Asp if everyone switched to med egines then hornets with hvy engines should be much better off. I still use a hvy engine almost all the time, except for bot distracting.

Let me repeat myself:

The heavy engine did not go away! Its maneuverability qualities DID NOT change. It just lost the ability to have infinite energy, which is a bug AND an exploit. The medium engine also DID NOT CHANGE. It's been like this all along, and I know 'cause I've used it pre-3.2.8. Ditto for the effecient and light. No one is "forcing" you to use the medium engine, and the heavy as it was MEANT to be is still right there, just the same except for boost tapping, an exploit, is removed. Why do you want to change all the engines just because YOUR illegal maneuver was removed? I never boost-tapped (I just used an eff/fast-charge instead and was much better off in most things), and I think everything's fine as it is. So take the title of the thread to heart!

Well that's where you're wrong, roguelazer. The heavy engine DID change. Infinite boost is gone, that's great. I don't know jack about scripting and binding keys and whatnot, so I never used it myself either. But one of the biggest things that made the heavy engine useful was the ability to boost tap. That is gone now. So yes, it has in fact changed.

Arolte boost tapping was infinite boost if you tapped well enough.

Like I said, the only thing that's gone is boost tapping. And non-scripting boost-tapping CAN be infinite if you do it well. I think any type of boost tapping should be eliminated, but I also think that enabling boost should boost you until your battery runs dry and at a signifigantly higher rate than it does now, so what do I know?

It's NOT infinite. Unless you're a robot you cannot boost tap to a rate of 200m/s infinitely. You'd have to constantly tap your keyboard within a matter of milliseconds in order to keep up infinite speed. Typical human reflexes would only yield a constant speed of 180-190m/s via boost tapping. So you only got an initial boost of up to 200m/s, but you won't ever reach that speed again unless you've.. A) got a robotic arm or B) you used the binding exploit (which is now taken out). Point is, you're physically restrained from ever reaching infinite boost with the heavy.

also ray disabled my alias :/

Ah, arolte? 185m/s constant speed is still better than any other engine and is still an exploit. The 15m/s don't magically fix it.

Arolte maybe it's cause I've always had turbo bound to one of my mouse buttons (long before I understood boost tapping), but I could tap and gain energy without loosing any speed. I had to do it a couple times a second, 3 or 4, it was annoying but I was able to keep my speed above 195 with full energy and no unusual bindings.

M'kay, you guys don't want infinite turbo, eh? In that case the medium engine should drain energy a lot quicker. Right now the current line of engines doesn't make much sense. The light engine drains quickly. The efficient engine doesn't drain at all. The medium engine is ALMOST infinite AND can easily outrun an efficient engine. And the heavy engine drains in like three seconds.

Either the medium engine needs to drain more energy, or the heavy engine needs to drain less. Or maybe the heavy battery should generate energy a little quicker. The generator speed isn't really what nerfs it, it's the fact that it has such a high capacity. And since waiting for full capacity plays a huge role on whether you'll wait for a jump, I think you could still get away with giving it slightly quicker recharging capabilities. I wouldn't mind sacrificing capacity for higher charge speeds. Maybe the heavy engine can be 450 or 500 instead of 550 capacity.

again, if they just required a certain amount of battery to jump, say 100 or something, then this would not be an issue.

I agree the medium is a bit too powerful. The efficient is fine, infinite turbo but low speed and acceleration, and extremely fast deceleration. The heavy (as it stands) is fine. The medium should draw a bit more turbo power to make the current boost-tapping that even I can do with it impossible.

/me agrees with roguelazer.

Arolte:
With fast charge bat. Capasity 250 Recharge 50
Hvy lasts for 17 seconds.
The light and med have the exact same drain, and last 50 seconds (with out tapping).
Eff. lasts for ever.

Maybe uping the energy consumption of the med a little bit makes sense to balance it with the light, but why would anyone turbo race someone with a hvy engine when the other person has a med. The hvy should just turn around and kill the chaser.

The light is still utterly useless. Inferior in all ways to all other engines.

Eldrad, where were you when I was trying to convince the rest of the world that just because you're moving faster doesn't mean your turn rate should be lower? :P Listen to Eldrad everyone, he knows what he's talking about.

When I first started playing I used the heavy engine all the time (before I even knew about boost-tapping). I found it very useful for short sprints and for its high torque. I like to call it the "cheetah engine" for chasing down prey in short, high-speed bursts. The medium engine I like to call the "antelope engine" b/c it's not as fast/maneuverable but it can run for long periods of time.

The light engine's one saving grace is its low cost, but right now that really has no bearing on gameplay since most people have at least a million credits. However, I do think making torque inversely proportional to forward thrust would be a very bad idea. One, it doesn't make sense physically, Two, the heavy engine would be "nerfed" even further.

Why not simply make another engine (call it the gyroscopic engine or the stunt engine?) that has a high ratio of torque to forward thrust?

You know, I've been thinking that maybe each ship should have a unique engine of its own. Rather than having people argue about various engine and battery specs, why not just make each ship unique with built-in engines? Each ship would basically come with an efficient engine (well, a faster version than the current), but in addition to that they would have varying levels of speed and torque based on the mass of each ship.

For example a light fighter would have a high rate of acceleration, but lower maximum speed due to lack of space for additional propellants. A heavy bomber would have a very low acceleration rate, but a higher maximum speed. The engine torque of each ship should remain equal to the heavy engine's, since the agility balance tweaks of 3.1.6 and 3.1.7 were based on the heavy engine's torque level.

I'm not exactly sure how exactly each and every ship should respond to these unique engines, so I'm not going to sit here and list 'em all. All I know is weaker and less agile fighters need to able to get away from uber ships like the Valk. While heavily armed bombers should have trouble escaping fighters, but SHOULD be able to hold a formidable defense with a vast array of lethal weapons.

I'm hoping that eventually Vendetta's ships would each evolve into unique specimens of their own, rather than a hollow model with basically the same engine anyone can throw in. I'm not saying get rid of customizability, as you'll still have that chance with weapons and groupings, but rather give each spacecraft unique characteristics of their own so that they're MORE different than just their engine config. All of the ships in Vendetta so far have been completely dependent on the engine and battery config... but what about their unique designs and background information (race, level of technology, etc.). Shouldn't that have some impact too?!

Isn't that EXACTLY as it was in 2.8.x? With the lights getting a light engine, the mediums getting a medium engine and the heavies getting a heavy engine?

In a way, yes. But with my proposal everyone would have the ability to boost without energy drain. There are also OTHER factors that will determine the speed and agility of your ship. The design of the ship, the race from which it was built, the technology that race posseses, etc. The engines themselves will NOT be the only factor in determining the ship's ability to handle in combat.

At first you may feel skeptical about the idea, and I understand the concern. But IF they can pull off a way of giving each ship a unique engine that is properly balanced (this isn't something that can happen overnight), it would be a lot more fun to have a greater variety of ships to choose from with their "special abilities", rather than having to equip the same frickin' engine/battery combo over and over after each death (boooring).

In addition to unique engines, "special abilities" may also include the following: ability to cloak, ability to bypass IFF system of AI bots, ability to release mini defense drones, etc. Let's make an example here. Suppose you find a hidden sector and manage to dock into its station. You find out that an alien ship is being sold there, but you notice its engine specs aren't that much different from the regular ships. But when you undock and accidentally hit the "special ability" key, you soon learn that the ship's cloaking abilities is what makes it unique. The cloaking device on the alien ship will not be available to everyone in just any other ship. It's only built for that ship to give it that uniqueness.

Do you see what I'm trying to get at here? I'm trying to step away from the idea of a hollow ship with the same exact equipment for every single ship, and getting into something more unique by making the ships themselves unique. I don't know about you but i'd prefer special abilities and unique ships over ships that simply differ in mass and weapon port availability. It would make the RPG aspects of the game richer, no doubt.

Arolte the site has suggested that ships will become more modular not less. This is an amazing idea and I think it would be a huge mistake to back down from it.

/me will be really happy to see mauraders with a variable number of those cargo containers strung out behind them, floating along like a space train.

Why do we need to limit the choice of engines to gain "special abilities"? Can't we have that modularity without changing the way we buy engines? Heck, doesn't that not even have anything to do with the engines? None of that has to do with engines. They can give us special features and more ship classes without changing engines one bit. Actually, since they wouldn't have to do so much changing, it'd be EASIER to get the special abilities withot changing engines.

As for the same equipment on every ship, I dunno where you come from. The only equipment I don't use is the light engine, the light battery and the medium battery because they are broken and useless. Everything else has a purpose.

Now, I'm not trying to flame. But it seems to me that you're trying to hide your restriction of engines by suggesting that the devs might take that opportunity to delve into the inventory and make all of Celebrim's gadgets, which I seriously doubt.