suggestion: rocket fuel should determine mission speed, not distance.

[goboking]

As is, rocket fuel determines how far we can travel through space.  I think I'd prefer it if instead it determined how quickly we travel through space, with petroleum and hydrogen being twice and thrice as fast as steam, respectively.  So if the closest planets take take a steam engine 3 cycles to reach and the furthest take 30, then a petroleum engine could make those same trips in 2 and 20 cycles and a hydrogen engine would take just 1 and 10.  This gives us the option of making repeated deep space runs practical if we choose to go the hydrogen route without making earlier tech obsolete should we choose to rely on existing infrastructure.

[Sasza22]

I think it`s ok for the steam engine to have the lowest range. I would leave the system as is but reduce travel time for more advanced engines. So steam would remain at 3 cycles per 10k km, petrol would be 2 and hydrogen 1. You`d still need enough fule to reach the distance you are going for though.

[D.L.S.]

In 0-gravity you need energy to accelerate only so suggestion sounds realistic, but in game all made for balance purpose so the one couldn't get distant resources with low end rocket. Its all just gameplay balance, not physics or simulation.

[lee1026]

21 hours ago, D.L.S. said:

In 0-gravity you need energy to accelerate only so suggestion sounds realistic, but in game all made for balance purpose so the one couldn't get distant resources with low end rocket. Its all just gameplay balance, not physics or simulation.

But distant resources generally don't have anything special - the actual rare resources often do spawn on the first rocket destinations.

[AndreyKl]

On 10.04.2019 at 6:36 PM, goboking said:

As is, rocket fuel determines how far we can travel through space.  I think I'd prefer it if instead it determined how quickly we travel through space, with petroleum and hydrogen being twice and thrice as fast as steam, respectively.  So if the closest planets take take a steam engine 3 cycles to reach and the furthest take 30, then a petroleum engine could make those same trips in 2 and 20 cycles and a hydrogen engine would take just 1 and 10.  This gives us the option of making repeated deep space runs practical if we choose to go the hydrogen route without making earlier tech obsolete should we choose to rely on existing infrastructure.

That will make much less sense than current system does.

1. Speed is not exactly limited (you can't go past speed of light), so more energy sometimes does mean faster travel (you can accelerate longer), but fuel type is not what determines maximum speed. Having more energy to accelerate longer and reach target faster makes sense. Reaching target faster simply because you changed fuel type, yet still have same amount of energy does not make sense.

2. In terms of space travel it rarely matters if you accelerate for a 10 minutes at 100% power or 20 minutes at 50%. Trip still goes to take same amount of days. So fuel or thruster  that allows faster acceleration doesn't matter overall.

3. Fuel mostly determine how much(long) you can accelerate in space (how much energy you have aboard), not how fast you accelerate even if it partially affects thrusters. It is thruster and pilot what limits acceleration, because pilot can't take too many g (you can invent better thruster, durable pilot is more problematic).

From my point of view travel speed should be dependent onto distance, fuel reserve over minimum required and maybe slightly onto thrust/mass ratio (I don't think it matters, since you don't burn fuel for whole trip)

[Dead Squirrel]

On 4/12/2019 at 6:54 AM, AndreyKl said:

2. In terms of space travel it rarely matters if you accelerate for a 10 minutes at 100% power or 20 minutes at 50%. Trip still goes to take same amount of days. So fuel or thruster  that allows faster acceleration doesn't matter overall.

That's not quite true. If you simplistically accelerate at "100% power for 10 minutes" and then fly for 10 minutes, you'll be traveling at whatever speed that gets you for 10 minutes longer than if you instead accelerate at "50% power for 20 minutes". You'll have traveled 1.5 times farther after 20 minutes, even though at the 20 minute mark both rockets would be traveling at the same speed.

 

The acceleration of a rocket is more important because you have to slow down when you get to wherever you're going. Supposing both planets were traveling at relatively the same velocity, you spend as much energy slowing down to land as you did speeding up to get there. If I have an engine that accelerates more efficiently, even if my top speed during a trip is the same as another engine, I will definitely spend less time (but also more energy).

 

I kinda get where OP's coming from. If I built a better engine, it should now go a little faster. But also, the amount of fuel carried limits how much you can accelerate/decelerate, so steam engines would only be able to travel so far within a reasonable time frame.

 

I totally agree about your point about squishy meatbags (dupes/humans/whatever) limiting acceleration. Our organics make space travel annoyingly prohibitive.

 

 

[Chained Phoenix]

If you want to tie the distance to fuel consumption still then add the following:

The longer the distance, the more oxygen and food you need to load on board, hence the more fuel you use to take off and land.

It would also make it so that you still need to look after your dupes needs while they travel.  Right now they can go 120,000km on a single Atmo suit, not even loaded up with oxygen, and what is in their stomach

[AndreyKl]

On 19.04.2019 at 11:45 PM, Dead Squirrel said:

That's not quite true. If you simplistically accelerate at "100% power for 10 minutes" and then fly for 10 minutes, you'll be traveling at whatever speed that gets you for 10 minutes longer than if you instead accelerate at "50% power for 20 minutes". You'll have traveled 1.5 times farther after 20 minutes, even though at the 20 minute mark both rockets would be traveling at the same speed.

You accelerate by 10 minutes longer and simply spend not 30 days, but 30 days and 20 minutes (because same goes for deceleration). I don't really see a difference, except slower (de)acceleration is less stressful for equipment.

I do agree that acceleration matters for landing(and launch). But unless we have unlimited amount of energy and are talking about (de)accelerating all the way, acceleration while in space doesn't matters as much. In case of continuous acceleration time spent on trip wouldn't be so linear as in ONI, neither would be fuel requirements.

[T.M.]

On 10.04.2019 at 6:36 PM, goboking said:

As is, rocket fuel determines how far we can travel through space.  I think I'd prefer it if instead it determined how quickly we travel through space, with petroleum and hydrogen being twice and thrice as fast as steam, respectively.  So if the closest planets take take a steam engine 3 cycles to reach and the furthest take 30, then a petroleum engine could make those same trips in 2 and 20 cycles and a hydrogen engine would take just 1 and 10.  This gives us the option of making repeated deep space runs practical if we choose to go the hydrogen route without making earlier tech obsolete should we choose to rely on existing infrastructure.

If we talk about realism, the acceleration rate depends on the thrust-to-weight ratio (TWR). TWR is important for takeoff from space bodies, in space the engines operate for a relatively short time (excluding ion and other engines with a low TWR). So the speed of the journey depends on the distance to the target and the position in orbit.