Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => VB6 Mechanics => Topic started by: Thiosk on February 28, 2012, 04:20:39 PM
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How much engine power does one need to move X number of tons?
The reason I'm asking this is I'm developing some Orbital Habs-- with 10,000,000 residents each, and I plan to put 5 of them here and there.
So really this thread is asking two questions: how much engine do I need to move a 50,000,000 ton object around with semi-reasonable speed, and are there any known bugs with having huge (50,000,000 - 250,000,000) ton objects in the game? I remember the huge precursor habs were the source of all sorts of trouble, and were removed a couple updates ago.
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If you build a ship that is max sized for a jump drive, you encounter some overflow errors. You might have that issue.
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ooo-- does this happen when you construct the hab, or move it?
My 27,751,300 ton orbital hab is fine, but its sitting in orbit of earth looking all pretty.
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speed = Engine_Power / HS_Size * 1,000 km/s
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Needed_Engine_Power = Desired_Speed * HS_Size / 1000 km/s
As long as (speed > destination_orbital_speed) the object will arrive eventually. However, I suspect your semi-resonable speed is faster. If 100 km/s is 'fast enough', then a 1million HS object (50,000,000 tons) would need 100,000 engine power.
I've never built anything anywhere near that size, so I don't know of any size related bugs.
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ooo-- does this happen when you construct the hab, or move it?
My 27,751,300 ton orbital hab is fine, but its sitting in orbit of earth looking all pretty.
During construction. I get the feeling it's in the armor volume calculations someplace.
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In my current game, I built a 400,000 ton fuel harvester habitat. The tug has 15 ion drives. 2988 km/s, with the tractor linked 262 km/s.
In a previous 5.42 game I had built several different size/type habitats. the tug has 30 Internal confinement engines going 5326 km/s
1 similar to the above. probably around 400-500 km/s They are at their destination.
a 1.5 million ton terraformer habitat when linked was at 237 km/s
a 100 million ton habitat when linked went 3 km/s
Sad thing is: I don't remember why I built that 100 million habitat with 20 million pop in the first place. I think when I saw how slow it went, I sent it to Mars and it's still on its way as far as I know.
The Habitats under tow, terraformers, fuel harvesters and some 500,000 ton fuel depots in uncolonized crossroads systems all went thru a jumpgate with no problems.
I found the 200-500 km/s acceptable in gameplay as well as roleplay. Others may not. I tend to take the long view on empire building.
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Gono mentioned the kind of construction task that gave him overflow errors in irc chat:
100 million colonists, the cold storage to move them on ice, and enough cargo space to move the factories and starter materials necessary to start the newly thawed populace working right away. For the record, that was something on the order of the following:
Insane Madman's Orbital Habitat 530,162,300 tons 165023 Crew 1468395.6 BP TCS 10603246 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-58351 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 2 Max Repair 18 MSP
Cargo 5000000 Colonists 100000000 Habitation Capacity 100,000,000
Range N/A
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes
Given the possibility of overflows, I'll probably stick to only habitats that move 25-50 million colonists at a time, and worry about the cold storage another time ;)
But it would be nice to determine where the effective cutoff is for mad design.
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"speed = Engine_Power / HS_Size * 1,000 km/s
-or-
Needed_Engine_Power = Desired_Speed * HS_Size / 1000 km/s
As long as (speed > destination_orbital_speed) the object will arrive eventually. However, I suspect your semi-resonable speed is faster. If 100 km/s is 'fast enough', then a 1million HS object (50,000,000 tons) would need 100,000 engine power.
I've never built anything anywhere near that size, so I don't know of any size related bugs."
Even if you can't move fast enough you can still "intercept" the object by placing your tug along its orbital path and waiting for the right 5 day increment to hit. I once was trying to tow a 5M orbital with low engine tech at 30km/s, venus kept outrunning the tug.
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Ok so by this formula:
I have a
Supercharged Commercial Solid-Core Antimatter Drive
Power Output: 600 Explosion Chance: 3 Efficiency: 0.056 Thermal Signature: 600
Engine Size: 25 HS Engine HTK: 1
Cost: 150 Crew: 25
Materials Required: 37.5x Duranium 112.5x Gallicite
700 of them weigh in at around 900,000 tons, and produce 480,000 total power.
so 480,000 / 1,000,000 * 1000 km/s = 480 km/s.
Thats fast enough to go places!
...just costs around 78,000 gallicite to build the damnable thing. Don't forget to set it to conscript only.
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Not 1M tons but 20,000 HS, so your ship will move 1M tons at ~28,000 km/s.
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oh I did the HS conversion. The first one was 50,000,000 HS and that gave a dissatisfactory number.