Sugar Engines are Amazing

[Rinkusan]

I've seen a few posts talking about the sugar engine and how nonviable it is relative to the carbon dioxide engine, and I thought I'd offer my take on this topic after playing with both in my current playthrough of the DLC. I personally think that not only does the sugar engine have its value; I've gotten way more use out of it than I have with the CO2 engine.

From what I understand, the general consensus is that the sugar engine's poor speed doesn't make up for its 1 extra module, and in the context of short trips, I agree. Usually for me, that means replacing a solo spacefarer nosecone with a proper regular spacefarer module + nosecone so that my dupes can travel in luxury and sustainability, both of which don't matter all that much IF you're, say, colonizing the closest planetoid, which for me was 2 tiles away, AKA 1 tile of travel away. That's only 1.2 cycles of roundtrip travel with a CO2 engine, short enough to not need to worry about anything other than a basic amount of oxygen-diffuser oxygen and maybe an outhouse vs a whopping 4.8 cycles with a sugar engine with the added effort of beds, food, germs, sustainable oxygen, etc. On top of that, CO2 is - obviously - easily renewable all the time whereas sucrose only becomes renewable after you've conquered a sulfur vent. 

Where I see the sugar engine shine well beyond the CO2 engine, though, is in the far-distance trips i.e. "one-way" trips over 2 tiles of travel. Both engines have a max travel distance of 4 tiles, so normally, you'd think any travel distance over 2 tiles is basically a trip your dupes can't return from. But that's NOT the case with the sugar engine. Even though the fuel itself was a con in the previous short-distance scenario, it's a huge pro in this long-distance scenario because you can store sucrose in your spacefarer module; all you need is a simple storage bin. Send 2 sugar rockets to your planetoid 3 travel-tiles away, launch your steel cargo and trailblazer pod, build the launch pad, land your rocket, and build ladders up to your spacefarer module. Once the ladder is done, your dupes will take the sucrose from inside the spacefarer module and refuel the engine. Now you can send this rocket back home and land your 2nd rocket to complete whatever their mission was with all the time in the world thanks to the spacefarer module and, most importantly, a way back home. 

tl;dr I like to use the CO2 engine at the start for super-short, non-sustainable missions like visiting the 1st planetoid or early telescoping because the trip is so short. But I prefer the sugar engine for long-distance, sustainable and stress-free missions because you can use a comfy spacefarer module for sustainable everything, AND most importantly, the solid nature of sucrose allows you to store it in your spacefarer module (via storage bin) and quickly refuel your engine to return home unlike gaseous CO2. 

[zach123b]

the worse part of sugar engine imo was the oxidizer and range.  they buffed/upgraded oxidizer to 1:2:4 for fert/oxylite/lox from 2:1 fert/oxylite. and range was increased 2 -> 4 tile range

from the 150kg sucrose/oxylite 2 tile range into 450kg sucrose/fertilizer or 225kg oxylite with 4 tile range is a great upgrade and actually feels like co2 -> sucrose is the progression.  most people disliked the sugar engine because it was garbage before the re-rocketry update

my fav engine is the small petrol for quick missions, once you have petrol of course

[Rinkusan]

8 minutes ago, zach123b said:

the worse part of sugar engine imo was the oxidizer and range.  they buffed/upgraded oxidizer to 1:2:4 for fert/oxylite/lox from 2:1 fert/oxylite. and range was increased 2 -> 4 tile range

from the 150kg sucrose/oxylite 2 tile range into 450kg sucrose/fertilizer or 225kg oxylite with 4 tile range is a great upgrade and actually feels like co2 -> sucrose is the progression.  most people disliked the sugar engine because it was garbage before the re-rocketry update

my fav engine is the small petrol for quick missions, once you have petrol of course

Oh gotcha; I had no idea the sugar engine stats were that bad before. 

[The Plum Gate]

I built one as well - have they fixed the tool tips on the burden, because it seems like there's a possibility of being able to go over 5 but not take off. So you have the space farer, oxidizer tank, sugar engine, trailblazer and a nose cone?

My recon rocket is usually a co2 engine, a solo space farer and a payload of some type, rover module or trailblazer if I think I can make it one way, maybe the payload lander.

[Pyrex042]

4 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

tl;dr ... AND most importantly, the solid nature of sucrose allows you to store it in your spacefarer module (via storage bin) and quickly refuel your engine to return home unlike gaseous CO2. 

Excellent point.  I've never even tried the Sucrose engine yet because I've got so much CO2 that it just seemed like a waste.  Most of my rockets are carrying Oxylite for cabin O2 anyway, that makes the return trip on the first couple of visits to a new asteroid *much* easier than needing to set up a CO2 plant.

I've been trying to figure out a non-painful way of getting a tankful of Petroleum into (and out of) the Spacefarer module, but if I use Sucrose instead it's not a problem.

[sakura_sk]

I like the fact that now everyone has different liked small engine and they are all useful 

 

5 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

have they fixed the tool tips on the burden, because it seems like there's a possibility of being able to go over 5 but not take off.

You mean max modules 5? Burden doesn't ground rocket. You will just have lower than 1tile/cycle speed.

[The Plum Gate]

2 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

You mean max modules 5? Burden doesn't ground rocket. You will just have lower than 1tile/cycle speed.

Ok, this makes sense, engines are defining the module limit and burden is defining the movement speed.

[Rinkusan]

11 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

So you have the space farer, oxidizer tank, sugar engine, trailblazer and a nose cone?

Yep; and same with the other one except replace the trailblazer with cargo so you have enough steel to build the launch pad.

To be perfectly transparent, when I tried this for the first time by visiting the swampy tundra planetoid that was 3 travel tiles away, I made the mistake of using a solo spacefarer and 2 extra cargo modules because I thought I needed 2 launch pads for some reason. It was still a success, but it resulted in spoiled food thanks to the small battery and 70% stress for one of my dupes thanks to all the sunburn, lack of atmo suit docks, etc. But my dupes made it home in one piece thanks to the sucrose in the solo spacefarer, and a proper spacefarer module would've fixed all of these issues no problem. 

[The Plum Gate]

I need to hop on to the pip planet - this seems easy enough, I dropped a rover that was able to dig out to a gold volcano without activating it where there was enough refined gold to prep for a trailblazer and not need to worry with a cargo module - materials were already there for the landing pad, just need the dupe to build it.

I'll probably end up sending a different rocket there to gather metal resources - but it looks like I can get away without the cargo module this one time. I have been using the rover to prep for breathing room, so this has been the least of my worries, I'll build a new space command module eventually and start hauling resources back.