Is it better to use bigger engines?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Gary Parkin, Mar 1, 2017.

  1. rainyday

    rainyday Rear Admiral

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    What fuel do you use? Small Promethium Fuel packs are useless even with bit more power hungry SV's - not to mention CV's. Large packs are OK, but you really should look into making Fusion fuel if you already arent. Double the amount of fuel than the large promethium fuel packs with same amount of promethium, with just added Hydrogen requirement. Set up a "Hydrogen farm" with atleast 10 or 20 Hydrogen Generators, go mine some (a lot) of promethium - and enjoy a long care free flights with your CV (but don't look at the fuel gauge, it only makes you sad! :D)

    That said, CV's arent really meant for flying on planets. It can be very costly, its not a small ship you got there. And its no slouch either. Land, turn of all excessive stuff (thrusters & RCS are the most fuel hungry) - and a CV does a reasonably good Base impression that can be run for a long time. In space the fuel consumption is much less.

    EDIT: Also, its not gonna make a huge dent in your fuel consumption - but you might want to check power needs of some of the stuff that can't be turned off. Like, for example, you have 28 ammo boxes. I haven't really done much combat oriented stuff but even then box per weapon seems about right (PvE) - on non-combat vessels even that feels excessive.

    But then again, its about they way you want to build ships. Just mine & process enough promethium and hydrogen for Fusion Fuel and you're good to go. I don't waste fuel with a purpose (I turn stuff off) - but I don't let it hold back my ship designs. Like my new big ship which is around 320m long, it has 8 cargo holds and there's around 50 big cargo boxes in each cargo hold. So that makes roughly 400 cargo boxes in total (in that ballpark, don't have actual number with me right now). I really doubt that I or anyone will ever need that much but am I gonna leave cargo holds empty just because of that? No way!

    And gongrats, its an impressive looking ship! Those big CV's are a lot of work.
     
    #21
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2017
  2. Our Grid

    Our Grid Captain

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    We have some custom planets with high gravity - if you plan to do atmospheric landings in such a place, big helps a lot. My CV is a fairly long body with two engine nacelles, class 7. I have 2 XL aft, 4 L downward, 2 L and 6 M forward, 2 L port and starboard, with 10 M pointing down under the nose, the can hover in very high grav planets no prob.
     
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  3. Gary Parkin

    Gary Parkin Captain

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    Oh, sorry. I'm using Fusion Cells.
    And this is my Hydrogen farm. I'm thinking I may have to triple its size.
    20170315101945_1.jpg


    This is the hover bay. I have 3 hovercrafts that needed to fit.

    As for the ammo boxes, I didn't think they sucked power. We planned on 6 cannons on each underside to take care of any unwanted crawly guests.
     

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    #23
  4. rainyday

    rainyday Rear Admiral

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    Oh nevermind me, looks like you got fuel situation sorted out! :cool:

    Yeah, I think pretty much everything draws power - but its not a lot with the boxes. You can save a little bit here and there. But it all boils down to it being a big vessel with big performance. Your main culprit is your thrusters. You have way more than you actually need (well, who am I to tell you how much you need) - even the more agile & fast puny SMALL VESSELS struggle to have the performance (acceleration) of your 200m long Capital Vessel. If you cut half of your thruster power (in all directions), it would still be well performing ship for normal use.
     
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  5. Geoffrey

    Geoffrey Lieutenant

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    The look of the ship is nice, but I'd group your engines into two groups with half of each direction in each group. Looking at your acceleration stats, you have at least double what you need so having the two groups allows you to switch half the engines off.

    With half off, you will still be able to get off any planet. This will save your fuel consumption.

    All big ships have fuel consumption issues. As soon as you can upgrade all T2 to T3 tanks, that way you have double the fuel (obviously takes more room though). I'd also make sure that when ever you are stationary, switch all engines and RCS off. This will help save fuel as even when stationary there is some consumption. RCS when static dont use much power, but i like to switch them off so that if i bump my mouse while in the cockpit i dont move my ship around where they then use a lot more power.
     
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  6. Gary Parkin

    Gary Parkin Captain

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    I have adjusted the thrusters. It seems I had more then double the amount of thrust that I needed.
    Thank you all for the suggestions.

    Here are some change shots. Don't mind the holes where the old engines used to be. I may add extra rooms and windows to those empty sections.
    I had XL thrusters giving me 800mn each. I removed them and replaced half of them with Large @200mn each, and I still have enough thrust.

    And I split the engines into 2 groups as suggested. I can still get off the ground from Omicron with no effort.

    Do I want to get rid of half of the generators too? If I draw X power, and I use 2 generators use 1% vs 1 generator that reads 30%, will the extra generator suck double the power even if it's not needed?
    It doesn't seem so, looking at the power after removing a few.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Also, does anyone know where I can find a full list of the planets with their gravities?
    I found a few in the wiki but no gravity information. I know I can go to the playfields.yaml and look it up but the number means nothing to me.

    Like the Temperate playfield says this:
    # Playfield Characteristics
    Gravity: -8.25 # Gravity on planet


    How is this read? It could be converted and added to the wiki.

    Before:
    20170316071956_1.jpg 20170316072022_1.jpg

    After:
    20170316073914_1.jpg 20170316073941_1.jpg
     
    #26
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2017
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  7. rainyday

    rainyday Rear Admiral

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    @Gary Parkin Looking good! Dont worry about the generators, having extra wont affect consumption.

    Haven't seen list about gravity but I think Aistis has highest gravity. If it works there, you're fine.
     
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  8. OwlBreck

    OwlBreck Ensign

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    It's years & many updates & patches later, and this is still super helpful.
    Thank you for sharing it.
    BTW: I LOVE using Excel formulas. So if you happen to have an updated version of this, please, please would you send me a copy.
    Thank you again.
     
    #28
  9. IndigoWyrd

    IndigoWyrd Rear Admiral

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    "Better" is too relative a term to use. There are times when it is more appropriate to use fewer, larger engines, and times when it is more appropriate to use multiple smaller engines.
    I typically find I use a mix of larger and smaller engines depending on the type of handling I'm trying to accomplish, along with the purpose of the ship. Large cargo haulers typically use larger engines for lift and forward thrust, and smaller ones for maneuvering.

    Smaller combat ships, I typically use a single larger engine for forward thrust, and a number of smaller engines for maneuvering.

    I don't like to fiddle turning engines on and off, as the interface is just too awkward to do this in combat situations, and when cruising/scouting, I get lazy and just don't want to have to fiddle any more than is necessary.
     
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