Engine and Sail Performance

[jackofools]

I bought Star Traders Elite a couple of weeks ago, and I have been figuring the game out slowly, with some help from this forum. What I want to know is kind of a nuts-and-bolts/theorycraft kind of question. Is there a drop off point where having more engines and sails is only for redundancy? For example, right now I'm in a Destroyer with 31 engines and 60 solar sails after I installed the Advanced Sail System upgrade.

Shortly after I did the upgrade, I read in the forums here that at 20 and 30 sails you get a reduction in fuel consumption. But I've got double that. Do I only get a bonus at 20 and 30 sail points respectively, or is there also a general improvement in fuel efficiency as your sail points go up? Because if not, it seems like the only reason to have more than 30 sails is to keep your amount of sail points above that even after a battle or solar sail damage events.

I wondered the same regarding engines. Other than the combat/landing bonus granted by Titan Engines and Advanced Reactors, is there additional bonuses from having more than 30 engines?

I ask because to me, if there isn't any performance advantage to having more than 30 sails/engines, I can just get ships that always have more than that, and spend my money and upgrade slots improving other things.

Maybe I'm thinking too much into it, but it keeps bugging me every time I look at my ship and see that I have 60 sails. I'm thinking "could I have gotten the Prow Gun Batteries or Cargo Pods for my Propulsion upgrade instead?"

In general I think it would be cool to see an advanced players guide where it really breaks down the numbers for everything, with a little sidebar where I can see just what kind of performance bonus a given upgrade or ship change would give me. I can crunch the numbers myself, and am in the process of doing so, but it would be convenient, thats all.

This is a great game, though. I've found myself passing up the flashy HD games on traditional consoles, and hours of my time, just to play this game. Great job!

[oldalchemist]

Engines are supposed to give you a big boost when closing to medium or short range and for any actions at that range. I've currently got a Spear Class with both engine upgrades and it screams into close range and hammers away at ship engines. I think it basically helps your guns hit more often and helps you dodge enemy guns. I'd rather my guns hit more than hit harder.

[Cory Trese]

there are no wasted points.

Solar sails are hit points, soak damage that would hit the hull or crew. There are many thresholds (20 and 30 being two key ones) and various bonus points.

However, you also have 60 points and probably a FAST ship at that, which in many cases (given sufficient Engines to power all Weapons AND Solars) provides a nearly 2X multiplier.

60 is good. =)

[koles]

Good thing that we have dry dock so we can make 2 or more variations to check and from what i see, titan engines are quite better in fights tha small sail giving bonus in combat

[cynik]

And what's with the fuel usage? What affect the use of water? What I've noticed is more sails, less fuel need, more crew - more fuel need. How do engines affect fuel usage?

How engines/sails work on map/battle situation?
What skills affect all this problems and how?

[slayernz]

My understanding is this:
Sails are for long distance traveling (map traveling) and also longer-range combat maneuvers to help align torp tubes. Engines are for impulse bursts to close distance between ships in combat, landing/takeoffs, and of course powering weapons/life support/coffee machines. I assume that in the deep dark future, coffee is still available right?

The more sails you have, the more efficient your traveling is, hence lower consumption of fuel-water. However, the larger your hull size, the larger your bulk, so this impacts on consumption. A carrier with hull of 40 and 40 sails will be far less efficient than a ship with hull of 20 and 40 sails.

Also, having more crew on board would also increase consumption because (a), crew need nourishment, and water helps provide some of that, and (b), engines have to work harder to provide life support for more people. Oh ... there also might be a (c) because coffee machines require water AND power, but that's just a theory.

The Crew morale does play a part also - happy crew are more efficient and don't leave taps running after they finish brushing their teeth. My original solution to this was to suggest pulling out all of the teeth of new crew members, but recruitment proved to be a real challenge.

I don't quite know if there are any skills or physical stats that would improve on fuel usage. Your piloting skills, quickness, and stealth all help during combat.

[oldalchemist]

It's spice coffee, I imagine...

Intimidation is the one that seems most effective on reducing fuel usage. Start with a dude who has a 1 in Intimidation and start spending your points there. Get it to 9 or 10 and the fuel use really seems to drop. Pilot might help there, too.

[slayernz]

Oh cool - I've actually never put any emphasis on intimidation. I avoid boarding ships (blowing them up is much more fun), and have enough contract/battle wins to keep my crew at 9 or 10 morale. I'm going to have to get that stat looked at

[jackofools]

Thanks a lot for the clarification. I was trying to test this out on my own, and I have noticed since the Monday update my fuel efficiency has dropped drastically. Before, with full sails/engines/hull/crew, I could get consumption as low as .024/Infinite. With 20 units of water fuel I had a water range as high as 830 (approx). Now with 23 fuel I have a water range of 28.83. Am I missing something, has this been changed, or was my game bugged before and now its been corrected?

[jackofools]

Nevermind, found the answer to my own question in the "Updates" section. You really worked over the fuel consumption, didn't you? D:

Not that I mind all that much, but I didn't even realize it had happened till I suddenly couldn't travel through long sections of deep space with just 20 fuel, and my morale started dropping like a stone. Again, D:

[cynik]

I can confirm that Intimidate skill reduces fuel usage. With 30 sails and intimidate ~20 I have 0.015/infinite.

[oldalchemist]

It takes an intimidating captain to tell a crew of pirates to start drinking their own recycled urine with a straight face.

[Cory Trese]

Worked over the water-fuel system? Not really...

Since the 2/2/2011 update there have been 8.7% of adjustments in total -- most of these adjustments only impacted Demanding and above. 4.5% of the adjustments were to red sector fuel curves and had a larger impact on Hulls in excess of 23.0

I have become very slow to change at this point. When I say I have "adjusted" something I'm usually talking about low single digit adjustments. I am constantly tweaking things, but in small amounts followed by a lot of listening to you and testing on my phones.

[Cory Trese]

If your water-fuel has gotten crazy, you should check the cargo page and this blog post:

tresebrothers.blogspot.com/2010/11/water-fuel.html

Keep in mind that a 10% under-staff on a 25.0 hull ship can cause a 17% drop in Solar Sail efficiency. There are a lot of factors that might have changed -- perhaps it was one of these has changed the fuel use for this Captain?

Keep me posted.