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Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
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This is because it makes sense to me that engines could create energy for the rest of the ship via their operation
Engines use supplies, they don't generate any.
In game terms, no, but in terms of what they represent, a propulsion engine can often generate power as a side effect. Since SE4 isn't detailed enough to model this, it can be represented fudgily by giving the engines more supplies, representing their ability to generate power from fuel.
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My objection is because of the question "Why can't I replace that supply tank with two engines, and just unplug/not use those two? It would double my supply storage!
My explanation is that the ship design system is obviously abstract rather than literal. If you did that, it would be a supply generator component, and rated as "larger" than the engine Version. My rationalization is that research of a vehicle size class allows a design with so many engines, with some trade-off if engine numbers are reduced, but deploying an engine system as a supply generator, on top of a full complement of engines that your designers can make work, would result in more space being taken away from the non-engine component ability of the design. I.e., it would count as a larger non-engine component. Conversely, an engine is probably larger than other 10kT components (hence its 20kT damage capacity), but costs the design less lost space. That is, supply storage _IS_ like an engine that just "generates" supplies. At least, that's how I try to make sense of it.
PvK