Maximum speed

[andyinkuwait]

Here is a shot of my ship. It says speed is 32. What is the number next to this (20)?

[AnddyiRaynor]

The ships max thrust speed must be 20 but it also has a sprint speed which is probably what it is using for it to be 32. You could check the design to see if those numbers match.

[andyinkuwait]

Strangely the other way round. Sprint is 20. It's moving at cruise speed. So 20 is not max speed it's max sprint speed. Thanks.

[Osito]

20 should be the sprint speed.

I can tell you that it is possible in principle to build a ship which has a faster cruise speed than the sprint speed, and if you do that the display is like you posted. Have you checked the cruise and sprint speeds in the ship designer?

Osito

[andyinkuwait]

Yes, the cruise speed is 32 and the sprint speed is 20 in the ship designer.

Hence, it cruises faster than it sprints. This might be a problem when trying to escape from enemies.

Is this a bug?

[Osito]

I don't think it's a bug, it's just a feature of the way the design process works. Having said that, I can't think of any reason why you would actually want to design a ship to do this. Was this automated design or one you designed yourself?

[andyinkuwait]

Actually, I just jammed as many ion thrusters in as I could to make the constructor as fast as possible.

To be honest, I didn't even look at sprint speed. It just came out this way which is a bit disturbing as I can't really see a reason why sprint speed should ever be less than cruise speed.

Here's the design:

[Mansen]

How on earth do you manage a ship that has a faster cruise than sprint speed? It's the same module? Surely the sprint is where it is the fastest - Highest energy and fuel demand for the maximum speed output?

[andyinkuwait]

Exactly. That's what I'd like to know......

You can see exactly what I have in the ship. I took out one reactor (from basic template) and replaced it with more ion thrusters and this is the result.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: andyinkuwait

Actually, I just jammed as many ion thrusters in as I could to make the constructor as fast as possible.

To be honest, I didn't even look at sprint speed. It just came out this way which is a bit disturbing as I can't really see a reason why sprint speed should ever be less than cruise speed.

Here's the design:

It's a constructor with 30 Ion thrusters and 10 small fuel cells. It's pre-warp/no hyperdive so speed can be a good thing. Have you played the game much with this ship active? Is it useful or does it run out of fuel before completing assignments and need to replenish? Have to see how much in resources this thing takes to create as well opposed to the standard slow constructor.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: andyinkuwait

Exactly. That's what I'd like to know......

You can see exactly what I have in the ship. I took out one reactor (from basic template) and replaced it with more ion thrusters and this is the result.

Fine you built it,the question becomes is it useful not can a player ingame build a Howard Hughes "Spruce Goose". Have you used this thing in game and how does it perform vs a standard template constructor? getting to target and getting work underway faster is a desirable goal.

[andyinkuwait]

I figured I really didn't need a range more than 100% as whenever I order constructors to build, they have to go back to Homeworld to pick up the components.

Within a system it is unlikely to run out of fuel as it will have to return before the next mission anyway. This is why it was built with a range of 104% only.

I just don't know why it's sprint speed is lower than cruise.....

[Osito]

The reason is because sprint requires more energy than cruise. As you keep adding thrusters you will eventually have no additional energy to power your sprint speed, and the sprint speed will become capped at that point. However, you may not yet have reached the energy cap for cruise speed, so as you add more thrusters, your cruise speed goes up while your sprint speed is capped. In some configurations that you can get to a higher cruise speed than sprint speed.

Osito

[andyinkuwait]

Ahh. Thanks. So adding another reactor would probably get the sprint speed back to 'normal'?

Now it all begins to make sense.......

So you really need excess energy in order to kick sprint mode in. I know for certain, that there is very little excess energy so it all makes sense.

[Tophat1815]

I don't know why that is either. Think I'll try and build this myself and see about using it in game. Take note of how it operates. You did mention that you took out a reactor. So it started with 3 reactors in the design and you reduced that number to 2 while shoving on more thrusters. Cruise energy usage is 60 while sprint is 66. Two basic space reactors(BSR's) each produce 46 energy. So 2 BSR's produce 96 energy and you need 66 energy for sprint,life support is another 8=74 energy. Does any other system require energy while the ship is traveling? You don't have shields so no energy cost there. I was wondering if you simply didn't have enough energy to attain sprint speed.Forgive my meandering post was thinking and typing. Maybe Darkspire will chime in.

[andyinkuwait]

I have a similar thing going with my explorer ships. They have one reactor only. Cruise speed 52, sprint 34. If I add another reactor this immediately changes to cruise 47, sprint 54.

I think the first option is better in the early game, the faster the better. So what if you can't sprint.

[Aeson]

Does any other system require energy while the ship is traveling?

Life support and habitation modules have static energy requirements, which will suck up fuel if you're moving or if you don't have energy collectors.

Anyways, the way that the game computes sublight ship speed is that the game sums up the thrust values and divides by the ship's size. That gets you the base speed that the ship can attain. Then it checks the energy requirements, as set out by the thruster component, and if you have at least enough power available the base speed becomes the ship's speed. If you do not have enough power available, the ship's speed becomes

Code: Select all

   (energy available)*(base speed)/(energy required)

which essentially scales the ship's speed to some number between 0 and the base speed. Since this multiplier is only applied to the speeds which require more energy than available, you can have odd situations where the sprint speed is lower than the cruise speed.

This isn't a bug so much as an oddly-implemented feature; if anything, the scaling on the sprint speed might more appropriately scale between the cruise speed and sprint speed. Regardless, it doesn't really matter.