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The Atmosphere Engines are too big and far too Weak


Grimscale

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The smaller of the atmo engines are ok for looks.

Its around the medium engines when it start to go pear shaped. the Large sized atmo engines don't even resemble a air breathing engine.

They should all look like something that mixes fuel with air and burns it for thrust.

 

There thrust is too weak, even taking into account the higher quality giving more thrust.

the basic starting point is far too weak. you have to use too many engines for moving even medium cores.

 

Because of the shear surface area that has to be given over to them at the rear of the craft, most designs end up looking like flying anvils.

Even when the design manages to have a pleasing appearance the back end with few exceptions has to be a flat plain.

The shear quantity of engines needed, combined with there size, makes very hard to impossible to keep a flowing design.

 

There shape need to change to better suit the environment there used in and be smaller in cross section. 

 

If for some reason you have to have them take up the cubes/voxel they do. Make them narrower and longer.

more in keeping with the space engines. They at least look the part. 

 

I think they should be made to look like air breathing engines, have more power and be more compact with less cross section.

 

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I wish we could stack two or even three of these engines longitudinally (front to back) to boost their effect but no, we have to stack them horizontally or vertically making walls of engines. 
 

for me, it’s the M engine that looks like a reject from a Star Wars greeble collection. 

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Yes, we need many more models; long, wide, thin, short, rounded, angular.....

 

I've long been in favor of utilizing the awesome build system that DU has by letting us make "element honey combs", i.e. instead of an element, we have to fill a certain volume of with these voxels for the "element" to function. The current element would then just be an optional cosmetic, linked to the voxels for showing exhaust flames etc (which brings us to the need for more player-usable FX-elements) There are of course several aspects to this that needs to be considered, but it would really open up the way for builders to shape ships in the way they want.

 

I really hope NQ soon finishes their walk through fire soon and are able to add things to the game. It has so much potential.

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using thrust blocks is how its done in Avorion, the idea of stacking/socketing engines front to back to make more powerful thrust is good.

Maybe 2 elements with the exhaust end and stackable units to increase power

 

but yes many more shapes are needed

 

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I agree with this.  The reason you see these huge ships with ridiculous engine amounts and all these hidden wings is that the elements that are in place don't have adequate thrust and lift if you're building for any type of weight.  Sure, you can train skills up, but not one affects weight.  Speed, lift ratio is the closest. Even then it takes overkill to move large KT loads. Not my idea, but I read someone on these boards suggested tiered wing types like engines with better lift qualities and I support that.

 

And why are we forced with wing / aileron looking elements? This is a space sim lol, why not some other kind of tech that provides lift and looks better?

 

I recently designed my first ship and I think I had to stack like 26 small wings at one point?  It's just a 1KT ish cargo ship.  I experimented with all kinds of M / S / wing & Aileron set ups and I couldn't get the high altitude lift I was happy with until I started stacking.  I'm all for changes.  Give the flight elements more power please.

Edited by OrionSteed
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:) 26 wings in a stack is only a mild stack. The silly thing is that weight and the space used VS the amount of thrust, makes the XS wing the best ratio.

But a real pain if you need to repair 50-100 of them.

 

I take the point that making them smaller and more powerful will encourage some to just pack in more engines.

but there is all ready a limit on how fast in atmo you can go. Pluss you can pack only so many on the same facing plane in a construct.

 

What we have now is not balanced.

Even going with what we have the skills need to have greater impact.

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