Author Topic: Engine speed per engine tech level  (Read 1787 times)

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Offline Harold65 (OP)

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Engine speed per engine tech level
« on: May 27, 2021, 06:37:56 AM »
One issue I have is determining how fast my ships should go for each tech level.  Obviously it's fairly subjective for people, and also depends on ship size, but what ranges of speed do you people use for each engine tech?
« Last Edit: May 27, 2021, 08:12:32 AM by Harold65 »
 

Offline Rich.h

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Re: Engine speed per engine tech level
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2021, 07:34:46 AM »
For me this it yet another subjective thing, that heavily depends on the ship type/role.

For civillian ships, something as  primary factor is how far apart my colonies and mining locations are, some games can kick you hard with the RNG and you may have to cover 2-3 systems of dead space between locations. However if you assume all location types are located in adjancent systems then I work on roughly this.

Mineral Transports - 40-50bkm - Enough for a full round trip and refuel across potentially 3 systems using the same class design.
Heavy Lifters (transporting facilities) - 20-30bkm - Enough for a round trip once.
Fuel Harvester - 100s bkm - These just move to a location and never move, but have huge tanks for storage.
Diplomatic - 10-20bkm - These tend to be brought in via a carrier and dropped of, huge deployment times but low range to keep the craft as small as possible.
JGS - 100s bkm - These are intended as multi year deployments so I want them to have fuel enough to go for many years also.

Military:

In system patrol craft (includes lots of different sizes) - 10-20bkm - They only need enough to chase a ship around a system once in general.
All parasite craft (can include everything from 500t fighters, up to 10kt gunboats) - 2-10 bkm - They only need enough to zip out to their operation zone then back to a carrier.
All fleet craft (everything from 15kt frigates and up to the multi 100kt carriers) - 30-40bkm - I need them to be able to perform outside of my territory, but will always ensure they get a fuel fillup prior to leaving the last system. having too much just means they endup so deep in enemy territory that they are now outside of support.
Fleet support craft - 100s bkm - Just to give the needed support for fleet operations.
Survey craft - 100s bkm - Commercial engines to get the extra range, and used as a carrier/parasite style operation.

These ranges pretty much remain constant throughout the tech ages once I have 4+ systems as part of my territory. I prefer to build up a sollid infrastructure network as opposed to designing ships with huge ranges.

 
 
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Offline Gabrote42

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Re: Engine speed per engine tech level
« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2021, 10:23:30 AM »
[snip]
These ranges pretty much remain constant throughout the tech ages once I have 4+ systems as part of my territory. I prefer to build up a sollid infrastructure network as opposed to designing ships with huge ranges.
OP was asking about speed, not ranges. Personally you should be aming at 1200+ for freighters and 4.FireControlTracking+X.500 for vulnerable ships, and 1000+X.500 for tankers maybe. Haven't played in a while
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Offline Cinnius

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Re: Engine speed per engine tech level
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2021, 10:30:36 AM »
Some time ago i see a similar post and someone reply with this estimation for military ship, for commercial i tend to build 1/3 of this estimation

Conventional - ~70
Nuclear Thermal - ~1700
Nuclear Pulse - ~2700
Ion - ~4000
Magneto-Plasma - ~5500
Internal Confinement Fusion - ~6750
Magnetic Confinement Fusion - ~8500
Inertial Confinement Fusion - ~10,250
Solid-Core Antimatter - ~13,250
Gas-Core Antimatter - ~16,750
Plasma-Core Antimatter - ~20,000
Beam Core Antimatter - ~26,750
Photonic - ~33,250
 
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Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Engine speed per engine tech level
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2021, 10:35:29 AM »
There's a few rules of thumb you can use. Probably the easiest is to design your ships with a constant fraction of the displacement assigned to engines, anywhere from 30% to 40% is probably reasonable. If you ignore the possibility for engine power boosting, then for example with 1/3 engine mass fraction you would have a fleet speed of ~2700 km/s at NPE, ~4200 km/s at Ion Drive, and so on. With 40% engine mass fraction these values improve to 3200 km/s and 5000 km/s respectively which are fair targets for beam-heavy fleets. This is the basic approach that the NPR fleets use so it is perfectly reasonable although as a player you can easily beat NPR fleet speeds in several ways.

Alternatively you can try to reach a fleet speed which lines up with other technology at the same tech level (i.e. approximately the same research cost). The main tech to use here would be BFC tracking speed, for example at NPE tech the similar-cost tracking speed is 3000 km/s, while at Ion Drive tech it is 4000 km/s. That being said, this method for estimating fleet speed is better for missile fleets and will give you too-slow beam fleets for Ion Drive and higher tech levels.

For commercial ships generally somewhere between 1/4 to 1/3 of the fleet speed is usually a good target.
 
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Offline skoormit

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Re: Engine speed per engine tech level
« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2021, 01:50:20 PM »
Probably the easiest is to design your ships with a constant fraction of the displacement assigned to engines, anywhere from 30% to 40% is probably reasonable.
...
For commercial ships generally somewhere between 1/4 to 1/3 of the fleet speed is usually a good target.
Exactly this.
Focus on how much space you devote to engines. Your tech levels will then determine your speed.

I divide full-size military ships (i.e., not including fighters and FACS) into three types:
1) Combat ships.
   These are the ships that make up main battle fleets and are always either at base, in battle, or on the way from one to the other.
   Engines for these will have the highest power boost available.
   Fuel allotment will be 1/3 of the total engine size.
   Total engine size will be a percentage of total hull space, as determined by my current fleet doctrine. I usually sit at 30%, but will go up to 40 or even 45 if I have a strong need to be faster.

2) Patrol ships.
   These ships aren't intended for big battles. They are intended to operate independently for long periods and project a modicum of power over a large operational range.
   These will usually have 30% of hull space for engines and 10% for fuel.
   The power modifier on the engines will usually be about 70% of what I use on my combat ships.
   
3) Fast support ships.
   These are things like colliers, fleet tankers, and supply ships. They aren't meant to be in battle, but they must be able to keep up with the main fleet.
   Since these have an exact target speed (the speed of the current gen combat ships), I first add the operational components to the design, then add enough engines and fuel to reach the target speed and the required range.
   These will usually use a lower power boost than the combat ships (to save fuel), which means I need a higher fraction for engine displacement--often they end up more than 50% engines by size.


For commercial ships, I usually design the largest engine I have the tech for, and use 30% power.
How many engines to put on each commercial design is a question of economic efficiency.

For ships I'm going to build a lot of (freighters, colonizers, commercial tankers, etc.) I want to maximize throughput (speed times hauling capacity) per cost.
I will accept a small penalty on throughput per cost to get additional speed or a smaller design.
This usually means starting with desired cargo capacity and other components, then adding engines to the design until speed/cost starts to decline.

For ships I'm not going to build a lot of (jump tenders, commercial carriers, etc.), I'm less concerned with cost efficiency and more concerned with higher speed or smaller design, depending on the particular operational role of the design.
 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Engine speed per engine tech level
« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2021, 06:55:39 AM »
Pretty much as other have said...

I consider a typical fleet speed for a standard main combat ships is 1/3 engine to ship mass. But this is just a reference point, not a rule that ships need to stick to. It then depend on ship role, operational range, overall doctrine and so much more.