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Wanted: "Racing" Class Engines


Hirnsausen

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At the moment, we have Maneuver, Military, Basic, and Freight engine classes.

I can envision a new class, the "Racing" class of ewngines. They propel a ship at highest speed and warm up to full thrust in the shortest time, but they also consume the highest amount of fuel.

And since we already have races happening in the vast world of DU, this is making even a lot of sense.

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No, not the thrust of military engines, I never said that. ?

I am talking about a thrust that is beyonf the thrust of a military engine. MUCH more thrust. But at a cost (easy damage, big fuel need, etc.). This would make sure NOT every ship would have such engines, but only very special ships.

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8 hours ago, Hirnsausen said:

Haunty:
No, there is a big difference: rockets burn all their fuel at once, no way to stop them (unlike modern rockets here on Earth). And some more differences, like fuel type, and such.

Rockets can be turned off from the keyboard (default is 'B' for "Booster"). Lua scripts use to be able to pulse rockets at high rates to generate an effective thrust of any desired value, but a change that forced the pulse interval to be at least 0.5 seconds have made those less useful (unit.setEngineThrust). 

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They wouldn't become defacto if the fuel cost was 4-5x, only had an atmo version, had much lower efficiency at lower atmo %, thus making them less reliable at higher altitudes, and require higher tier components and took longer to manufacture. Like RL racing engines, they have a much more narrow range of when they are effective. Whatever tech they use to be more effective at ground level makes them less effective high up. I'm sure some creative people can add more draw backs so they are mostly just useful for racing and people fancy personal "sports" speeders they use for short distance travel as a wealth statement guzzling a lot more fuel. However if all the drawbacks I mentions and a few more other people come up with aren't used, then no, bad idea. Needs a lot of situational draw backs.

 

Another drawback I don't think will happen because it would require more game coding is that they overheat at 90% and above thrust, requiring heat management of some sort, thus also making racing more interesting as the pilot has to understand the track and judge when to go full burn and when to drop to 80% or when to switch to regular engines if they designed a hybrid type with non-racing engines. Or maybe even just make it so there is no L version?

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On 9/3/2021 at 4:24 PM, Hirnsausen said:

No, not the thrust of military engines, I never said that. ?

I am talking about a thrust that is beyonf the thrust of a military engine. MUCH more thrust. But at a cost (easy damage, big fuel need, etc.). This would make sure NOT every ship would have such engines, but only very special ships.

So how much more thrust? 25%, 500% 5,000%?    And how much more fuel consumption? 

 

Currently Military engines provide about 16.6% thrust over other engines. At a cost of an additional ~20% fuel consumption per N. (33% over fuel efficient engines).  Rares Military provide an additional 42% thrust over other engines at a cost of  ~72% more fuel per N over normal engines (~237% over rare fuel efficient engines). 

 

Even if you doubled the thrust of race engines. And tripled the fuel costs. your actually better off putting 2 normal engines on. Since that would also double your thrust and only double your fuel cost.  Because at the end of the day 10 engines providing 10 thrust each is the same as 1 engine providing 100 thrust. 

 

So the concept of a race engine that has more thrust but less warmup is not a real valid option. Because it would become the defacto engine type. 

 

However I dont think the concept of a race engine should be thrown out all together.  A longer narrow engine design would work better for race engines since the cross section is one of the more important parts a racing ship. Could also off set any benefit of a race engine that requires a special race fuel. 

 

Also the concept of a race engine is pretty moot as it is. You can already build ships that reach max atmo speed quick enough. To the point where you start exploding.  You can even look at rockets that explode instantly when you accelerate past the max atmo acceleration. 

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No, the suggestion of Racing Engines is still a good one. Anything that is supposed to be fast, needs lowest drag. meaning, small front section of a ship. When adding more and more regular engines would do what one racing engine can do, then you also add more and more front area to a ship. That is counter-productive. In real life it is the same: racing cars do not sue many normal car motors, but one better one.

That is what it is about: getting more thrust without adding more engines, by adding a new class of engines: the Racing Class Engine.

The exact values of thrust and fuel consumption, and maybe resistance of the engine to damage, is up to the DU developers as they work with some algorhythms to get the exact measurements. I can imagine, that the thrust surplus to a Basic Engine is maybe 60%, at least.

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For racing you don't need an hour or even thirty minutes of fuel. Balance it so that even at max talent one will guzzle through a comparable fuel tank in 5 minutes.

 

Problem solved. On no, have to refuel because this is a long distance race, use regular engines or have the race have an official refuel area where teamwork on refueling comes into play.

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Controversy is what matters. And in this example, it shows that the same amount of people are neutral to it as the amount of people want it. So why not to offer it? A game should not cater just to half of the people. If this new class of engines comes into existence, those who don't want to use it of course don't have to use it.   ?

 

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Quick review of my suggested limitations:

 

  1. Guzzles fuel ~10x or more
  2. Low HP
  3. T5 Item, very costly to build and long time, highly refined
  4. Severely diminished power past 75% atmosphere thickness (once the atmo stuff is revisited a drop off above 115% as well)
  5. Only sizes Xs, S and M
  6. Only for Atmo engines
  7. Much larger clearance for thrust border (I don't know whats that is called?)
  8. Feeds on souls daily
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Yes, not bad, I would sign to many of these points. Here is my list:

  1. Guzzles fuel ~2x or so (enabling longer races)
  2. Low HP
  3. T5 Item, very costly to build and long time, highly refined
  4. Severely diminished power past 75% atmosphere thickness (once the atmo stuff is revisited a drop off above 115% as well)
  5. ALL SIZES (XS, S, M, L) as I want to see races with huge vehicles, too
  6. Only for Atmo engines
  7. Much larger clearance for thrust border (I don't know whats that is called?)
  8. Feeds on souls daily
  9. Having a very short or even no warm-up time as this is a racing engine


 

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19 hours ago, Context said:

Quick review of my suggested limitations:

 

  1. Guzzles fuel ~10x or more
  2. Low HP
  3. T5 Item, very costly to build and long time, highly refined
  4. Severely diminished power past 75% atmosphere thickness (once the atmo stuff is revisited a drop off above 115% as well)
  5. Only sizes Xs, S and M
  6. Only for Atmo engines
  7. Much larger clearance for thrust border (I don't know whats that is called?)
  8. Feeds on souls daily

And I amg guessing 10x the thrust too?

 

So currently Basics are 

Xs 10,000n 36 l/h (277 n/l/h)

S  60,000n 173 l/h (346 n/l/h)

M 360,000n 829 l/h (434 n/l/h)

L 2,160,000n 3981 l/h (542 n/l/h)

 

Your proposing we get race varients

xs 100,000 360 l/h (277 n/l/h) 

S  600,000n 1730 l/h (346 n/l/h)

M 3,600,000n 8,290 l/h (434 n/l/h)

(one thing to also consider, with these engines your only going to have about 15 minutes of fuel with comparable fuel tanks. IE an XS tank pluged into an XS engine.)

 

Basically what your getting with the race version is a 10 step, where the normal version is a 6 step ( IE for the normal engines S is 6 times stronger then xs,  M is 6 times stronger then S....) However with the race version you are getting a fuel penalty.  basically meaning your better off using  the next level standard version then you are the race version. IE instead of using the S Race engine, use the Standard M version.   Or even better yet use the Rare Maneuver engine Or Rare military engine. 

 

622, 080 2477 l/h (251 n/l/h) Medium Rare Military

600,000n 1730 l/h (346 n/l/h) Small Race

360,000n 425 l/h (847 n/l/h) Medium Rare Maneuver

360,000n 829 l/h (434 n/l/h) Medium Normal

 

So I dont think creating a new class of engine is the solution to wanting that race loadout. You make them any more powerful and they then become the defacto engines and all the other ones no longer get used.  Instead you should be asking for race cores.  IE an XS core that has reduced ato drag and increased thrust boost as long as the mass of the ship does not exceed a certain amount. 

 

*edit

Ohh and the above was assuming you had a ship with only one engine. Lets be real. your going to want a ship with more then 1 engine. Lets say 10 engines. And keep with the S size for the next examples. 

 

So 10  S race engines would provide:

6,000,000n 17,300 l/h (346 n/l/h)   45 tons (engines plus Tank and fuel for 30 minutes of flight)

Or you could put 3 L Rare maneuvers

6,280,000 6,114 l/h (1,027 n/l/h) 65 tons (engines plus Tank and fuel for 30 minutes of flight)

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@RugesV Really, your going to create or compete in race which allows you to put that many engines on your vehicle? Racing is not purely about maxing out speed. There's an economy to races, both monetary and for the enjoyment of the racing teams. If a drag race competition allowed a multi-billionaire to put 50 shuttle booster rockets on their dragster...yeah no, no one would pay to see that and all the other teams would opt out for other competitions.

 

This is full sandbox, We are the NPC's we create the environment. Any competent race manager will create rules and continue to update them so their race is both fair competition and so endeavor to make it interesting to spectators. In our case the fun aspect will be more than the profit, but ticket sales will certainly help put on more races for more fun.

 

We as a community would enjoy a niche item, given constraints so it does not upset the balance outside most racing contexts. Saying that you can put 1000 L engines on an L core and strap a seat to it and have thus more thrust, does not meet the logical criteria for this discussion.

I myself am interested in putting on a 1 XS engine only race, with further limitations on hovers and wings. The aim is for it to primarily be a ground based race, but being able to glide further would allow one to cut over sections of canyon. A Racing engine would allow pilots with more actual skill to make more daring moves and win more.

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