Can you improve Speed and Agility values

[slayernz]

Okay, so we know that ships all have a starting value for speed and

Speed:
Slow = Sails < Hull
Medium = Sails between 1 and 2x Hull value
Fast = Sails > 2x Hull

Agility
Slow = Engines < Hull
Medium = Engines between 1 and 2x Hull value
Quick = Engines > 2x Hull

So my question is ... if you have your stock-standard Sword Class
ships, you have:
Hull = 17
Engines = 24 (Agility = "Medium")
Sails = 34 (Speed = "Fast").

Would your Agility change from "Medium" to "Fast" if you got the Ancient engines upgrade and the Titan components upgrade? You'll effectively have Engines = 35.

At first blush, yes, you would now have a ship that is classified "Quick, Fast" instead of "Medium, Fast", but is that "Medium" label something that takes on more importance than the actual calculations? Would you technically be outmaneuvered if you flew against a ship that natively had hull = 17, Engines and Sails = 34?

I guess the analogy would be strapping rocket engines onto a VW Beetle might get you raw speed fast, but it's gonna handle like crap and you'll probably end up plowing into a cliff rather than taking corners like you're on rails.

It'd be good to know all the same though - do you buy a ship that you can pimp out to get past the "Medium" tag, or do you really hunt down those ships that are classed "Quick, Fast" from the outset?

[mordechai]

Jul 31, 2011 7:43:37 GMT -5 slayernz said:

I guess the analogy would be strapping rocket engines onto a VW Beetle might get you raw speed fast, but it's gonna handle like crap and you'll probably end up plowing into a cliff rather than taking corners like you're on rails.

While I don't know the in game answer, from an engineering standpoint it shouldn't matter. In space, being a near frictionless, micro gravity environment, total mass should be the only deciding issue. To give some perspective, for solar sails to work each one would probably be at least several km². On that scale, the difference in profile of a VW versus a 747 wouldn't make enough of a difference to matter.

[pholklorr]

What do speed and agility affect? I know i saw a rumor that said that slow vehicles use less fuel. But i want to know more specifics about these 2 stats. Thanks!

[Rosemary]

Time to Necro a dead thread! I imagine someone like Slayernz would likely have found or learned the answer to this by now, but I'm curious myself. Also, the previous post being about fuel savings is something I am also curious about, as I understand slower = less WF spendings, but would this then affect combat at all?
-Rosemary

[ntsheep]

It's been a long time since our First Cat as we call him has made an appearance on the forum. I think most of what he said above is all correct.

[Rosemary]

Oh, shoot, I went and sent this to the top of the Forum, even though it doesn't have concrete answers. I'f I'm gonna be traipsing through these pastures, I plan on leaving a positive impact, so here goes.

Jul 31, 2011 7:43:37 GMT -5 slayernz said:

At first blush, yes, you would now have a ship that is classified "Quick, Fast" instead of "Medium, Fast", but is that "Medium" label something that takes on more importance than the actual calculations? Would you technically be outmaneuvered if you flew against a ship that natively had hull = 17, Engines and Sails = 34?


So, yes, from what I've read in other threads, it definitely seems like the answe here is that a ship who is upgraded to "Fast, Quick" will never perform as well as a ship that started out as "Fast, Quick", given all other variables are equal.

This seems to be because, while the stats have in fact improved into the "Fast, Quick" ranges, the original labeling on the ship of "Medium, Medium" does not get overwritten.

So while the stats and labels are both contributing factors, only the stats can be updated, with the labels remaining the same, despite new calculations, effectively limiting the effectiveness of the upgrades.


It'd be good to know all the same though - do you buy a ship that you can pimp out to get past the "Medium" tag, or do you really hunt down those ships that are classed "Quick, Fast" from the outset?

As with a million other questions on here, there is no simple answer to this, because it all depends on what you are trying to achieve, and what you are working with.

The captains stats will always be the most important factor in these things, as well as officers, crew morale, and insufficient crew.
At the end of the day, if you are purely talking about maximizing performance of speed and agility, the native "fast-quick" ships will win, but there are no simple calculations to tell you if that small difference is worth sacrificing the extra hold/crew/hull/armor/guns/torps you could have had on the "Medium-medium" ship.

-Rosemary

[Rosemary]

Ah shoot, formatting fudged. Whoops.