A dumb question (or maybe not) ...

[Elowan]

OK - this may well be dumb but ...

... how are the movement bonuses added in for engines?

Take Ion engines - 1 movement point, no bonuses. 6 engines get you 6 squares.

Now the question: CT engines give you 1 movement, 1 bonus. Is that bonus per engine or per ship? That is - does CT give you 12 squares or 7?

If 7 - then if you had 5 Ions and 1 CT you'd still get 7 squares or ... ?

[Gryphin]

Elowin, you post a lot of questions. None of them dumb.
What is "CT"

[Phoenix-D]

"Take Ion engines - 1 movement point, no bonuses. 6 engines get you 6 squares.

Now the question: CT engines give you 1 movement, 1 bonus. Is that bonus per engine or per ship? That is - does CT give you 12 squares or 7?

If 7 - then if you had 5 Ions and 1 CT you'd still get 7 squares or ... ?"

Lowest bonus of the same family applies, and only once.

i.e.:
You get 7 squares with 6 CT engines. If you have 5 Ions and one CT you get 5 move (NOT 7). If you have five Quantum and one CT, you get 7.. even though the Quantums provide a bonus of +3.

PHoenix-D

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Gryphin:
Elowin, you post a lot of questions. None of them dumb.
What is "CT"

CT = Contra-Terrene in this thread; lord knows what it might mean in others.

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:

Lowest bonus of the same family applies, and only once.

i.e.:
You get 7 squares with 6 CT engines. If you have 5 Ions and one CT you get 5 move (NOT 7). If you have five Quantum and one CT, you get 7.. even though the Quantums provide a bonus of +3.

PHoenix-D

grassy-***!

But I think that 5 Ions and 1 CT should get you at least 6 - nes ce pas?

[ September 29, 2002, 02:13: Message edited by: Elowan ]

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Elowan:
grassy-***!
But I think that 5 Ions and 1 CT should get you at least 6 - nes ce pas?

That's not the way SE4 is designed, that's for sure. All engines must be the advanced type or the bonus doesn't apply. It's even in the manual. Pretty obvious really, contraterene 1 is more expensive than ion 3, why would you use 6 if you didn't have to.

If you want realisim, can you mix and match jet engines on the same plane and have it fly properly? Well, maybe, I dunno. But it seems like a bad idea to me -- Cessna with 767 engine strapped to just one of it's wings LOL Or can a 747 have one 767 engine, and still fly right? Hey, everything I know about aviation I learned watching Top Gun reruns on TNN. LOL

'Kay see, I played this other space 4X game called Galactic Civilizations, and every propulsion tech you got made you ship +1 or even +2 faster. If you were much faster than an opponent, you would be unstoppable. MM is trying to prevent someone who knows the tech tree better than anyone else from ruling the game, so propulsion benefits are slow to arrive.

[ September 29, 2002, 02:33: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Grandpa Kim]

But I think that 5 Ions and 1 CT should get you at least 6 - nes ce pas?

Quite right Elowan. I think Phoenix-D just made a typo.

Elowan, you have played quite a bit of SEIV by now and even done some things in your games that I've never done. Not trying to be a jerk, but how is it you haven't noticed before how the engine system works? Just curious.

Kim

[Hotfoot]

Oddly enough, I was just playing around with this myself in the game, and I have come to the following conclusion on the matter:

Whatever mix of engines you put on a ship, you will get the worst possible bonus out of all of them. So if you have five Quantum Engines and one Ion Engine, your total movement will be 6. Remove the Ion Engine, and your speed will be 8. With a Contra-Terrene Engine in place of the Ion Engine, your speed will be 7. Use a Jacketed Photon Engine and five Quantum Engines, and your speed will be 8. Use six Quantum Engines, and your speed is 9.

Is this realistic? Perhaps not, but the way the game works, the first engine you put on a ship generates 1+b thrust, where b is the bonus thrust generated by the engine. Put one Quantum Engine on a ship, and you have a speed of 4. Each engine beyond that only adds +1 to the total movement of the ship. My guess is that it was done this way so as to allow for a much more gradual increase in ship speed, rather than automatically doubling it every significant level. I'm not certain how the modders who did quasi-newtonian movement went about it, but mixing and matching engines there might make more sense than here.

However, the only real reason I can think of to mix and match engines on a ship design is to save money, as those higher level engines tend to get expensive. While it might make sense on one level to try and boost a ship's speed just a little with one additional high-powered engine, it shouldn't make much of a difference in the normal game, since it only goes up +1 per level. If all you had to do was add one higher level engine to get the increase, we'd be seeing ships with a single Quantum Engine and five Ion Engines, which is kind of silly, in my opinion.

I won't try to rationalize it as being logical, "realistic", or whatever, it's most likely just game balance.

Now, back to dealing with those annoying Jraenar...

[Phoenix-D]

"Whatever mix of engines you put on a ship, you will get the worst possible bonus out of all of them."

Which is basiclly what I said, minus the typo. The family number thing is only important for mods and the Solar Sail; the Solar Sail bonus *does* stack with the engine bonus.

Phoenix-D