Engine Units

Types of different engines

Engine units are elements that allow constructs to move through a variety of propulsion methods.

• Hover engines and Vertical boosters allow constructs to hover in planetary atmospheres, but beyond a certain altitude their efficiency decreases rapidly. They are also called "ground engines".
• Atmospheric Engines allow constructs to fly through a planet's atmosphere, but they do not function in space.
• Space engines allow constructs to fly in space, but they do not function in a planet's atmosphere.
• Rocket engines operate in both space and atmosphere, their fuel tanks and the fuel itself are light and the engines produce massive thrust, but require a huge amount of fuel per second.
• Adjustors are a special type of engine that provides torque. These engines are primarily placed at strategic locations on a construct to increase turning rate and manoeuvrability.

Rocket engines require Xeron fuel and each engine must be connected to its own single rocket fuel tank to work.

Atmospheric ("atmo") and Hover engines require Nitron fuel and each atmo tank supports up to ten of these engines.

Space engines and vertical boosters require Kergon fuel and each space fuel tank supports up to ten of these engines.

Variants of space and atmospheric engines

While most elements only have different sizes, space and atmospheric engines also have different variants, sizes and tiers. See Space Engine Attributes and Atmospheric Engine Attributes pages.

Basic

The basic engines can be seen as default, they only require basic ores to be made. Any comparisons below are made to basic engines of the same size.

Non-Basic

Any non-basic engines have additional properties or even drawbacks. The text describes the uncommon versions. Advanced version have all of the changes applied a second time, rare engines yet another time.

Military engines

These have 20% more force, but also require 20% more fuel per Newton they output, meaning they require 44% more fuel per unit time. They are generally seen as the default upgrade, as a ship of the same size and shape just has more raw power.

Maneuver engines

These have halved warm-up time and only need 90% of the fuel, making them useful for long trips like interplanetary hauling, but also for atmo ships that are build for very short trips, like for scanning or checking mining units.

Freight engines

These have doubled warm up time, but only need 90% of the fuel, additionally they are 20% lighter. This means they have the same thrust to force ratio as military, but the same fuel per newton usage as maneuverer engines. However, as haulers usually carry three to five times their own mass as cargo, the mass reduction of the engines matters little and the fuel reduction can also be gotten via manoeuvre engines. The doubled warm up time however is a major drawback, due to which these engines see little use.

Safe engines

These have halved warm up time, increased defence stats and 90% of the fuel usage, but also 90% power. As the defense stats matter little, especially due to shields, not at all in atmo, these see almost no use, unless it is for their nice colour scheme.

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  Large Space Engine

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  Medium Space Engine

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  Small Atmospheric Hover Engine

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  Hovercraft Engine (Concept Art)

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  Vertical Booster

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  Propulsor Engine (Concept Art)

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  Mini Rocket Engine (3D Art)