I posted this in another thread and after looking at it decided it warrented it's own thread. The problem this suggestion addresses is the fact that at present it is impossible to catch anyone who is running from you, since all ships potentially have the same top speed and infinite turbo.


I liked the old system with different engines and the infini-boost only being availible to the eff engine. I still like having the engine come with the ship, however here is how I would do it.

Change the base engines so that they all draw 5 more power / second than the fast charge battery; 10 more power / second than the heavy/medium battery; and 15 more power / second than the light/free battery. The differnece between the basic engines would then be the top speed/ max turbo.

Then add a new slot to take the place of the old "engine" slot. This slot can be empty or it can have one of the following modules in it.
Engine Efficiency module - Your turbo energy consumption is reduced by 5(or treat it as an auxiluary battery and generate an extra 5 energy/second)
Engine Speed module - Your top speed is increased by 5 and your max turbo is increased by 25

Since you can only have 1 module, you now have a choice between being able to turbo indefinitely (assuming you can get the FC batt) or having a higher top speed for the life of your battery. People who take the speed are more likely to equip a heavy battery for the extra turbo time, while people with the former will want the Fast charge for the unlim turbo. This gives pirates an advantage if they can catch their prey somewhat unawares and get close enough to take advantage of the speed, but an alert trader can outlast a pirate if the pirate ends up in a tail chase from a long distance back.

I think this would be better served by adding "gizmo" slots (meaning the possibility of more than 1/ship) and having all sorts of gizmos- engine gizmos, radar gizmos, and all that other stuff in Celebrim's thread.

Due to agy's complaints about pirating:
Yes it's true. Now the trader (even in centaur!) can run away from a pirate due to:
1. they have the same speed
2. centaur has low agility, which means, it can change course without loosing speed
3. Carefull trader will evade all shots fired from about 200m (he has over a second to dodge energy weapon, and about 3 to dodge rockets..)

Spellcast: I agree that trade ships should be slower, less agile, but they should have a bigger capacity. I like your post, but as roguelazer said it won't happen soon. So.. how about beeing able to modyfy your engine in some faction stations?

For example a modyfications for valk could be:
Valent, TGP: +5 speed, + 20 turbo speed, +5 energy consumption
Axia, biocom: -5 speed, - 10 turbo speed, -10 energy consumption

Of course such modyfications could vary depending on ship and faction/nation profile. From the developer sides ity would only requre to add a few engine and an action 'upgrade' which would repalace current engine with new one..

Didn't you read the interview with IGN? There's going to be missions where if you do x and y, a NPC will "upgrade" your engine.

"2. centaur has low agility, which means, it can change course without loosing speed"

-What? Yea it won't lose speed, but it's change in velocity won't be anything constructive. Believe me, not being agile is as big a disadvantage as ever. The only reason it doesn't seem like it is because we're not pursued as often anymore and when we are, the distances at which we sight each other and engage are much larger, which is why I thought an ID cloaker would be a good idea since it gives pirates the opportunity to sneak up on their prey instead of just "YARR!! DROPZORZ YE CARGO!!" BANG BANG BANG!

"Didn't you read the interview with IGN? There's going to be missions where if you do x and y, a NPC will "upgrade" your engine."

But it also said they'd be rare, as you lose your stuff when you die. So you can't rely on rare mission upgrades to balance the pirate/trader aspect of the game.

I'd prefer a gizmo slot, with a "jump disruptor" module you can acquire to stop a ship close to you from jumping...

Didn't they mention that too?

Simple solution would be to make each engine more specific to each ship type. This way each ship would have its own maximum velocity. A top of the line Valk would have a max speed of 220ms, versus a top of the line Centaur's maxinum speed to 195ms. A rare and expensive Maud may have a max speed of 240ms, but carry only one gun port, and 4 less cargo slots etc.

This is probably already on the cards tho...

I think this would be better served by adding "gizmo" slots (meaning the possibility of more than 1/ship)

Obviously there could be other gizmo/module/equipment slots as well, However I would want to see it set up so that you would only be able to apply 1 modification or the other to your engines.

Alternatively the devs could put the engine slot back in and add a descriptor to it, Light engine slot, Medium engine slot, etc;

Then provide different engines at each level, 1 would have more efficiency, 1 better top speed, 1 more torque.
You would be able to mount any engine smaller than the slot was designed to carry. <eg a heavy engine slot could carry all engines, but a medium engine slot could only carry medium or smaller engines. The efficient engine could be left out, and added as a descriptor to the other sizes, (Efficient Heavy Engine)

This way each ship class could have a maximum engine size built in and we would gain some choices in our engine performance based on play style. (do I want the medium engine MKII with extra top speed, the Medium MK III with bosted torque, or the Efficient Medium engine for infinte turbo, hmmmm)

Icarus: you mean, make your ship count as a "large object"?

UD : That would make things... Interesting!

a) it would forcibly disrupt trade convoys and groups... *Moahahaha*

b) it would make running from a pilot a far more challanging task.

.... I love it...

I love it too.
or, you could just add a 5 second countdown before you warp. I'd like to get in 1000m range of the someone I'm behind so I know what sector they're going to

Of course, this "jump disruptor" should drain your battery like crazy, so you won't be able to hold it up forever - it should only serve as a means to keep target ship/convoy in sector a bit longer.

/me thinks of pirating groups with two or three ships equipped with this gadget and alternating in its use, thus being able to disrupt jumps forever *grin*