Engine Classes and IDS Multipliers - The logic behind

[XenonSurf]

[ -- EDITED -- After a close look to engine classes]

When should I use higher Engine Classes and what is the IDS Multiplier?

in Evochron Mercenary and generally in space, top speed is not important. What counts is the acceleration and the relative speed to another object which will be really important in combat. Just figure out that 2 fighting ships could have ANY speed relative to a planet, but what counts is the relative speed between the 2 ships.

So, any spacecraft frame from the lightest to the heaviest one can reach a specific speed just by accelerating.
In EM, for gameplay reasons, the engines classes will only have a very SLIGHT ACCELERATION INCREASE, with more emphasis on lighter frames that are more agile (but not better suited for combat! See the end of the post.) The lower engine classes will show a better increase in acceleration, the higher classes still increase but more and more slightly. The overall increase remains very small. High engine classes are better suited for heavy ships where the overall energy output for complex weapons, thrust and shields are much more important than the acceleration, also because the agility of heavier frames are mostly reduced in favor of armoring.


With higher engine classes you will be able to reach higher speeds by not using the afterburner. The same result can be achieved with ANY engine by using the IDS Multiplier with Numpad-9 (increase) or Numpad-7 (decrease). IDS Multipliers can be increased up to 5x the normal value.
For example, at the standard value, a ship of light construction like the Talon will reach a speed of 558 without Afterburner; with 2x IDS Multiplier this speed will double up. This has nothing to do with some magic power apllied to the ship, it's just the acceleration taking longer before being automatically stopped.

Acceleration is most important for combat, but it doesn't make sense to use any engine class on any ship: It's important to know that larger ships (that is higher frames) MUST use higher class engines. Why? Because of the Newton law saying: The same acceleration for a bigger mass will require more force. The formula is simple and is:

Force = Mass x Acceleration

In order for a very large Battlecruiser to have the same acceleration than a little Talion, more engine power output must be reached in order to get the necessary force (impulse) and fulfill with the formula above. This also certainly means: more fuel will be consumed.
All this explains the need of having higher engine classes for heavier ships.
More engine power in EM is reflected by a higher "Thrust" value for an engine class in the Shipyard section.

Importance of all this in gameplay:
Races:
For winning a race in EM, it's not necessary to install higher-class engines as the gain in acceleration will be only minimal. It may however be very practical to raise the IDS Multiplier so you don't have to constantly use the afterburner. Oh, speaking about races: Please be good and don't start one in the vicinity of a sun...

Combat:
For combat, Armor and Capacity is more important than acceleration: You need at least 6 or 7 hardpoints to be filled permanently with special equipement, and the lower frames don't allow for this. For combat you should start with the Mirage frame, engine class 3, level 4 weapons or higher and special equipment; only then you can start speaking

XenonS

[Edited on 1-5-2013 by XenonSurf]

[Marvin]

When hyperjumping while in Inertial mode, your "coasting" speed is determined by your engine class. An important factor when jumping into combat.

[Rubber Chicken]

Yep. It's slightly slower than the IDS x2 setting.

[-splosives-]

In EM, for gameplay reasons, all engines will have the SAME ACCELERATION factor

Wrong!
All frames and engines give different acceleration for afterburner, IDS and inertial forward and reverse.
It's actually a crucial fact in PvP combat, and a reason why so many people prefer the lighter ships for it.
More and more people are switching from the heavy chimera and shrike to the lighter firestar or evoch-E, just because it accelerates so much faster.

For civ frames, several experiments conducted by myself and my lab rat...I mean... clan commander [FF] Hawkeye have proven that engines and frame size both matter for acceleration with IDS, inertial and afterburner.
Fellow scientist DaveK AKA [HB] Incoming, who conducted the first experiments that concluded all engines were the same, admitted to the results of the newer experiments ran by myself.
DaveK made some errors in his experiments...I don't know exactly what went wrong, but it resulted in false conclusions.
I don't want to give DaveK a bad name, though. He has done a lot for the community and has experimented with tons of game mechanics, and ended with good conclusions.

[Edited on 12-22-2012 by -splosives-]

[XenonSurf]

Hi -splosives-,

well, I haven't measured the acceleration, but just assumed that it is like described in Marvin's excellent guide. In this case it should be revised and then yes: the choice of Engine Classes is crucial of course. Alas theres' only very little information about that in the Shipyard section to make a careful and appropriate choice (for example to build a better frame for improving your races).

So my question is: according to your description, the lighter ships will in general have higher acceleration ? Thanks to let me know.

Cheers,
XenonS

[Edited on 12-22-2012 by XenonSurf]

[Marvin]

I was thinking that the operative word in "acceleration factor" (as posted above) was "factor" ... seeing as how, if you multiply the factor by the ship's frame, you do get a more accurate assessment of acceleration performance. Meaning, if you put the same class engine in a small ship and a large ship, the small ship will accelerate faster. To compensate, a larger class engine would be needed for the large ship. (Anyway, that's how I read Xenon's original post.)

[-splosives-]

Indeed
Lighter ships and better engines both make for faster acceleration.
Acceleration on lateral thrusters used to be the same as inertial forward and reverse, but since the expansion, this should be bound to wing class.
I haven't tested this last fact yet though, so I might be wrong.

[XenonSurf]

By reading your answers, I now realize that my statement

"...all engines will have the SAME ACCELERATION factor"

is very misleading. The "factor" is that heavier fighters will use higher engine classes (more thrusters, more force) to keep up with the same acceleration of light fighters. I agree that no one could guess what I had in mind
It is better to simply say that:

According to physical laws, from light fighter up to heavy ones, spacecraft must use increasingly better engine classes to keep a specfic acceleration.

So the conclusion should be:
Getting a higher engine with higher thruster on the same spacecraft MUST increase your acceleration, and my final statement about the race is a wrong one!
But is this the case in the game Will find out soon, but I may crash my ship

XenonS


[Edited on 12-22-2012 by XenonSurf]

[-splosives-]

The biggest problem with the race is actually your lateral thrusters that can't keep up when making turns at high frontal speed.
Lateral thrusters, like I stated before, improve with wing class rather than engine class (or at least they should).

[Professor Paul1290]

If I remember correctly, I think someone found that better engines provide better acceleration, but the difference started very small at lower speed and became more significant at higher speeds.

I forgot where that was mentioned though.



[Edited on 12-22-2012 by Professor Paul1290]

[XenonSurf]

Ok, here are some experiments i did:


Set IDS 5x
Go somewhat above 2500 speed and switch to Inertial
Set speed to exactly 2500 +/- 2 wit the s key and switch off Inertial. This will set your speed to exactly 2500 +/- 2.
Good that version 2 has a chronometer above, so just hit backspace and count the time to get to 0 speed.

My results:

Talon, Engine Class 2, 5 cargo bays, 800-fuel tank .................. 15 seconds
Talon, Engine Class 5, 4 cargo bays, 400-fuel tank .................. 14 seconds

There's no relevant difference. The acceleration is the same, even with that much as 3 engine classes higher!

Afterburner from 0-5000 speed:

Talon, Engine Class 2, 5 cargo bays, 800-fuel tank .................. 48 seconds
Talon, Engine Class 5, 4 cargo bays, 400-fuel tank .................. 39 seconds

Afterburner will decrease performance the more time you are using it. But as this is true in both scenarios, this can be sorted out.

My conclusion:
My first post is all correct for EM v. 2.108 (I don't know for other versions and for Arvock though), although the game may clash againt physical laws: higher thrust on the same mass must produce higher acceleration!
But the solution is very simple: just use higher engines only on heavier spacecrafts !

The differences in engine classes are more significant for the Afterburner rather than for normal engine usage and that's fully ok.

So, there's a good reason for "Gameplay" why acceleration is the same (just like I stated above):
If an enemy spacecraft would have, let's say, the double acceleration than your own spacecraft, guess what you can do against him... Almost nothing
With higher engine classes, you will certainly have a far better Afterburner for speeds from 0-2000, after that, the acceleration as I saw in my experiment will decrease fast.

Rather than engine classes, it's all about afterburner.
Better performance > better afterburner > get a better engine.

XenonS

[yeah, I corrected this post a lot of times ]

[Edited on 12-22-2012 by XenonSurf]

[Nubarus]

"Now, one may ask: What is the sense of using higher engine classes"

Well, one huge factor is that the engine is also your ships power supply, so the bigger the engine the more power you have to fire your weapons.

[-splosives-]

Ok, here are some experiments i did:


Set IDS 5x
Go somewhat above 2500 speed and switch to Inertial
Set speed to exactly 2500 +/- 2 wit the s key and switch off Inertial. This will set your speed to exactly 2500 +/- 2.
Good that version 2 has a chronometer above, so just hit backspace and count the time to get to 0 speed.

My results:

Talon, Engine Class 2, 5 cargo bays, 800-fuel tank .................. 15 seconds
Talon, Engine Class 5, 4 cargo bays, 400-fuel tank .................. 14 seconds

There's no relevant difference. The acceleration is the same, even with that much as 3 engine classes higher!

Afterburner from 0-5000 speed:

Talon, Engine Class 2, 5 cargo bays, 800-fuel tank .................. 48 seconds
Talon, Engine Class 5, 4 cargo bays, 400-fuel tank .................. 39 seconds

Afterburner will decrease performance the more time you are using it. But as this is true in both scenarios, this can be sorted out.

My conclusion:
My first post is all correct for EM v. 2.108 (I don't know for other versions and for Arvock though), although the game may clash againt physical laws: higher thrust on the same mass must produce higher acceleration!
But the solution is very simple: just use higher engines only on heavier spacecrafts !

The differences in engine classes are more significant for the Afterburner rather than for normal engine usage and that's fully ok.

So, there's a good reason for "Gameplay" why acceleration is the same (just like I stated above):
If an enemy spacecraft would have, let's say, the double acceleration than your own spacecraft, guess what you can do against him... Almost nothing
With higher engine classes, you will certainly have a far better Afterburner for speeds from 0-2000, after that, the acceleration as I saw in my experiment will decrease fast.

Rather than engine classes, it's all about afterburner.
Better performance > better afterburner > get a better engine.

XenonS

[yeah, I corrected this post a lot of times ]

[Edited on 12-22-2012 by XenonSurf]

The differences are more significant than they appear, especially at higher speeds. That's why your afterburner experiment did give a difference.
The difference in acceleration only starts to be significant around 2000-3000 speed, so in your first experiment that went to 2500, you actually got only 1 second.
You'll see the differences better when you race 2 different ships against eachother.
At some point, one of the 2 will always get in front of the other, which is retty crucial, especially in PvP combat.
Your first post is still incorrect, you made the same mistake DaveK made. You assumed the small difference in time is due to measurement errors, but it isn't.

My first experiments also lead to your conclusion, but then we decided to test it more thoroughly


[Edited on 12-23-2012 by -splosives-]

[Marvin]

Try the same experiment with a Mammoth. Then compare it with the data you accumulated on the Talon.

[XenonSurf]

I have edited my first post to take account for the small acceleration increases that come with higher engine classes.

XenonS

[Maarschalk]

Interesting test results, Thanks for the Tests Guys, throws a lot of light on the whole acceleration issue!.....

[kb5ixd]

"Now, one may ask: What is the sense of using higher engine classes"

Well, one huge factor is that the engine is also your ships power supply, so the bigger the engine the more power you have to fire your weapons.

Has anyone tested this???

[Maarschalk]

"Now, one may ask: What is the sense of using higher engine classes"

Well, one huge factor is that the engine is also your ships power supply, so the bigger the engine the more power you have to fire your weapons.

Has anyone tested this???

I guess not, you could be the first!....

[Busch]

Yes, the ships' engine is your one-and-only power supply. The larger the engine/class, the more energy/power is immediately available to ships' resources, which all take a piece-of-the-action. Energy to run ships' systems - repairs/ACM/AMS. Energy for shields - core, batteries, and rechargers. Energy for primary weapons equipment - B & P cannons, cannon relays and heatsinks. Ergo, the more robust the engine, the greater the energy/power provided, the greater the benefice to your weapons suite. And, greater amounts of fuel useage as well, with each gaining increment of engine class.

[Edited on 1-9-2013 by Busch]