not written tonnes and Steve is from London, you could use Short or Metric tons, result will be the same)
Our NTE is accelerating at 1,250,000m/s^2, providing 2,540,116,250,000 Newtons of force
Our NPE is accelerating at 2,000,000m/s^s, providing 4,064,186,000,000 Newtons of force
J=N*m
We burned for 50,000,000,000,000 meters, so
J=N*50 trillion
Our NTE converted 500,000 liters of fuel into 127. 005812 Yottajoules of work.
Our NPE converted 500,000 liters of fuel into 203. 2093 Yottajoules of work.
(1 Yottajoule = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules)
This means that a Nuclear Pulse Engine is 60% more fuel efficient than a Nuclear Thermal Engine.
This increase in fuel efficiency allows us to go faster, or go farther, depending on your needs. If the engines had the same fuel efficiency, then they would literally be identical. Your only chance to change anything would be to change the power modifiers, size, and other stuff.
Now where you and IanD get mixed up, is that Fuel Efficiency is not the same as Fuel Economy. I'm going to quote our ever-reliable source, wikipedia.
hxxp: en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles#Fuel_economy_statistics
While the fuel efficiency of petroleum engines (the ability to transform the chemical energy of the fuel into power) has increased since the beginning of the automotive era, this has not necessarily resulted in greater fuel economy or less fuel consumption. The mass, shape, and size of a car, also affect fuel economy and so does the automobile's design, which may be to produce more power and speed rather than greater economy and range.
In conclusion, IanD is completely wrong. Engine Technology advancement is directly increasing fuel efficiency. Fuel economy, however, is a different issue, and depends on the design of the engine. But we wern't talking about fuel economy were we?