I've known that that red thing above the battery picture ingame is your engine (in the window that shows what stuff you have loaded), and I was wondering why its there. It seems like a basic, always-there thing (well it is), and it struck me today as odd that that would be there when other things aren't.

Were the devs thinking of doing something with this, but it didn't work out? Are they still planning something? Was this a feature in Alpha or Beta? Was this question already asked in A-B?

We used to have access to different engines: Light, Medium, and Heavy. It didn't really make sense (nobody bught the light engine unless they were dirt poor) and complicated balancing, so the engines became integrated into the hulls.

Short answer: yes the engine icon is vestigial.

Okay, thx

I once heard of a "Dev Engine" that goes insanely fast. It stands to reason that the game still supports multiple engines.

We also had the Efficient engine, which at that time when coupled with the F/C battery was the only way to get infinite boosting. (at 180 m/s though)

The dev engine is named the "Unreal Engine" for its insane speeds. (upwards of 600 m/s)

Wow...

But isn't having multiple engines the same as multiple batteries? I mean, no one uses free, or even light battery unless they're really poor...

Yeah, but of the four we have, two are useful; moreover, when and if mass is added, some of others might also become useful.

Right now I believe there is not enough differentiation between items, if objects cost much more than their predecessor then it would be more enticing to get the next one down.

*wants an unreal engine*

i tried chasing a1k0n, with a Eff and FC combo.... got burned :(
then he came back and rammed me

Eff/fc was a poopoo combo. Med/fc was what all the cool boys used.

or hvy/fc if you are fighting

No, no. Medium and F-C was always ALWAYS the way to go.

...especially if you were like me and way too impressed at your ability to kill s17 bots with your trigauss Valk.

But...more on topic, when did engines become integrated into the hull?! Granted, I haven't played for serious since the beginning of 3.4, but I've paid for a few months and I've spent a few hours ingame! When did it change?

I'll have to disagree red cactus. The quicker you could accelerate, the closer you were to victory. The most impressive part is catching up to fleeing Med/FC opponents in your Hvy/FC setup :P

And the engines were integrated sometime 3.5 when the larger universe was released