Manuvering thrusters

[lando005]

What would be the proper ratio?

[Starke]

Whatever doesn't feel slow as heck. I usually add everything else first, and then jigger a little to squeeze 2-3 thrusters in. The resulting turn rate of 10-15deg/sec works fine for me.

[Jeeves]

I go for a turn rate of 20 degrees per second early game, and 30+ late game. If your ships are turning, then they are not making much progress towards their target...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[jamthree]

exploration and military ships turn alot, sacrificing some cruise thrust
is a good idea for more turning

freighters, construction, mining, colony, passenger ships basically turn twice per trip
so don't need alot of turning, extra thrusters that don't eat cruise thrust is fine

[lando005]

I normally add 1 for non military ships and 4 for military but I was just wondering if there was a sweet spot

[Canute0]

1 thruster for 5 engines.
2 extra thruster fur Military ships, except Carrier they got no extra.

My private sector ships got 10-15 engines. Military ones start with 15 engines.

[jamthree]

It all depends on your tech level, reactors, hyperspace engine, map size/type, econ (i.e. maintenance costs of the ship), etc. You basically just need to watch the engine chart as you add components if you really want to optimize. In other words, if you can add 6 maneuvering thrusters and not reduce cruise thrust or exceed excess power then add 6 if you think you can handle the additional maintenance.

More important than thrusters is to make sure you have enough power for your hyperdrive. Like on a pre-warp game the initial space warp bubble drive needs i think 120 or so power, thats three basic power reactors, with 3 reactors u can power the max number of thrusters before the additional weight of the thrusters starts actually making adding more reduce your cruise thrust. Also the gain of adding more thrusts towards the top end of the maximum is minimal you can see this when its starts turning from adding a thruster = 2 then 1, removing a thruster and adding maneuvering thrusters you can balance out to get a nice balanced max between the two.

[TanC]

Would deg / sec be a good indicator that we could use to determine the "optimum" turning speed?

[Starke]

Finding an optimum for a single situation isn't too terribly difficult, the problem would more likely be that the large spread of different situations (maneuvering-wise) that arise. The way I see it:

(WARNING: inconclusive rambling ahead!)

Most combat situations in DW start with one ship or group of ships warping on top of another, be it over a colony, other celestial body, or empty space. In these cases the initial speed of all ships is likely zero. The 'warp pattern' for the attacking ship/ships, in which the ships arrive at a "random" orientation to the target (due to the ring pattern of emergence that keeps the orientation of the arrival vector) and a roughly constant distance, is what makes finding an optimum difficult. If there is one attacking ship, it can arrive with any orientation relative to it's target. Similarly, a fleet will arrive with individual ships having orientations to the target ranging from 0deg (the "back" of the circle, target dead ahead) to 180deg (the "front"/leading edge, with the target behind). Considering the defending fleet changes nothing, as the distance is unchanged and their orientation has no connection to the attacking fleet, again meaning the relative orientations are random. Having a fleet set to, for example, patrol a colony will give the defenders some initial speed and align their ships in the same direction, but this does not change the randomness of the attackers vector and could either benefit or disadvantage them in equal measure.

The closest you could come to an optimum is assuming the middling orientation of 90deg and use the roughly constant arrival distance to the target and somehow (either by in-game testing or developing some kind of formula) determine the ideal ratio of thrusters to engines to reach the target. But there are still two problems muddying this scenario: unless the target is a station, it/they will doubtless maneuver as well - although the average time for a large-ish fleet enveloping the target ship will stay roughly the same, it diminishes the value of that "optimum." Also, your ships do not truly care about how long it takes to get to the target: they just want to reach their preferred weapons range, which adds another variable that changes with each weapon system and weapon improvement.

You try to could base the optimum off of a fight already in progress with many ships in a furball at all orientations. In that case, you might want to know the optimum engine/thruster combination to catch an enemy ship fleeing in one direction. Initial orientation will be again random. If you assume an orientation of 90deg, roughly half your ships in a real situation would do better with more thrusters and less engines - and the other half vice versa - but at least it's a starting point. But then you need to know the distance to the target to find the proper ratio, even assuming 90deg orientation, and that distance will be constantly changing because the enemy ship is fleeing. Additionally, you will have no control over the speed at which the enemy is fleeing - AI ships often have anywhere from 20 to 45 speed. Assuming you can get a real distance-to-target after factoring in speed and turning, you can subtract from that distance your optimum weapons range. Lastly though, you have to factor in your acceleration - and I have no idea off the top of my head what that is based on.

With some math I believe you could figure out the intercept for one combination of orientation, enemy speed, and distance, provided you remove the acceleration issue - though IIRC a little calculus will be required (?). But with so many factors, assumptions, and extenuating circumstances the "optimum ratio" all that work would get you is probably no better than just going with your gut.

Whew. Theory-craft done. Anyone see a (vastly) simpler way to optimize the ratio? =/

[Canute0]

There is no optimum. It allways depend on the situation, the design and what you want to do.

Special at the start, with the smaller ship sizes, you need to concentrate at one thing for a military ship, you can't design a multirole ship with 230/300 max. size.
Once you got 500+ size, it don't hurt much when you add 5 extra thruster.