At the moment we have 3 good engines 1 free engine and 1 cheap engine.

Purposeful engines
Eff: Good for going long distances. Trading, exploring, what have you.
Med: Good for running away or chasing down people.
Hvy: Good for dogfighting and dodging rocket rammers.

Summery: Thrust and maneuverability should not be separated.

Long version:
Separating thrust and maneuverability is a bad idea. Non-maneuverable ships would want to fight at longer ranges so that they didn't have to turn around. Maneuverable ships want to fight close so that they can stay behind their target. When you separate maneuverability from speed the non-maneuverable will just hold down on the back button keeping their distance and nerfing the advantage of the other engine. Secondly (and less importantly) it doesn't make any sense. The more powerful the engine the faster it would turn you or move you. The engine itself doesn't care wether the acceleration is translational or rotational.

We still need a good use for the light engine. And I still say maneuverability should be dependant on speed, since you have to overcome more momentum (yes, that is the right word) to change direction at a higher speed.

the light engine HAS a good use: Its Cheap.
200c cheap
THAT is its use, an engine you can have when your broke :D

Humpy has a point, the only reason everyone skips by the lower quality equipment is because it's so easy to make money in the test. If the difficulty was ramped up you would see people being forced to use light engines and light batteries to progress, the variety would be nice to see in use.

- and, and_but_red!, and_only_gold!

roguelazer.... ummm more momentum (translational which is what your talking about) to over come means it's harder to go from 60m/s in one direction to 60m/s in another (or any other change in speed and/or direction). Your speed and direction will not effect the ease or difficulty with which you can turn.

Rotational (turning) momentum is calculated separately and is based on the speed at which the ship is rotating, and what's called the moment of inertia which is based on the total mass, and distribution of mass around the axis of rotation.

Humpy is completely correct. At the moment we often ignore cheap things since money is so easy to obtain. In later version this might not be true, and I'm sure that after the test it deffinately won't be true.

Fight at longer ranges? That's impossible, the answer lies in the weapons: We need more weapons for the heavy craft in Vendetta!!!! The Adv Gatling is the only acceptable weapon.

However, I do think the engines should be changed so that the heavy engine has the most thrust (for the rag, prom), while the light engine has the highest maneuverability (Valk, Cent, Vult, etc.). Realize that the mass of the ship will still be factored in, so the Valk will still go faster than a Prom.

Leaving the engines alone will nerf every ship that was balanced in 3.2.6 and 3.2.7 back down to 3.2.5 and earlier levels. It will also give a HUUUUGE advantage to the Valkyrie ship. By that I mean it will give any agile ship an advantage with the medium engine/fast battery combo because of the near infinite boost properties, while the less agile ships will be required to use a heavy engine/heavy battery combo to get back to its balanced characteristics. The ships that were balanced in 3.1.6 were based off of the heavy engine configuration, which has a torque greater than the medium engine.

While having less torque on more agile ships is barely noticeable, having less torque on lower agility ships is in fact VERY NOTICEABLE. The player with the less agile ship with the lower torque setting of the medium will suffer immensely. And the player with the Valkyrie or Vulture with the medium engine will hardly notice any difference in agility with the medium engine. In addition to that, a player with the more agile ship with a medium engine/fast combo ship will be able to run down the less agile ship with a heavy engine/heavy battery combo (to compensate for the loss in agility) in no time flat, making most non-specials vulnerable and nerfed once again.

Don't believe me? Buy a Hornet with a medium/fast combo. Then buy a Hornet with a heavy/heavy combo. Which one is more agile? Which one can easily escape a Valkyrie pilot with a medium/fast combo? That's right, you're SCREWED. The torque of the medium engine needs to be upped to the current heavy engine's in order to fix this.

Arolte:
I agree that with the current engines you can't run away from others in slow ships. But this shouldn't be changed. A Hornet (assuming it isn't actually changed to a fighter) shouldn't be able to run away from a Valk, Vult or Cent. It should be able to fight them. The problem isn't with it's inability to run but with it's inability to fight effectively. I agree with you arolte that the Hornet still needs some improvements to balance it. But it should be a ship that can flee well. Balance the ships, don't just make it so that bad ships can run away.


SirCamps,
Valk, Cent and Vult work best under 50m (assuming neither person is ramming) for the purposes of current fighting that is short range. While 100m-200m is longer (hence the "er" not simply "long). At the moment it takes some work to close the range when the opponent has a gat, you take a lot of damage coming in. If the engine changes that have been perposed were put in place you could be killed many times over while trying to get into "close" range.

That's what I was thinking. I mean if a ship is weak or less agile, it should at least be able to escape from its enemy. If a ship is strong and hard to kill, it should have a tough time escaping. There should be tradeoffs like that instead of having one uber ship that's both strong AND fast.

So you think everyone but valks should have infinite boost?

and centurians

Rather use a free engine than a light engine.

Arolte, the cent is weak and fast. It can run from anything. The hornet should have a large port. Speed is not just good for running away. It's very important in combat. If you made it so all ships had a choice, of being able to aim or being able to dodge the game would pretty much suck.

If you wanted a fleeing non-fighting engine it should have low max speed, low acceleration, low maneuverability, and good turbo acceleration and turbo max speed. This would mean no pirating. I'm not a pirate myself but I think it'd be a mistake to eliminate the role from the game.

Light Engine:
Maybe the light engine should consume 52 or 53 energy/second?

Wait, you want to give the hornet a LARGE SLOT? That gives it two more weapons slots than the warthog for the same maneuverabilty! Do you want to see a tri-flare+adv-gatling hornet? How about a tri-flare + screamer hornet? A screamer does twice as much damage as a flare for Pete's sake! That'd be more of an ubership than the valk by FAR!

Tri flare + avalon.

Mmm, avalon+sunflare rammers.

roguelazer:
SAME manueverability!? You do realize that there are two things that effect manvueverability right? First what the devs have called manueverablility, and second mass. Which we have to guess at. The hornet is much more massive than the hog and there for turns much slower.

Sui:
ew... ramming should be dealt with... (seperately) I think I've posted my idea of a timer (and many other people have posted similar ideas) enough times that I'm not going to say it again.

avalons have a fuse.

Still Eldrad, the maneuverability is close. And the extra 1500 damage, plus the extra speed of the Screamers and the extra ammo makes it more deadly. And I don't care about mass, nothing with medium maneuverability should have an adv gat. Yes, I do include the hog in that (my beloved hog! No! YES!). Adding another ship will cause serious danger to everyone that doesn't have a tri-flare+something hornet.

roguelazer if a frigate had "very high manuverability" it'd take an hour to turn around (assuming they could get it to work at all). I haven't used it since it got the boost a couple of upgrades ago, but fighting against it I still think it is too weak. It can't turn fast enough to hit with tri flares if the target's dodging. It's fairly easy pickings for a cent, or vult.

Blaster:
Really? Cool.

Running isn't the only issue. The combat effectiveness of ships such as the Marauder and Hornet relative to faster ships dropped when everyone switched from heavy to medium engines.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that we all start turbo tapping in heavy engines again, but the change to engines did effect balance.

Asp