heres an idea, heavier engine, higher maximum speed, but more energy consumption.

I'd still opt for the slower consumption rate, since giving it a higher speed would make the Valk even more of an uber ship.

you can average faster speed with a med/fast combo than eff/fast combo.

my USD 0.02

the medium engine needs not to be tweaked in regards of the heavy one. it is a matter of fight or run.
fight with heavy, run with medium. this has been stated.
besides, the medium has roughly only 3 times the turbo range of the heavy (with fast charge). and if you don't change direction often you get fried by rockets. this has also been stated.
besides, a heavy engine has the speed advantage over a medium during the first 20 seconds or so, especially when you are in a craft less agile than the attacker's (this contitutes the majority of the scenarios where you oppose med to hvy).

Like I said, UncleDave, only when you're using the same ship. So for the most part that's not the case. A Vulture with a medium is still more agile than a Warthog with a heavy.

But we're comparing engines, not ships. It all depends on how much you know about Vendetta knowledge. A newbie could complain that a rag with a light is slower than a valk with a heavy. Well duh! Same with Vulture and Wart Hog. Vult _should_ be more agile than the Hog. Are we comparing engines, or configurations? Some configurations are going to be broken regardless of the ship you choose (why can't my valk/light/free/triple gov't ions take on a valk/heavy/fast/triple rocket?).

If you're going to compare engines, pick one craft and stick to it.

Ok, 5 points of torque may not sound like much, but in a fight IT MATTERS. A lot.

The medium engine takes VERY little energy to operate with a fast charge battery. The jump between medium and heavy engines in terms of power consumption is huge at the moment. And if all you had to do was wait one or two seconds at a wormhole for a full charge, why would anyone want to use an efficient engine? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?

May I suggest that the power consumption of the medium engine be upped a tad so that it would fit in more evenly between the efficient and heavy engine? Thanks.

Actually, I'd rather make the heavy consume five less energy than it does now.

IMO though, the real balancing factor would be making heavy batteries, and heavy engines into 'large batteries' and 'large engine' and making them consume some ammount of available cargo space. This would then give us the option of reducing cargo space on a light ship to the point that the pilot would have tough chooses to face.

I know some people who used to use an effecient engine in the 3.2 trading era 'cause you could hit a wormhole going 140 m/s.

Otherwise I'd have to agree that the effecient engine doesn't really have anything on the medium engine. Perhaps the effecient engine's max speed could be increased but the accelleration kept constant.

Yeah but... there'll still be a huge gap between the heavy and medium, Phaserlight. Baaahaaahad!!

Maybe slowing the heavy's consumption might work. I've been dying to get a heavy engine that doesn't take a thousand gajillion billion trillion years of waiting to jump a wormhole. Oiy!

Oh no wait, that's recharge time. Maybe recharging can be quicker instead. Yeah that's what I meant. Or maybe both. I don't know anymore. Either way... medium or heavy = mad tweaking skillz needed.

The medium and heavy are perfectly balanced relative to each other. If you use a medium engine in a fight you'd get fried, due to your reduced strafing abilities. However, if your goal is to run, you're almost guaranteed to get away in a medium (unless the person fires a well-placed rocket shot).

I use efficient because I don't fight much and I like to be able to get from the gate in s5 to the station in one boost. The light is what needs fixing. The light engine is worse than the free engine for pete's sake, and don't get me started on the light battery.

Aside from that, the medium engine still has near-infinite boosting capabilities that contrasts very little with the efficient engine. While the heavy engine has the most torque (By how much? A mere 5 points?), it runs out of energy way too quickly. In addition to that, a more agile ship with a medium can still outmaneuver a lower agile ship with a heavy. So I find the argument of torque moot at this point.

I don't know... it just seems to me like there's an uneven gap between the efficient and heavy engine. The medium is like a clone of the efficient, but faster. Yeah so what, you have to wait a second or two for your battery to recharge at the wormhole. But that's not any different than boosting right through at a slower speed.

The medium is not infinite boost. Nowhere near. Matter of fact, I've chased down many a person who used a medium with my efficient. The big gap is light > medium

Try deuling in a medium engine. Believe me you'll notice.

I think a better fix would be to make the heavy batt. recharge a bit faster and make the energy cost for opening a wormhole flat for all batterries.

>The medium is not infinite boost. Nowhere near. Matter of fact, I've
>chased down many a person who used a medium with my efficient.
>The big gap is light > medium

Well duh, that's why I said "near" in front of the word "infinite". Compared to the heavy, yeah I'd say it's up there. And yes, the light either needs to be redone in ways which I don't know of. Unless the torque/speed system is completely redone, I don't see the light engine ever being useful aside from newbie/hobo usage.

>Try deuling in a medium engine. Believe me you'll notice.
>I think a better fix would be to make the heavy batt. recharge a bit faster
>and make the energy cost for opening a wormhole flat for all batterries.

Yeah, if you're talking about the same ship when you're comparing the two engines. Or ships that border medium/low agility. But as we all know this isn't the case when we're talking about different ships altogether. But yeah... I think the problem is recharging speed rather than capacity or consumption speed. Though right now anything would be better than what we have now.

Make wormhole cost a function of the ship. IE:

EC-88: 0e
Centurion: 50e
Vulture: 100e
Warthog: 200e
Hornet: 200e
Prometheus: 350e

This would also make it less likely for a big ship to have a little teeney battery, but oh well.

Wouldn't it be the opposite, since heavies should be able to store more energy? No need to nerf heavies any more than they already are. If anything, lighter ships should have a wormhole disadvantage.

That doesn't sound right- it would make more sense that a larger, heavier ship would require more energy to move.