- Add engines to reach the intended fleet speed - this can require prototyping as you find the right size by trial and error.
I pick a carrier size first. If you decide tonnage first, calculating how much engine you need is easy:
Step 1. Take the engine power rating, and multiply by 1,000 to get the max engine speed in km/s (assuming 1x engine power modifier)
- you can find the power rating in this post:
Step 2. Pick a fleet speed.
Step 3. Divide Fleet speed by (engine max speed X Engine Power Multiplier)
Step 4. The result is the percentage of the ship that has to be Engines to achieve the desired speed.
Example: I want a fleet that can go 6000 km/s with Ion tech.
1. Ion has a power rating of 12.5, so max engine speed is 12,500 km/s.
2. 6,000 / 12,500 = 0.48 AKA 48% of ship mass as engines
3. That's an awkward percentage, so I will round it to 50%, to get a fleet speed of 6,250 km/s
4. I don't want 50% of the ship to be Engines, so lets pick a larger power modifier
> 6,250 / (12,500 X 1.25) = 40% tonnage as engines
> 6,250 / (12,500 X 1.5) = 33.33% tonnage as engines
> 6,250 / (12,500 X 2) = 25% tonnage as engines
5. So if I pick the 1.5x power modifier, that means I can build ships like the following
30,000 tons with 2 5,000 ton engines
15,000 with 1 5,000 ton engine
60,000 tons with 4 5,000 ton engines
And all of these designs will be able to go 6,250 km/s