Store Page
Space Engineers
All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews

Space Engineers

Store Page
Space Engineers >  Workshop > Darth Biomech's Workshop > (DX11)Titan Engine > Discussions
(DX11)Titan Engine
Description Discussions9 Comments671 Change Notes
Hades 8 Aug, 2014 @ 5:56pm
Thruster Efficiency and Cost to be viable for Survival mode
Fantastic model and look... but just some feedback and thoughts:

Two topics

1) EFFICIENCY

- If a LARGE thruster puts out 12.2KN and only needs 10.08MW power... a single LARGE reactor (100MW) is more than enough to drive it.
- However, the TITAN thruster puts out 32NW (around 3 times) and technically should require roughly 30MW of power... still enough for a single LARGE reactor.
- However, this beast requires 300MW (3 large reactors) to give out only 32MW of thrust.

Similarly cost is a bit odd:

- 3 large thrusters = 1890 thrusters, 120 large tubes, 300 c.components, 450 steel plate.
- 1 titan = 2048 thrusters, 100 large tubes, 180 computers, 500 c.components, 1100 plate

In summary, I think the titan thruster should require 30MW to fire in order for it to be comparable to large thruster efficiency... otherwise boost thruster to 50MW and increase power requirement to 20MW (there is still a 20% loss in efficiency so your "beauty tax" is there.

Cost-wise size should offer scalability, so I'd suggest you, the tubes up to 150 (longer runs, 20% less efficiency), kill the computers down to 10 (not aligned with thruster function), drop the c.components to 350 (anything worse than 20% efficiency loss is meh) and the steel plates can have a 20% beauty tax at 550 steel plates.

I know from your earlier post that you think beauty should come at a price... but that mindset will restrict this mod from being viable in survival as it's just not worth it for anything but creative mode.

2) DESIGN ENHANCEMENT

A thought just occoured to me... maybe if you evolve this mod you could give it storage for uranium ingots and/or conveyor connections. Reason: your model looks like it has a self-contained nuclear reactor at the top... in which case you'd tweak it's uraniun consumption to have similar power consumption efficiency as 3 x large thrusters.

It would also add a new engineer dynamic in that titan sized thrusters are self-contained thruster/reactors!
< >
Showing 1-15 of 24 comments
Matrix30815 9 Aug, 2014 @ 12:57pm 
I agree
#1
Forien 9 Aug, 2014 @ 12:58pm 
Dude. I don't know what mod you have played. but Large Thruster on Large Ship has around 1.2MN (Mega Newtons), I don't remember exact value.

And TITAN Thruster has output 32MN (Mega Newtons, its 32 000 000 Newtons).

You gave us values like 32KN. There is no KN unit. Maybe kN, which is kilo Newtons (32kN = 32 000 N).
Another value you typed is MW. Mega Watts... as thruster output...
boost thruster to 50MW and increase power requirement to 20MW

Anyway. Maths (using maneuvering values, because mod's creator gave us them, not max ones):

Large Ship Large Thruster (LSLT)
Titan Thruster (TT)

LSLT - 1.21 MN output, requires 6.72 MW
TT - ~32 MN output, requires 300 MW

TT output = ~26,4 LSLTs
TT power drain = ~44,64 LSLTs

So it simply drains twice as much power, as would LSLTs of the same thrust power.

You brought nice numbers on building materials already so I won't rewrite it.

Anyway. You have ONE thruster, awesome in look, NOT EXPENSIVE to build, saving you A LOT of visuality on your ship (one slightly bigger thruster with big nice glow, instead of 26 same looking boring vanilla ones? of course it's better). But as it has a lot of advantages, there MUST be a disadvantage. And disadvantage here is forcing you to build 3 reactors dedicated to power up this thruster.
Get reactor's needed materials and add them to building cost of titan engine. Now you will see, that for nicely shaped thruster you have to pay a big price.

And it is worth it. IMO Titan Thruster is very well balanced into game and LOOKS AWESOME.
Last edited by Forien; 9 Aug, 2014 @ 1:02pm
#2
Darth Biomech  [developer] 9 Aug, 2014 @ 4:10pm 
Actually, idea about make in the future Titan self-sustainable as "reactor+thruster" is pretty cool. I will try to tap into it when API comes out.

Also there is a lot sayings that it gives up LESSER thrust that it should, but then, our velocity currently is anyway restricted to laughable 107 m/s, so is there really a point to increase thrust output even higher? It already can be installed onto medium-sized ships and push them to max speed really quickly. By giving it a three reactors requisid I tried to force it be reasonable on only HUGE ships, twice as large as default red ship - minimum.

At the same time, maybe I should change requiremenst for engine building towards increasing them, if it is really sums up to roughly only 3 large thrusters in most of the components which feels like wrong to me. What do you guys think?
Last edited by Darth Biomech; 9 Aug, 2014 @ 4:18pm
#3
Forien 9 Aug, 2014 @ 5:39pm 
Originally posted by Darth Biomech:
Actually, idea about make in the future Titan self-sustainable as "reactor+thruster" is pretty cool. I will try to tap into it when API comes out.
That would be cool. But unfortunately now we have "electricity to thrust" miracles. :(

Originally posted by Darth Biomech:
Also there is a lot sayings that it gives up LESSER thrust that it should, but then, our velocity currently is anyway restricted to laughable 107 m/s, so is there really a point to increase thrust output even higher? It already can be installed onto medium-sized ships and push them to max speed really quickly. By giving it a three reactors requisid I tried to force it be reasonable on only HUGE ships, twice as large as default red ship - minimum.

As I said. I find it really well balanced (while putting aside buildint cost). I see no need for Thrust nerf or power drain increase.

Originally posted by Darth Biomech:
At the same time, maybe I should change requiremenst for engine building towards increasing them, if it is really sums up to roughly only 3 large thrusters in most of the components which feels like wrong to me. What do you guys think?

Well, you have to consider that real cost of this thruster is 3 Large Thrusters + 3 Large Reactors ;)
But yeah, could be something like 10 Thrusters + 3 Reactors IMHO.
#4
Darth Biomech  [developer] 10 Aug, 2014 @ 2:23am 
Originally posted by Forien:
Well, you have to consider that real cost of this thruster is 3 Large Thrusters + 3 Large Reactors ;)
But yeah, could be something like 10 Thrusters + 3 Reactors IMHO.
Yeah, but I meant from density\volume point of view. This thing requires only a bit more materials than 3 large thrusters, while it is far bigger than 3 thrusters.
#5
Tiger 10 Aug, 2014 @ 8:03pm 
Originally posted by Darth Biomech:
Yeah, but I meant from density\volume point of view. This thing requires only a bit more materials than 3 large thrusters, while it is far bigger than 3 thrusters.

3 thusters = 36 solid blocks + 12 partial for the exhausts. So roughly 48.
Titan's central structure is 3x3x20 = 180, id estimate the surrounding mass to be around 80.

So thats 48 to 260. Your talking 5x the Volume/Mass of 3 Large Thruster's id say.

Originally posted by Storm:
- 3 large thrusters = 1890 thrusters, 120 large tubes, 300 c.components, 450 steel plate.
- 1 titan = 2048 thrusters, 100 large tubes, 180 computers, 500 c.components, 1100 plate
Id probably look at the values of:
- 3 large thrusters, Thats 90,000kg (i added up the total components weight)
*for the titan id add some motors too. No way that doesnt have somthing spinning inside. :D
- 1 titan = 3000 thrusters, 100 large tubes, 280 computers, 700 c.components, 1900 plate
Even thats only 167,596kg (2x)
Its just such a hugh Engine!!
I think the build values of 2x would be for somthing.. half the size.
Id make another smaller one about this size.
Originally posted by Sangurian Soul:
3x3x10-12

I think for Realism sake youd have to make it literally need 5x the materials to build. And hell yes it would need 3 reactors. BUT i would make it give out anything from 10-20 times the thrust of a single large thruster.

Your choice really, supost the best question is this.
"Who made it?"
Because given its size, if that thruster doesnt have some hugh output i would compare it to the first steam roler engines. Heavy, Slow and not very efficent.
So id decide on New and Cheap. Very un-efficient engine cobled together by a mad engineer.
Or very expensive but so so worth building you cant help but make one.

I dont want it to be stupidly expnsive to build but realistically 5x the materials. for the mass its taking up. i want 5 of these on my survival ship. But even at 5x 3LrgThruster its still a vast amount cheaper than building 26 individual ones.

A larger engine can be made to have a more efficient output that somthing smaller. But given these thrusters are still most likely based on IonThrusters you would still need the extra electrical input. Especially to jump start it.
Last edited by Tiger; 10 Aug, 2014 @ 8:58pm
#6
Forien 10 Aug, 2014 @ 8:13pm 
Originally posted by Tiger:
BUT i would make it give out anything from 10-20 times the thrust of a single large thruster.

It's equal to about 26 Large Thrusters. Check my first post here.
#7
Tiger 10 Aug, 2014 @ 8:21pm 
Oh crap, sorry glossed over that bit. Fair enough, Still needs a LOT more materials for it.. just not enough for the size of the thing.
I edited my previous post a little. Was confusing even to me.
#8
Jesus Cat (Fwyrl) 12 Aug, 2014 @ 8:19am 
I think the idea of it requiring uranium directly makes the most sense, but then you would want to add a conveyor implementation for it.
#9
Yogg 13 Aug, 2014 @ 12:27pm 
Ok let me clear up the math here. The issue we are having is that the wiki is wrong (at the time of this post) as it shows 12MN as the output of the large thruster, instead of the 1.2MN that is the actual output (I have math to prove it).

This means that Forien's numbers are the correct ones, so the TITAN thruster has equivalent thrust of 26.4 large thrusters. It also means that this thruster pull the equivalent power of 44.6 large thrusters. This works out to a ratio of 1:1.7(LT thrust:LT power use).

I however, feel that the power use is still too high. A ratio of 1:1.5 would be better allowing extremely large ships to have more than 1 or 2 with out having half the ship be devoted to reactors. As a real-world example, I have an unfinished ship that is about 400million kg and 2 Titans plus 70-90 large thrusters will not cut it when it is at its completed mass of somewhere around 800-900 million kg. As it is(2 titans inc), forward movement overloads my 12 large reactors, I feel that this is too much.

Also, a damage distance of 40 blocks (100m), literally a full football field of death and destruction, seems excessive. While I feel that it should have a large damage distance, reducing it to about 20 blocks (50m) might be a bit more realistic.

TL;DR I feel that the cost of a smaller package is not worth the 1.7x power use, and that a 1.5x power use would be much better. Also the flame might be a bit too long.

~Yogg

p.s. @Darth Biomech: your mods are great keep up the good work!
#10
Forien 13 Aug, 2014 @ 2:17pm 
Originally posted by Yogg:
This means that Forien's numbers are the correct ones, so the TITAN thruster has equivalent thrust of 26.4 large thrusters. It also means that this thruster pull the equivalent power of 44.6 large thrusters. This works out to a ratio of 1:1.7(LT thrust:LT power use).

This. :)

Originally posted by Yogg:
I however, feel that the power use is still too high. A ratio of 1:1.5 would be better allowing extremely large ships to have more than 1 or 2 with out having half the ship be devoted to reactors. As a real-world example, I have an unfinished ship that is about 400million kg and 2 Titans plus 70-90 large thrusters will not cut it when it is at its completed mass of somewhere around 800-900 million kg. As it is(2 titans inc), forward movement overloads my 12 large reactors, I feel that this is too much.

I have ship just slightly bigger (I'm not giving mass or anything, because I haven't finished it) than basic Red ship powered with 8 Titans as forward engines, 12 LTs as backward engines and multiple small thrusters as maneuvering top/down/left/right. And I don't feel like "oh my god, where should I put these 1,000,000 reactors?". To be honest, Gyroscopes take A LOT more space than reactors in my case. And I'm not able to turn well even using arrows.
#11
Darth Biomech  [developer] 13 Aug, 2014 @ 2:26pm 
Originally posted by Yogg:
Also, a damage distance of 40 blocks (100m), literally a full football field of death and destruction, seems excessive. While I feel that it should have a large damage distance, reducing it to about 20 blocks (50m) might be a bit more realistic.
Actually, it is dumbed down from what you can expect in reality. I do not have exact maths for this, but enine's effectivity as a weapon is directly proportional to it's effectivity as a thruster. I have a feeling that ship that give such thrust as Titan Engine's one would have exhaust flash still dangerous (and visible too, btw) to almost anything in its wake for KILOMETERS behind it.
#12
MadMan2065 16 Aug, 2014 @ 1:37am 
Just a thing, im not sure if anyone else has posted this yet, but it requires 4 large reactors or 3 and change (i.e. small) to run, trying to run it with only 3 larges causes overload
#13
Forien 16 Aug, 2014 @ 4:34am 
Originally posted by jmartin2065:
Just a thing, im not sure if anyone else has posted this yet, but it requires 4 large reactors or 3 and change (i.e. small) to run, trying to run it with only 3 larges causes overload

Yeah, so what? It's a feature, mod creator pointed that in mod description. Titan needs 3 Large Reactors.
#14
Darth Biomech  [developer] 16 Aug, 2014 @ 4:51am 
Well, actually I'd need to fix it probably. 3 and a half looks a bit too much for me)
#15
< >
Showing 1-15 of 24 comments
Per page: 1530 50