Engine Revision Proposal

CaptainKwok · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:22 pm Post subject: Engine Revision Proposal

Greetings!

Engines are kind of boring in the current version of the Balance Mod. Essentially you just research each type and the only movement changes are from movement bonuses with higher tech engines. Each engine type decreases in cost and increases in supply storage with better tech levels. In fact, I'm embarrassed I left the supply storage amounts as they are currently - an oversight for sure! I also miss some of the overlap that was available in stock. So I’ve worked out something new and hopefully improved.

The old system in the mod used a pseudo-QNP system with each hull having a different EPM (engines per move) value, which was sometimes a fraction etc – so overall it wasn’t really obvious how your ship’s actually movement was derived. The general idea in the new system remains the same, but the values have been changed to provide better communication to the player.

The new system adds a line for each vehicle hull that tells how many movepoints are needed to move 1 hex (or maybe sector). Engines now supply increasing numbers of movepoints at each level and all movement bonuses are dropped. The new system would use the following terminology in the hull, component, and vehicle ability summaries:

Example of ability description for hull and vehicle summary:
"Ship uses 40 movement points to move 1 hex."

Example of Engine ability description:
"Ion Engines provide 100 movement points."

A typical ship ability summary description would contain these lines:
"Ship uses 40 movement points to move 1 hex."
"Ion Engines provide 500 movement points.”

A quick calculation would tell you that the ship would move 12 hexes (as SE:V always truncates the movement amount).

In the new system, each engine tech area has 5 levels with the next type of engine opening up at the level 3 of the previous engine type. The benefits of continuing research in the other tech areas would be for even cheaper engines that provided comparable movement/supply storage to the next generation engine, but have the drawback that they don’t lead anywhere.

Engine Tech Level Progression
(MPs = Move Pts; SPs = Supplies; Cost not shown)

damador · Space Emperor Joined: Oct 20, 2006

looks good but i will set up max speed (from pure engines) to max 15 hex'es

this will also change whole suply/storage/use calculation.

albi_joe · Space Emperor Joined: Mar 19, 2005 Location: USA

Works for me.

Now If only SE would... (It's a router problem I am not dealing with yet)

CaptainKwok · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:10 am Post subject:

Well I've started putting the new system in place. I've already revised the components, but the vehicle file will take some time. It looks good so far!

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I also learned that a ship's stats will round movement up, while the actual movement for the ship once constructed or added to the simulator is the truncated value. Shocked

Psieye · Space Emperor Joined: Dec 03, 2006

Yes, that does seem sensible. High level Ion Engines being very cheap (but not providing as much movement) is goood~ It's a psychological thing that we always put the maximum number of engines into a vehicle afterall. Hmm... this will indeed provide interesting engine assignment designs...

CaptainKwok · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject:

Yeah, you'll be able to mix and match engines now if you want.

The cost for an Ion Engine is about half of that for a Quantum Engine.

The_Draf · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 16, 2006

Well done CaptainKwok! This system is much better Smile

The modability of SE5 is really starting to show

Fyron · Galactic Guru Joined: Aug 04, 2003 Location: CA, USA

Well, to be honest, this was exactly doable in SE4 already. Wink

damador · Space Emperor Joined: Oct 20, 2006

trying to compare it to the current BM

what changed to the current system ( except the greaters values ? )

you already changed the enginepermove value (wchich should mean Movement points per hex value), increased the engine movement points etc

seems that only cosmetic changes ( to the names ) and ballance issue - still bigger huls will need the bigger number of engines etc ...

yes - the number of engine levels and benefits of them has changed ( from 3 lvl and 5 mp per engine to other values) - but what it change ?

MisterBenn · Space Emperor Joined: Nov 17, 2006

I like the proposal. Out of the box, engine upgrades seem far less important than chasing techs like Physics / Racials / Extractions etc, and could be safely ignored with almost no drawbacks for a long time. This will make researching of engines more worthwhile, and the progressive cheapness that can be researched after a new engine is unlocked is a nice touch too.

CaptainKwok · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 7:55 pm Post subject:

You're correct in that the mechanics for calculating the movement are more or less the same - just with larger values.

However, each engine level now increases in movement points provided - before they were all the same and the only change in movement came from bonus movement points. So there is a lot more variability and choices to make in the system.

ekolis · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:51 pm Post subject:

Why not use the "kT of thrust" from CBmod/GritEcon/LTM? That's where all ability descriptions for engines simply say how many kT of thrust they provide, where 1kT of thrust can move 1kT of ship 1 sector per turn? That makes the calculations simpler: a 300kT ship with 1800kT of engine thrust moves 6 sectors per turn, no futzing around with an additional "move points per sector" counter for each hull, which could be confusing to newbies! Or do you actually intend larger ships and/or non-combat ships to have disproportionately large EPM values?

CaptainKwok · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:08 pm Post subject:

You guessed it. Also the fact that hull sizes increase with tech level throws a monkey wrench into the equation as well. Who wants to see their new high tech frigate move slower? So a few sacrifices...

se5a · Space Emperor Joined: Dec 23, 2004

I wouldn't mind seeing some half size engines in there too...

Kana · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 15, 2005