Steam Rocket Balance

[Rotintin]

At first I thought this rocket was completely useless, but I've realized with it's slow speed and strong thrust power output (600w), it makes for an amazing engine to use for your research. The only thing is the relatively steep price of 2000 steel. Why is it the most expensive engine? Have any thoughts on it?

[SharraShimada]

6 minutes ago, Rotintin said:

At first I thought this rocket was completely useless, but I've realized with it's slow speed and strong thrust power output (600w), it makes for an amazing engine to use for your research. The only thing is the relatively steep price of 2000 steel. Why is it the most expensive engine? Have any thoughts on it?

I has the same cost as in vanilla version. So i guess, it was just not changed. In vanilla its the first engine you get, and at this point you already made your way to steel.

[NewWorldDan]

Given what a nuisance it can be to generate steam for the rocket, the only real use for this that I can think of is harvesting water from a rocket chimney.  My guess is that Klei included it because they already have artwork and animations for it so it was zero effort to put it in.  Once it's running, you can automate it to have a dupe fly missions to orbit and back every cycle until bedtime producing endless steam and power.  No idea what else you would do with it.

[Rotintin]

Yeah, it seems like they haven’t addressed it in terms of cost. I think 500 steel would make more sense, or maybe any refined metal. 
 

The whole infinite resources from launch to orbit seems like a huge balance issue though, especially with the steam and rad rocket. I think a solution would be to create a launch fuel cost to replace the cost of the first tile traveled, and to have the exhaust of the rocket equal the same amount. 

[n_t_p]

Exhaust is tough, in base game it's supposed to be a bit of a hazard but with rockets being so low tech now it's more of an asset. Launch cost would be a good start. Launch cost doesn't even need to equal exhaust mass, just any cost is reasonable and should be a part of rocketry.

[Sasza22]

Wouldn`t it be good for resourc hauling with the new drillcone? I saw it can hold a large amount of cargo modules. But i`m not sure if that didn`t change after they made burden tied to module height.

[Rotintin]

It's probably the worst option for hauling, but still viable. It can be 20 tiles high with a 6 hex range, but the thing is SLOW @ 0.3 hex a cycle. The slowness is nice for research though, with 20 cycles of 600watt power for 150kg of steam.