You may not have had a Physics degree until now but the New Atlantis Aeronautics University has just awarded you with an Honorary Degree in Ship Engineering Physics for your outstanding dissertation on Starfield’s ship engines. Kudos for a master class on ship engines!
It’s 2:35am where I am & right now I’m on a break during a very loooong night shift & sitting here watching a brilliant in-depth video on the intricacies of engines in Starfield. What you have created is brilliant because I’m not asleep 😉😂😂😂 Keep up the excellent work as very helpful to us numpties.
I played EVE online off and on for about 15 years. This is exactly the level of spreadsheet nerddom I would expect from an EVE player, and I'm 100% here for it. Thanks for the video and the painstaking research!!! Liked and Subbed. One thing I want to investigate (maybe you can help) is if the conduction grid or jammers have a stacking penalty. That's definitely true in EVE, not sure if Bethesda was that thoughtful.
This was so informative and educational to watch. Incredible presentation of statistics and calculations to find these hidden performance characteristics. As you so aptly pointed out at the end, each engine has their place. I have used 6830's, 4330's, 5660's, and WD 3015's on different ships. Those are each, I'd say, the best engines but for different reasons. There is not one end-all be-all engine that's the best at everything, but we can all agree that Slayton makes the best engines in each class in terms of their ability to move weight. The WD 3015's are the clear mobility king, but have a very limiting weight capacity, and rightfully so. But when you consider that the 4330's can outperform several class B engines with their weight capacity, I would consider those to be the closest thing there could be to a 'best' engine. Class A speed with class B hauling performance. Amazing balance. Liked and subbed, no idea how I have only just now found your channel. This video must have taken a decade to produce, fantastic work!
One possible “error” in the experiment- you rotated the ships while at zero speed. You should run similar tests where the rotation happens in the sweet spot (roughly 2/3 speed). The ships should rotate more rapidly since it takes different thrusts into account. Please do not take this as negative criticism. You did an excellent job. I just think more experiments might show more nuance.
Thanks to you I've made MAJOR changes to my ship(s) and have maxed out their potential! The amount of detail you have here is insane...greatly appreciated! Thanks for all the video(s)!!
I have never seen a video presentation done this well. Thank you. The amount of time you invested in providing this information is way beyond anything I have ever seen. I'm going to watch this a few more times to understand the concepts because there is a lot to digest. Again, thank you for taking the time.
I noticed during your discussion that the Dunn -71 engines were in the top 4-5 engines within the areas you spoke of. I have yet to make a ship with these but now I must try them out because I always wondered on how they would perform. Thanks for putting together a great video, very informative.
Mate that was a fantastic and informative presentation very well done, I always made the mistake that was to be buying the most expensive engine thinking it was the best. Greetings from West Australia.
It is nice to find videos from people who actully spent a lot of time playing the game. I hate having to sort through all the videos that popped up the first week SF cameout, there is so much junk info out there. Glad i found your channel.
An excellent video, thanks so much for taking the time to explain the handful of critical performance points the game doesnt bother to mention! Outstanding efforts thanks again
From the beginning, I felt that engine thrust had its part to play, but I had no math for it. All I could use was the maneuvering thrust to mass ratio. I use two SAE-5660 engines on my b-class light "sports car" fighter whose mass is a shade over 800. Actual top speed and boost speed are fleeting things and can be hard to get a handle on. Thank you so much for this video, it really helps.
800 en un clase b increíble debe ser muy divertido yo tengo actualmente 2 aparte del inútil estelar son de mi clase solona uno con 315 clase b con 1000 masa y un serie 4000 de 1500 masa es un c están muy bien armados y con escudos tope gama pero no me giran muy bien creo intentar construir uno como tuyo por probar . Yo con el 315 suelo usar táctica del la pasada tienen tanta velocidad si te direjes hacia un grupo les disparas y luego te alejas esta 4000 distancia y lo repites eres invencible con potencia fuego 10 cañones partículas y cuatro torres es raro cuando en una pasada no destruyes al menos una nave en muy difícil.
WD 3015s are experimental. For balancing, that allows them to break from class restrictions. Also, I can get you the hidden stats from xedit if you're interested.
Well, I was kinda hoping to learn about a new engine to try, but I'm happy to know the ones I've been using for months are indeed the best and I can show others this video as proof. Thanks!
Absolutely great job on the video, sir! Thank you. As much as possible, I chose engines by aesthetic, both physical and the thrust animation (fire coming out the back), and then by mobility. However, and until now I didn't understand it (and I'm going to have to rewatch a couple times to really grasp it) but I have ships with 51 mobility that fly and fight and turn better than my cargo ship with 90 mobility and 6 6830s on it. I've noticed for a while that mobility means pivoting speed, but not change in direction speed. In my heavy ship with high mobility I can pivot around fast but I continue sliding in the same direction but with a new heading. In those cases I have to use boost to slow down my now backwards direction of travel and then speed back up to speed in my new heading. So definitely, your mobility does not equate to "dog-fighting" ability.
I havent watched the whole video yet. But a few things i found looking at the games ESM file in XEdit. That White Dwarf 3015 Engine is labeled in the files as "Experimental". I think thats the only one. Part of the simplification of the flight system they did to make flight more "fun". Another thing that points to that is in the files the engine stats are ... odd. The maneuvering stats and speed stats are separate. And not tied to engines alone. IE there is a mod for PC that puts the maneuvering stat on the cosmetic "thruster" items in the build menu. Also the game has separate Pitch, Roll and Yaw stats for the thrusters. All unused. So at one point the game had more of a SIM type setup for space flight.
My main ship will still rock with the SAL6830s, I have side and rear facing particle beam turrets on it anyways. In fact, all 3 weapon slots are particle beam weapons, making it a hulking gun platform. My second most used ship is a smaller corvette type ship with WD3015s and a more diverse weapons load out. Great vid tho. Really looking forward to experimenting with ur findings
Using SAE-5660's is a big brain move. they even have an alternate model thats really sporty. I run a dark grey and orangge modified longsword (Vant remember which one) with the 5660's. flies like a dream.
Yay, spreadsheets! It'd be fun for "cosmetics" to play a role too. Like all those funny retro-thrusters or cowlings with maneuvering thrusters to play a role in all these calculations too. They do fire some stuff in animations, but do nothing in simulations : )
Do You provide the spreadsheet by chance? I realize there is a lot of research work involved. It would be useful as a building resource or post it online. I have found all of your content to be very useful. The Outpost video was very good, I looked for that spot, while XP farming. Thank you for your work.
Great video I alssso used to be a SAL6830 enthussiast untill I actually started playing around with a-classss engines. Now I prefer the SA-4430, good to see the math also shows it a great engine.
Very informative breakdown! I always preferred the SA and SAE engines over anything C-class or the 3015's, but it's great to see the numbers behind why they feel so much better. I'd argue they're also the best looking engines in the game, so they've got that going for them too.
The Amun-7s have the highest boost speed and they reach that max speed about mid-burn, as opposed to at the end of the burn. It makes them fantastic dogfighting engines. On the other hand, they cannot push cargo at all. For very specific, light fighter builds, they are fantastic. If you are trying to build an all-in-one ship, other engines would probably serve you better.
Pretty much a few weeks after release, my first big cargo ship (25000+ cargo, basically a mobile storage hub) was already setup like this: 4 x 3015 engines for the speed. 6 turrets facing to the rear. Just as a supplement, 2 turrets facing the front. As my ship had zero mobility anyway, the idea was to turn and flee any dangerous fight by just accelerating away from the enemy, while peppering them with the turrets. It worked pretty well even on hard. Thanks for the math!
Yeah, just slap some Obliterator 250MeV Turrets on your ship and wait while they mop up everything pursuing you. It's a valid strat for taking down the Crimson Fleet outside of the Key as well. So long as you can survive long enough to reach your speed cap you can string ships along over time: Sam Coe and points in Engine Systems helps.
I'll be honest, I only put one of these ever on my ships recently. I like to choose high end engines that fit the atheistic I'm building. Round ones for my Serenity look alike, or side mount ones to have them on the wings. The one I used is sandwiched between two other engines that make all three look like one big oval engine combined.
Nice to have some actual math to back up the feelings about those engines. When I went on a certain undercover series of missions I had decided to build a ship around the 3015s with the RP idea that I wanted it to look and feel like a high speed commerce raider. At the time I knew they weren't "the best" but didn't really care because I wanted the Fastest thing out there, only enough cargo to get what I needed and scoot. Figured out the max ship mass was 1020 if I wanted 100 mobility and just aimed to keep it anywhere below that with a few other aesthetic considerations for landing on rough surfaces instead of prepared fields (tall landing gear, under slung bay, also keeps the sight lines and approach lines clear under the ship so I never have to hike around it). My jaw dropped and choice words were uttered the first time I boosted even without engine skill or Sam on board. Coming from a heavy class B the speed and maneuverability felt amazing. Turns out I really like zippy over tanky. I never bothered to put my raider on a diet to see if it would change things so this is great info. I had intended to use it just for that quest series as a bit of RP (Didn't make sense RP wise to take my very well known personal ship on an undercover mission so I made this 'disposable' class A for fun that now still has room for 8 crew using that one Deimos bridge lol) and then planned to switch back to the heavier ship once I was done, but I'm still using it even now in the late game. It became my favorite ship.
Thanks, I'm still learning this ship building thing and I threw 2 different engines on my Razorleaf, now I know I'm going to throw on them Sae5660 on there instead. I like tinkering with my guns more. Liked, Subscribed.
I have to admit I fell into the Class C Engine trap. It wasn't until I noticed my modified Shieldbreaker (which I always end up buying because it is fast and easily modified and has good starting weapons) which is a Class B ship was faster and accelerated better than my Class C custom build. After a bit of playing around with Engines even I came to the conclusion that the SAE-5550 and SAE-5660 have the best performance if you want a high mass cargo ship but you want it to double as a heavy fighter.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he was using some app where you can make photo's move and have them lip sync words your saying can't remember the name of the app but it's very cool to use.
I appreciate all the time, effort and space rocketry that you've applied on this video, but I will still use those Slayton Aerospace big ass engines because of the looks. Im not playing a mmorpg where I do have to sacrifice looks over functonality, thanks god. Saddly, every item in a game that I like is always the worst of the bunch. Again, awsome video and keep them coming.
I thought I understood all this well. But there are so many compounding factors to consider. Where does #of engines or Thrust/Mass/power pip fall on this? It was hardly addressed and I feel like it just compounds further
I've been singing that engines praises for months now. What ya don't know is mix matching those top class A engines gives you crazy performance. Easily boost out of lock-ons, and literally fly circles around enemies.
@@HoodNinjaichi trully incredible engine, my star eagle has 4500 cargo or something, carried by 6 of this engine, even with 58 mobility the maneuverability in dogfight is still unmatched, 195 top speed with full constellation crew, up to 600+ boosted speed, i never looked back in C class engine since
For the White Dwarf 3015 engines the reason the top speed is higher is they are locked behind Starship Design 4. There are actually quite a few parts with some rather odd or just unique traits with Starship Design 4. I believe that there is somewhere in the skill it does mention them as "experimental modules" or something along those lines so the special traits are intentional.
Does the the Amun-7 unique boost speed require you to be using all Amun-7s or can you use one Amun-7 to get the max boost and combine with something like the SA-4330 for efficiency?
Funnily I did similar testing yesterday, though nowhere that deep. But I was also looking at it from different perspective. For example difference between best and worst mobility is about 2.5 slower rotation. That's it. And while the slowest is not good for a fighter, it's perfectly fine for hauler, even for combat, as long as you rely on turrets. Acceleration is similar. Surely it's fun to zoom around in max acceleration fighter. But if you get into trouble, acceleration won't get you out of it. The enemies will catch up and kill you. You need top speed to get away from them. In most cases it's better to sacrifice acceleration (and certainly mobility) to get better top speed .. even for combat in hauler. That makes WD3015 best for small agile fighter, probably with just 2 of them .. decent 1000k cargo frigate with 4 of them, still with 100 mobility and max accel. But they are IMHO also the best engine to slap on 100k cargo hauler (if you ever needed one). Only case where ED3015 is not the best, is if you don't intend to fly your hauler at all, and you just switch into it to load the cargo (which is neat trick). In such case you need single cheapest engine. Which is WD1000.
But the WD 3015s are so very, very slow to reach that top speed on a heavy 100k hauler. We certainly agree that regardless, you’ll want turrets, lots of turrets!
sorry, if this was already mentioned, but something occured to me: the "power-pip-per-engine". meaning: if i use 4 engines (which is the max for the SAE-5560) - SA-4330 or SAE5660 - i get very similar values for Thrust/Mass and Man-Thrust/Mass but i only need 8 reactor pips instead of 12 so maybe not in the endgame but on the way to the endgame this is also worth considering? I seem to be always short of engine power (somewhere in the early to midgame atm)...
Absolutely something to consider. If you can get necessary engine performance with fewer engines (fewer engine power), that is better. It means you can get your desired engine performance using less reactor power, leaving some leftover to put to other ship systems. I use that in some of my builds, and this video is a good example of taking advantage of that: ua-cam.com/video/dbg9vumL1tE/v-deo.html
Is the maximum acceleration ratio of 45 thrust to mass the same for non boost acceleration as well? As in under that mass you get to full speed in the same time. Over that mass you start chipping away on acceleration. So a maximum cargo, low top speed (130) max mobility and acceleration ship has a combination of C (high mobility but heavy) and B (less mobility but more weight for cargo) engines to balance out the acceleration and mobility thresholds at the same weight.
Yes, and that 45 factor is imprecise, I admit, but in my testing that was where further changes began being imperceptible in terms of actual gameplay. You could accelerate ever so slightly faster, but it made no real difference when playing the game. Regarding how to apply this when building a ship, I typically think of engine class not in terms of A, B, C, but in terms of “lightweight & fast fighter - but no cargo”, “decent all-around (some cargo, not quite as fast)”, and “heavy cargo hauler (slow top speed, but can carry much more cargo before losing mobility/acceleration)”. I don’t see a reason to mix & match engine classes purely from a statistical perspective, but rather will do so when it fits the aesthetic of the ship I’m building and am ok accepting the lower top-speed stat of the slowest engine class on my ship.
Really good and informative vid, but kinda stacking against the SAL6830s here by not looking at those stats against Power requirements. Hull is your ship's Hit Points. The vast majority of yiur HP comes from the Reactor, and the biggest of those is a heavy Pinch 8A with just 36 power. The thickest shield is also Class C (SG-1800) with the most energy per bar, and capping out at 12 total energy. Max distance for Grav Jumping is 28LY, max fuel (with perks) is 194 to jump the longest system-to-system chain in the galaxy. 701 if you have no perks. You also have to factor for Crew, which is the lowest from among Crew Capacity, Crew Stations, and your Perk cap. Plus the mandatory incidentals like a bay, cockpit, docker, and gear. But if you're putting 12 into engines, and 12 into shields, that leaves 12 for your Weaps Systems (before Crew & Perks) DPS for weapons is incredibly deep. Energy has no effect except on Reload/Recharge time. But some weapons are "magazine fed" meaning they have a burst before reloading, versus other weapons reloading per shot. You also have to compare weapon "packages" like All Pam, Las/Bal, Turrets vs. Fixed, etc. I think there IS such a thinf as a perfectly min/maxed ship at the end game. Where Perks, Crew & Stats all come together to give tbe ship that is "the most" across all categories. But, it's going to take a lot of extra work beyond your info.
@@ShipTechnician ha! Figured someone would have done it, and it figures that it would have been you XD We have really similar ships. I normally run a build that is slightly heavier, and slightly different weapons package, so I'm on the 5660s. I was going to start there for the math. I'm not s SAL fanboy. My latest run is the first time I've built a "frigate" heavy enough to make them a consideration. But I've got a lot of the same bits, some turrets, 100 Mobility, max available boost - but double the crew (unnecessary) and cargo, plus all the crafting stations and 600kg on-ship storage. All I'm really giving up is speed. Still kicks down the door at Kryx, just a different play style.
So...what are we saying is the best overall then? Looking at the chart @ the 27:33 mark, it seems like it's saying the SAE-5660s are the best overall, but I'm not sure what the charts are saying for sure. Initially, I thought you were saying that the unique WD3015s were the best as they have highest top speed, period AND they are Class A, but the stats seem to say that the best Class B engine would be the best overall. /confused
Let me put the rundown here. 1. if you want to go topspeed, use the WhiteDwarf 3015 (not the 3020 or 3030) and end up class A eventhough you possibly using C reactors. Cargo wise, you have to go light. But 280 and more ? pieceofcake 2. if you want to pull cargo, use the highest manuevering thruster engines possible e.g. Poseidon DT230. Your topspeed is possibly 130 (more if you have skills and crew) but easy 10tons cargo. 3. is there a middle built ? maybe class B with decent cargo and topspeed ? NO. It just NO ! 4. Howbout ship to ship combat built? again go with class A with high topspeed. It is impossible to outrun lasers in starfield, so you will be dead faster if you go slow. With multiple opponents, you die twice! 5. Why not SAE 6830? If you wanna go with style, yes why not. 300 something mass x 6 and the cost.
It's hard to label one particular engine as the overall best when the use cases for all the categorical bests are so varied. --- WD 3015's are the best for fighter-sized ships where you gain no benefit to maneuverability (which is capped) or acceleration from the extra SA's but the top speed and top boost speed are substantially ahead. They also have the second-best thrust to weight _ratio_ but they don't have enough thrust to efficiently move a lot of weight. --- SAE 5660's are the best for anything bigger up until their peak boost/weight ratio, especially if running a C-class reactor. Most generalist builds will fit into this category. --- DT 230's are the cumulative best for very heavy ships that require more thrust than SAE's can provide. Mainly freighters in this category. --- SAL 6830's are the best for flying bricks with fixed guns (which is no one ever when turrets exist). It guess could be argued that SAE-5660's are the "overall" best in that they are optimal on the broadest spectrum of ships. They're good on combat ships. They're good on medium haulers. They're good on that unrecognizable amalgamation of unrelated parts your Frontier has become. They also look great and snap to almost anything.
Heyyyy iv got a weird question. , every time I TRRRYYYYY to add on. Extra parts. On me ship. I get. A message saying, some thing like. , you have an error. On this part. ,,, ,some thing like that. , , , but all I'm doing is adding on the SAME PART. To make it a bit longer. ,,, 😢😢😢😢
The question then is: what is the minimum boost acceleration required to be able to disengage in an extremely difficult fight, and what engine allows for the most cargo/mass while able to reach that acceleration rate, with a rotational mobility of 100? Is the answer a class B engine?
There are a lot of variables to consider there. The easiest way to eliminate all of the variables, and ensure you can disengage in a difficult fight, are the following: -Have you engine systems skill maxed at rank 4. At rank 4, all enemy ships will disengage when you boost, and only reacquire you as a target when you stop boosting. -Boosting only lasts a few seconds, so if you have slow engines (C or B Class) and/or a heavy ship, you won’t boost far enough away such that the enemy weapons won’t be able to reach you, and they will reacquire you quickly once your boost is done. Your shield won’t begin recharging for at least 15 seconds if offline, or 8 seconds if damaged but still online, so you’d likely want to be able to boost far enough away such that your shield could being recharging, AND the enemy couldn’t reengage so it can keep recharging. -The engines that provide this speed, assuming a top engine systems skill and Sam Coe on your crew (who provides even more top speed), are the White Dwarf 3015s. Enemy ships won’t have them, nor do they have you character and crew buffs, so this is the sure-fire way to disengage from enemy ships AND get far enough away to heal/recharge shields.
Was the speed nerfed ? I can't get my ship over 1000 .. it was possible with before. Lightest possible A ship with 6 Amun7, maxed skills (no Omar) will get me only about 870.
I know old video, but I just seen it the first time. To say it in advance, it's a good video, and all calculations are sound and valid. But contrary to the video, I postulate with the right (particle) weapons, rotating is the only thing you need. I cannot remember any fight where the enemies where separateed in all angles. Normally you have a group of enemies that appear before you or you approch them. With a full array of particle weapons, the only thing i need to to is rotate to get the enemies in my field of view. Save for missiles, which technically could hit you a bit farther, your particle weapons damage the opponents while they approach and cannot shoot back. if one of the enemies survives the approach, they normally overshoot you and you just rotate to keep them in view. Yes, in a normal space shooter, dodging and outrunning opponents is a thing, not in Starfield. You get the Vanguard Obliterators basically right from the start, and they shred all early game enemies. With decent turn rate, fat shields and the Pinch 8A reactor and 3 sets of particle weapons (4 x PBO-175 Auto Helion Beam, 6x Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojector and 3x Exterminator 95MeV Auto Helion Beam) you can obliterate the whole crimson fleet space fight with just standing around and rotating. So its great that you can outrun any ship, but you dont need to outrun any ship in this game (maybe the 3 capital ships, never tried attacking them), it's great that you have a top speed of a gazillion mph, you dont need it. Its super that you reach your top speed 10 seconds faster, you dont need to reach top speed for anything in this game.
I don’t disagree, from a technical perspective. And if you’ve ever stopped to watch the enemy ship AI, it doesn’t help the other side of this argument either. Extreme difficulty, and going to multiple NG+ universes, changes this for a few enemy ship encounters, where you could be surrounded and attacked from multiple enemies at once, or a high level Starborn Guardian missile immobilizes you. But those are fringe cases. Still, flying fast is more fun. That said, your comment is timely, because I’m nearing completion of a mod that would provide some more difficult ship encounters. Still have to deal with the AI, though I can adjust that a bit, but I’ll remember this comment and reply when it’s done :)
@@ShipTechnician I hope i made clear that I really appreciate all the math and tests you did, with videos to show the difference and all. I also completely agree, that flying fast can be fun. And I agree that the white dwarf 3015 are the fastet overall. But out of a mechanical point of view they are far from the best, even for an A Class ship.
Of course, and I really do agree with your initial comment, for 99% of the game, and really appreciate the dialogue! Personally, I often want to know what the best, min/max setup is for various situations, and from a pure combat perspective I see no better engine. But for any other purpose, the WD3015’s aren’t going to be on top. And if top speed wasn’t capped by engine class, it would make this discussion even more interesting.
There is no "best" engine, there is a system, you have to decide your own system but mine goes something like this: First decide how much mass you want your ship to carry, then decide how much maneuverability you want to have, then decide how much power you want to dedicate to them, THEN you choose the lowest class engine that fits your criteria. It's all a balancing act, you can't change one portion of the formula without changing another.
What I do is, build the ship and try out different engine and the ones that give me highest mobility with 8 power limit usage combined is the ones I pick. My ships is usually 2500 mass plus
4x White Dwarf 3015! My ship is so fast. I think the regular speed is 250+ and the boost reaches 900!!! I have 2 ships by the way. A massive beast with loads of storage and a little hunter that's all weapons and engines. You can actually store 100s of tons of stuff in small ships, without adding cargo holds or losing performance. When you switch "home ship", all your cargo moves over, regardless of storage capacity. You just can't add more to it (until you switch over to the big ship again).
Also sals are very very expensive, I also kinda noticed that there were not much difference for my ship having 3 sals instead of 6 when I had no money to buy them.
When I started playing starfield again I started getting a whole bunch of UA-cam videos popping up about best engines best guns and all that. When it comes to the engines, I don't understand why everyone ignores Mass. For me, if it has super high mass, I don't want it. It just makes me need more engines to counter that mass. In which case the engines I do put on there are pretty much canceled out. I would rather have weaker engines that weigh less that would accomplish the same goal. Now, I haven't watched the rest of this video but hopefully, the address the numbers game on this since I have no clear evidence to back this up. Just the fact that the mass number is unattractive lol Edit: Nice to know I picked the right engine. But it's even better to know why. Thank you for going through all the hassle so that us math inept people can be properly informed.
You may not have had a Physics degree until now but the New Atlantis Aeronautics University has just awarded you with an Honorary Degree in Ship Engineering Physics for your outstanding dissertation on Starfield’s ship engines.
Kudos for a master class on ship engines!
It’s 2:35am where I am & right now I’m on a break during a very loooong night shift & sitting here watching a brilliant in-depth video on the intricacies of engines in Starfield. What you have created is brilliant because I’m not asleep 😉😂😂😂
Keep up the excellent work as very helpful to us numpties.
It’s 4:24 AM for me
Can you give me your boss’ email?
I played EVE online off and on for about 15 years. This is exactly the level of spreadsheet nerddom I would expect from an EVE player, and I'm 100% here for it. Thanks for the video and the painstaking research!!! Liked and Subbed. One thing I want to investigate (maybe you can help) is if the conduction grid or jammers have a stacking penalty. That's definitely true in EVE, not sure if Bethesda was that thoughtful.
This was so informative and educational to watch. Incredible presentation of statistics and calculations to find these hidden performance characteristics.
As you so aptly pointed out at the end, each engine has their place. I have used 6830's, 4330's, 5660's, and WD 3015's on different ships. Those are each, I'd say, the best engines but for different reasons. There is not one end-all be-all engine that's the best at everything, but we can all agree that Slayton makes the best engines in each class in terms of their ability to move weight. The WD 3015's are the clear mobility king, but have a very limiting weight capacity, and rightfully so. But when you consider that the 4330's can outperform several class B engines with their weight capacity, I would consider those to be the closest thing there could be to a 'best' engine. Class A speed with class B hauling performance. Amazing balance.
Liked and subbed, no idea how I have only just now found your channel. This video must have taken a decade to produce, fantastic work!
How is no one talking about how the ship tech is lip synced with the presenter. Thats a nice touch, man. Great video. Take my sub.
I was thinking the same thing 👌
I found it unsettling
One possible “error” in the experiment- you rotated the ships while at zero speed. You should run similar tests where the rotation happens in the sweet spot (roughly 2/3 speed). The ships should rotate more rapidly since it takes different thrusts into account. Please do not take this as negative criticism. You did an excellent job. I just think more experiments might show more nuance.
I was calculating ratios in my head, I can't believe you mapped it out like this. I'm genuinely impressed
Thanks to you I've made MAJOR changes to my ship(s) and have maxed out their potential! The amount of detail you have here is insane...greatly appreciated! Thanks for all the video(s)!!
I have never seen a video presentation done this well. Thank you. The amount of time you invested in providing this information is way beyond anything I have ever seen. I'm going to watch this a few more times to understand the concepts because there is a lot to digest. Again, thank you for taking the time.
Man that is a proper Explanation!!
And the editing is great. Thank you dear ship builder !
I noticed during your discussion that the Dunn -71 engines were in the top 4-5 engines within the areas you spoke of. I have yet to make a ship with these but now I must try them out because I always wondered on how they would perform. Thanks for putting together a great video, very informative.
Mate that was a fantastic and informative presentation very well done, I always made the mistake that was to be buying the most expensive engine thinking it was the best. Greetings from West Australia.
literally the best starfield video on youtube, including the one with the soundtrack
Wow, this is a fantastic analysis that is extremely well presented and produced! Great job. Thank you!
It is nice to find videos from people who actully spent a lot of time playing the game. I hate having to sort through all the videos that popped up the first week SF cameout, there is so much junk info out there. Glad i found your channel.
I really appreciate this. Thank you. It is one of the main reasons I started making these videos.
Such smooth and classy delivery. Tons of work. No cut corners. No hype. You'd be good addition to any battle or build group. Fly high friend o7
An excellent video, thanks so much for taking the time to explain the handful of critical performance points the game doesnt bother to mention! Outstanding efforts thanks again
From the beginning, I felt that engine thrust had its part to play, but I had no math for it. All I could use was the maneuvering thrust to mass ratio. I use two SAE-5660 engines on my b-class light "sports car" fighter whose mass is a shade over 800. Actual top speed and boost speed are fleeting things and can be hard to get a handle on. Thank you so much for this video, it really helps.
800 en un clase b increíble debe ser muy divertido yo tengo actualmente 2 aparte del inútil estelar son de mi clase solona uno con 315 clase b con 1000 masa y un serie 4000 de 1500 masa es un c están muy bien armados y con escudos tope gama pero no me giran muy bien creo intentar construir uno como tuyo por probar . Yo con el 315 suelo usar táctica del la pasada tienen tanta velocidad si te direjes hacia un grupo les disparas y luego te alejas esta 4000 distancia y lo repites eres invencible con potencia fuego 10 cañones partículas y cuatro torres es raro cuando en una pasada no destruyes al menos una nave en muy difícil.
I went back in the game yesterday... Rushed ng+ for the first time and looking to build a new ship, found you. You are the man! Chapeau 🙇
Great video; sub earned. Nice to see acceleration getting the attention (and thorough analysis) it deserves.
WD 3015s are experimental. For balancing, that allows them to break from class restrictions. Also, I can get you the hidden stats from xedit if you're interested.
Very interesting my guy that must of taken some time to formulate. Thanks for your time and effort in this. I would of never thought of this ✌️
Well, I was kinda hoping to learn about a new engine to try, but I'm happy to know the ones I've been using for months are indeed the best and I can show others this video as proof. Thanks!
Thanks for the incredibly detailed information. And your presentation with lip sync is just hilarious 😅 Great work!
Love this channel. Been putting a lot of hours into the ship builder recently and it’s cool to have these hidden stats explained, appreciate it!
Absolutely great job on the video, sir! Thank you. As much as possible, I chose engines by aesthetic, both physical and the thrust animation (fire coming out the back), and then by mobility. However, and until now I didn't understand it (and I'm going to have to rewatch a couple times to really grasp it) but I have ships with 51 mobility that fly and fight and turn better than my cargo ship with 90 mobility and 6 6830s on it. I've noticed for a while that mobility means pivoting speed, but not change in direction speed. In my heavy ship with high mobility I can pivot around fast but I continue sliding in the same direction but with a new heading. In those cases I have to use boost to slow down my now backwards direction of travel and then speed back up to speed in my new heading. So definitely, your mobility does not equate to "dog-fighting" ability.
This is a really well done analysis, thank you for this, going to be using it when I make my next ship!
I havent watched the whole video yet. But a few things i found looking at the games ESM file in XEdit.
That White Dwarf 3015 Engine is labeled in the files as "Experimental". I think thats the only one. Part of the simplification of the flight system they did to make flight more "fun".
Another thing that points to that is in the files the engine stats are ... odd. The maneuvering stats and speed stats are separate. And not tied to engines alone. IE there is a mod for PC that puts the maneuvering stat on the cosmetic "thruster" items in the build menu.
Also the game has separate Pitch, Roll and Yaw stats for the thrusters. All unused. So at one point the game had more of a SIM type setup for space flight.
My main ship will still rock with the SAL6830s, I have side and rear facing particle beam turrets on it anyways. In fact, all 3 weapon slots are particle beam weapons, making it a hulking gun platform. My second most used ship is a smaller corvette type ship with WD3015s and a more diverse weapons load out.
Great vid tho. Really looking forward to experimenting with ur findings
Using SAE-5660's is a big brain move. they even have an alternate model thats really sporty. I run a dark grey and orangge modified longsword (Vant remember which one) with the 5660's. flies like a dream.
Excellent in depth analysis of Starfield engines👍
Yay, spreadsheets!
It'd be fun for "cosmetics" to play a role too. Like all those funny retro-thrusters or cowlings with maneuvering thrusters to play a role in all these calculations too. They do fire some stuff in animations, but do nothing in simulations : )
Do You provide the spreadsheet by chance? I realize there is a lot of research work involved. It would be useful as a building resource or post it online. I have found all of your content to be very useful. The Outpost video was very good, I looked for that spot, while XP farming. Thank you for your work.
I have an idea of how much time this took to put together and dam am I glad you did it too! Great video
Do you think you could share your spreadsheet with the community? I feel this is probably one of the best resources I’ve seen to date
dude ! the intro is fantastic !
Great video I alssso used to be a SAL6830 enthussiast untill I actually started playing around with a-classss engines.
Now I prefer the SA-4430, good to see the math also shows it a great engine.
Very informative breakdown! I always preferred the SA and SAE engines over anything C-class or the 3015's, but it's great to see the numbers behind why they feel so much better. I'd argue they're also the best looking engines in the game, so they've got that going for them too.
Thank you for correcting my previous calculations
I think the best engine to mass ratio is 42. It makes sense, Think 'The Hickhikers Guide To The Galaxy' the answer to everything is 42.
Now I know why I love the poseidon DT230s. 😂😂😂 Had to see them in spreadsheet form to understand why they're such a good engine.
I would really like a copy of your spreadsheet. So well executed. Thanks
Ship building is the best part of the game, so thanks for making this video! I really appreciate it!
Very objective and figures based analysis, just what we need to better understand and enjoy the layers of ship building. 👍👍👍
The Amun-7s have the highest boost speed and they reach that max speed about mid-burn, as opposed to at the end of the burn. It makes them fantastic dogfighting engines. On the other hand, they cannot push cargo at all.
For very specific, light fighter builds, they are fantastic. If you are trying to build an all-in-one ship, other engines would probably serve you better.
Done so cool and informative! Excellent and entertaining..
Pretty much a few weeks after release, my first big cargo ship (25000+ cargo, basically a mobile storage hub) was already setup like this: 4 x 3015 engines for the speed. 6 turrets facing to the rear. Just as a supplement, 2 turrets facing the front.
As my ship had zero mobility anyway, the idea was to turn and flee any dangerous fight by just accelerating away from the enemy, while peppering them with the turrets. It worked pretty well even on hard. Thanks for the math!
Yeah, just slap some Obliterator 250MeV Turrets on your ship and wait while they mop up everything pursuing you. It's a valid strat for taking down the Crimson Fleet outside of the Key as well. So long as you can survive long enough to reach your speed cap you can string ships along over time: Sam Coe and points in Engine Systems helps.
I'll be honest, I only put one of these ever on my ships recently. I like to choose high end engines that fit the atheistic I'm building. Round ones for my Serenity look alike, or side mount ones to have them on the wings. The one I used is sandwiched between two other engines that make all three look like one big oval engine combined.
Nice to have some actual math to back up the feelings about those engines. When I went on a certain undercover series of missions I had decided to build a ship around the 3015s with the RP idea that I wanted it to look and feel like a high speed commerce raider. At the time I knew they weren't "the best" but didn't really care because I wanted the Fastest thing out there, only enough cargo to get what I needed and scoot. Figured out the max ship mass was 1020 if I wanted 100 mobility and just aimed to keep it anywhere below that with a few other aesthetic considerations for landing on rough surfaces instead of prepared fields (tall landing gear, under slung bay, also keeps the sight lines and approach lines clear under the ship so I never have to hike around it). My jaw dropped and choice words were uttered the first time I boosted even without engine skill or Sam on board. Coming from a heavy class B the speed and maneuverability felt amazing. Turns out I really like zippy over tanky. I never bothered to put my raider on a diet to see if it would change things so this is great info. I had intended to use it just for that quest series as a bit of RP (Didn't make sense RP wise to take my very well known personal ship on an undercover mission so I made this 'disposable' class A for fun that now still has room for 8 crew using that one Deimos bridge lol) and then planned to switch back to the heavier ship once I was done, but I'm still using it even now in the late game. It became my favorite ship.
I had basically no idea what I was doing when I put my ship together, but I did use that fast white dwarfs, accidently I suupose😂
The 2 power requirement also good if you want to automatically having excess energy for grav jump without to modify further.
Thanks, I'm still learning this ship building thing and I threw 2 different engines on my Razorleaf, now I know I'm going to throw on them Sae5660 on there instead. I like tinkering with my guns more. Liked, Subscribed.
Do you have a link to the spread sheet for us? Great video and breakdown! Started playing starfield again. Got 130+ hours so far
Loved this informative video. Thank you so much.
I have to admit I fell into the Class C Engine trap. It wasn't until I noticed my modified Shieldbreaker (which I always end up buying because it is fast and easily modified and has good starting weapons) which is a Class B ship was faster and accelerated better than my Class C custom build. After a bit of playing around with Engines even I came to the conclusion that the SAE-5550 and SAE-5660 have the best performance if you want a high mass cargo ship but you want it to double as a heavy fighter.
I wonder if you could add the google sheet you created to the description of the video?
Great video. How did you do the ship tech talking parts? Love that. 😆👏
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he was using some app where you can make photo's move and have them lip sync words your saying can't remember the name of the app but it's very cool to use.
I appreciate all the time, effort and space rocketry that you've applied on this video, but I will still use those Slayton Aerospace big ass engines because of the looks.
Im not playing a mmorpg where I do have to sacrifice looks over functonality, thanks god.
Saddly, every item in a game that I like is always the worst of the bunch.
Again, awsome video and keep them coming.
I thought I understood all this well. But there are so many compounding factors to consider.
Where does #of engines or Thrust/Mass/power pip fall on this? It was hardly addressed and I feel like it just compounds further
So in your comparison at 5:06 two engines versus a single engine doesn't skew it a little?
I like the SA-4330. Class A speed, Excellent Extra Engine Thrust Mass and Extra Maneuvering Mass.
And it also has 6 total shape variants, probably the only engine series with that much of a shape variants
I've been singing that engines praises for months now. What ya don't know is mix matching those top class A engines gives you crazy performance. Easily boost out of lock-ons, and literally fly circles around enemies.
@@HoodNinjaichi trully incredible engine, my star eagle has 4500 cargo or something, carried by 6 of this engine, even with 58 mobility the maneuverability in dogfight is still unmatched, 195 top speed with full constellation crew, up to 600+ boosted speed, i never looked back in C class engine since
For the White Dwarf 3015 engines the reason the top speed is higher is they are locked behind Starship Design 4. There are actually quite a few parts with some rather odd or just unique traits with Starship Design 4. I believe that there is somewhere in the skill it does mention them as "experimental modules" or something along those lines so the special traits are intentional.
Well done. Excellent upload 👏
Thumbs up from me 👍
Does the the Amun-7 unique boost speed require you to be using all Amun-7s or can you use one Amun-7 to get the max boost and combine with something like the SA-4330 for efficiency?
Unfortunately it’s always the lowest denominator. I wish you could better mix and match like that. Would open up a lot more possibilities
Funnily I did similar testing yesterday, though nowhere that deep. But I was also looking at it from different perspective. For example difference between best and worst mobility is about 2.5 slower rotation. That's it. And while the slowest is not good for a fighter, it's perfectly fine for hauler, even for combat, as long as you rely on turrets.
Acceleration is similar. Surely it's fun to zoom around in max acceleration fighter. But if you get into trouble, acceleration won't get you out of it. The enemies will catch up and kill you. You need top speed to get away from them. In most cases it's better to sacrifice acceleration (and certainly mobility) to get better top speed .. even for combat in hauler.
That makes WD3015 best for small agile fighter, probably with just 2 of them .. decent 1000k cargo frigate with 4 of them, still with 100 mobility and max accel. But they are IMHO also the best engine to slap on 100k cargo hauler (if you ever needed one).
Only case where ED3015 is not the best, is if you don't intend to fly your hauler at all, and you just switch into it to load the cargo (which is neat trick). In such case you need single cheapest engine. Which is WD1000.
But the WD 3015s are so very, very slow to reach that top speed on a heavy 100k hauler. We certainly agree that regardless, you’ll want turrets, lots of turrets!
You just got a new sub
Amazing video
sorry, if this was already mentioned, but something occured to me: the "power-pip-per-engine".
meaning: if i use 4 engines (which is the max for the SAE-5560) - SA-4330 or SAE5660 - i get very similar values for Thrust/Mass and Man-Thrust/Mass but i only need 8 reactor pips instead of 12
so maybe not in the endgame but on the way to the endgame this is also worth considering? I seem to be always short of engine power (somewhere in the early to midgame atm)...
Absolutely something to consider. If you can get necessary engine performance with fewer engines (fewer engine power), that is better. It means you can get your desired engine performance using less reactor power, leaving some leftover to put to other ship systems. I use that in some of my builds, and this video is a good example of taking advantage of that: ua-cam.com/video/dbg9vumL1tE/v-deo.html
Is the maximum acceleration ratio of 45 thrust to mass the same for non boost acceleration as well? As in under that mass you get to full speed in the same time. Over that mass you start chipping away on acceleration.
So a maximum cargo, low top speed (130) max mobility and acceleration ship has a combination of C (high mobility but heavy) and B (less mobility but more weight for cargo) engines to balance out the acceleration and mobility thresholds at the same weight.
Yes, and that 45 factor is imprecise, I admit, but in my testing that was where further changes began being imperceptible in terms of actual gameplay. You could accelerate ever so slightly faster, but it made no real difference when playing the game.
Regarding how to apply this when building a ship, I typically think of engine class not in terms of A, B, C, but in terms of “lightweight & fast fighter - but no cargo”, “decent all-around (some cargo, not quite as fast)”, and “heavy cargo hauler (slow top speed, but can carry much more cargo before losing mobility/acceleration)”. I don’t see a reason to mix & match engine classes purely from a statistical perspective, but rather will do so when it fits the aesthetic of the ship I’m building and am ok accepting the lower top-speed stat of the slowest engine class on my ship.
I screenshot some of the spreadsheet, but I'm curious. Is it available for download?
Good information here!
I often consider how the engine mounts in deciding if its right.
12:30 how do i get a copy of your spreadsheet lol
Really good and informative vid, but kinda stacking against the SAL6830s here by not looking at those stats against Power requirements.
Hull is your ship's Hit Points. The vast majority of yiur HP comes from the Reactor, and the biggest of those is a heavy Pinch 8A with just 36 power.
The thickest shield is also Class C (SG-1800) with the most energy per bar, and capping out at 12 total energy.
Max distance for Grav Jumping is 28LY, max fuel (with perks) is 194 to jump the longest system-to-system chain in the galaxy. 701 if you have no perks.
You also have to factor for Crew, which is the lowest from among Crew Capacity, Crew Stations, and your Perk cap.
Plus the mandatory incidentals like a bay, cockpit, docker, and gear.
But if you're putting 12 into engines, and 12 into shields, that leaves 12 for your Weaps Systems (before Crew & Perks)
DPS for weapons is incredibly deep. Energy has no effect except on Reload/Recharge time. But some weapons are "magazine fed" meaning they have a burst before reloading, versus other weapons reloading per shot.
You also have to compare weapon "packages" like All Pam, Las/Bal, Turrets vs. Fixed, etc.
I think there IS such a thinf as a perfectly min/maxed ship at the end game. Where Perks, Crew & Stats all come together to give tbe ship that is "the most" across all categories. But, it's going to take a lot of extra work beyond your info.
Would appreciate your thoughts on this. A lot less math, but perhaps closer to what you’re describing: ua-cam.com/video/ydBPAPpb-wE/v-deo.html
@@ShipTechnician ha! Figured someone would have done it, and it figures that it would have been you XD
We have really similar ships. I normally run a build that is slightly heavier, and slightly different weapons package, so I'm on the 5660s.
I was going to start there for the math.
I'm not s SAL fanboy. My latest run is the first time I've built a "frigate" heavy enough to make them a consideration. But I've got a lot of the same bits, some turrets, 100 Mobility, max available boost - but double the crew (unnecessary) and cargo, plus all the crafting stations and 600kg on-ship storage. All I'm really giving up is speed. Still kicks down the door at Kryx, just a different play style.
Subbed, thanks for this.
Have they patched in ability for your ship speed to mean anything at all in game? Like actually moving distances in space?
Awesome, thank you!
So...what are we saying is the best overall then? Looking at the chart @ the 27:33 mark, it seems like it's saying the SAE-5660s are the best overall, but I'm not sure what the charts are saying for sure. Initially, I thought you were saying that the unique WD3015s were the best as they have highest top speed, period AND they are Class A, but the stats seem to say that the best Class B engine would be the best overall. /confused
Let me put the rundown here.
1. if you want to go topspeed, use the WhiteDwarf 3015 (not the 3020 or 3030) and end up class A eventhough you possibly using C reactors. Cargo wise, you have to go light. But 280 and more ? pieceofcake
2. if you want to pull cargo, use the highest manuevering thruster engines possible e.g. Poseidon DT230. Your topspeed is possibly 130 (more if you have skills and crew) but easy 10tons cargo.
3. is there a middle built ? maybe class B with decent cargo and topspeed ? NO. It just NO !
4. Howbout ship to ship combat built? again go with class A with high topspeed. It is impossible to outrun lasers in starfield, so you will be dead faster if you go slow. With multiple opponents, you die twice!
5. Why not SAE 6830? If you wanna go with style, yes why not. 300 something mass x 6 and the cost.
It's hard to label one particular engine as the overall best when the use cases for all the categorical bests are so varied.
--- WD 3015's are the best for fighter-sized ships where you gain no benefit to maneuverability (which is capped) or acceleration from the extra SA's but the top speed and top boost speed are substantially ahead. They also have the second-best thrust to weight _ratio_ but they don't have enough thrust to efficiently move a lot of weight.
--- SAE 5660's are the best for anything bigger up until their peak boost/weight ratio, especially if running a C-class reactor. Most generalist builds will fit into this category.
--- DT 230's are the cumulative best for very heavy ships that require more thrust than SAE's can provide. Mainly freighters in this category.
--- SAL 6830's are the best for flying bricks with fixed guns (which is no one ever when turrets exist).
It guess could be argued that SAE-5660's are the "overall" best in that they are optimal on the broadest spectrum of ships. They're good on combat ships. They're good on medium haulers. They're good on that unrecognizable amalgamation of unrelated parts your Frontier has become. They also look great and snap to almost anything.
did you do video on elite dangerous?
Can i share this video on my channel?
Ooh! Ooh! Did you ever find it weird that the ship slows down after the boost ends? Presumably it would take extra energy to slow down again...
Awesome, well done!
Heyyyy iv got a weird question. , every time I TRRRYYYYY to add on. Extra parts. On me ship. I get. A message saying, some thing like. , you have an error. On this part. ,,, ,some thing like that. , , , but all I'm doing is adding on the SAME PART. To make it a bit longer. ,,, 😢😢😢😢
Great video, good info. I only have 1 problem. The AI you use for the face makes it blink WAY too much.
Agreed :)
Great Job!
Awesome take anyway!
Why do the videos flash green?
The question then is: what is the minimum boost acceleration required to be able to disengage in an extremely difficult fight, and what engine allows for the most cargo/mass while able to reach that acceleration rate, with a rotational mobility of 100? Is the answer a class B engine?
There are a lot of variables to consider there. The easiest way to eliminate all of the variables, and ensure you can disengage in a difficult fight, are the following:
-Have you engine systems skill maxed at rank 4. At rank 4, all enemy ships will disengage when you boost, and only reacquire you as a target when you stop boosting.
-Boosting only lasts a few seconds, so if you have slow engines (C or B Class) and/or a heavy ship, you won’t boost far enough away such that the enemy weapons won’t be able to reach you, and they will reacquire you quickly once your boost is done. Your shield won’t begin recharging for at least 15 seconds if offline, or 8 seconds if damaged but still online, so you’d likely want to be able to boost far enough away such that your shield could being recharging, AND the enemy couldn’t reengage so it can keep recharging.
-The engines that provide this speed, assuming a top engine systems skill and Sam Coe on your crew (who provides even more top speed), are the White Dwarf 3015s. Enemy ships won’t have them, nor do they have you character and crew buffs, so this is the sure-fire way to disengage from enemy ships AND get far enough away to heal/recharge shields.
Was the speed nerfed ? I can't get my ship over 1000 .. it was possible with before. Lightest possible A ship with 6 Amun7, maxed skills (no Omar) will get me only about 870.
Also awesome job man
I know old video, but I just seen it the first time. To say it in advance, it's a good video, and all calculations are sound and valid.
But contrary to the video, I postulate with the right (particle) weapons, rotating is the only thing you need. I cannot remember any fight where the enemies where separateed in all angles. Normally you have a group of enemies that appear before you or you approch them. With a full array of particle weapons, the only thing i need to to is rotate to get the enemies in my field of view. Save for missiles, which technically could hit you a bit farther, your particle weapons damage the opponents while they approach and cannot shoot back. if one of the enemies survives the approach, they normally overshoot you and you just rotate to keep them in view. Yes, in a normal space shooter, dodging and outrunning opponents is a thing, not in Starfield. You get the Vanguard Obliterators basically right from the start, and they shred all early game enemies. With decent turn rate, fat shields and the Pinch 8A reactor and 3 sets of particle weapons (4 x PBO-175 Auto Helion Beam, 6x Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojector and 3x Exterminator 95MeV Auto Helion Beam) you can obliterate the whole crimson fleet space fight with just standing around and rotating. So its great that you can outrun any ship, but you dont need to outrun any ship in this game (maybe the 3 capital ships, never tried attacking them), it's great that you have a top speed of a gazillion mph, you dont need it. Its super that you reach your top speed 10 seconds faster, you dont need to reach top speed for anything in this game.
I don’t disagree, from a technical perspective. And if you’ve ever stopped to watch the enemy ship AI, it doesn’t help the other side of this argument either. Extreme difficulty, and going to multiple NG+ universes, changes this for a few enemy ship encounters, where you could be surrounded and attacked from multiple enemies at once, or a high level Starborn Guardian missile immobilizes you. But those are fringe cases. Still, flying fast is more fun.
That said, your comment is timely, because I’m nearing completion of a mod that would provide some more difficult ship encounters. Still have to deal with the AI, though I can adjust that a bit, but I’ll remember this comment and reply when it’s done :)
@@ShipTechnician I hope i made clear that I really appreciate all the math and tests you did, with videos to show the difference and all. I also completely agree, that flying fast can be fun. And I agree that the white dwarf 3015 are the fastet overall. But out of a mechanical point of view they are far from the best, even for an A Class ship.
Of course, and I really do agree with your initial comment, for 99% of the game, and really appreciate the dialogue! Personally, I often want to know what the best, min/max setup is for various situations, and from a pure combat perspective I see no better engine. But for any other purpose, the WD3015’s aren’t going to be on top. And if top speed wasn’t capped by engine class, it would make this discussion even more interesting.
There is no "best" engine, there is a system, you have to decide your own system but mine goes something like this:
First decide how much mass you want your ship to carry, then decide how much maneuverability you want to have, then decide how much power you want to dedicate to them, THEN you choose the lowest class engine that fits your criteria.
It's all a balancing act, you can't change one portion of the formula without changing another.
thank god there is a playback speed option. Excellent at 2x speed
These are the go-to engines if you want a high cargo capacity and still keep high mobility.
Landing gear is important also.. the nova wide landers give the most thrust at 4
What I do is, build the ship and try out different engine and the ones that give me highest mobility with 8 power limit usage combined is the ones I pick. My ships is usually 2500 mass plus
I always knew the sae-5660s flew better than most engines, they were always my go to if aesthetics weren't an issue
4x White Dwarf 3015!
My ship is so fast. I think the regular speed is 250+ and the boost reaches 900!!!
I have 2 ships by the way. A massive beast with loads of storage and a little hunter that's all weapons and engines. You can actually store 100s of tons of stuff in small ships, without adding cargo holds or losing performance. When you switch "home ship", all your cargo moves over, regardless of storage capacity. You just can't add more to it (until you switch over to the big ship again).
Also sals are very very expensive, I also kinda noticed that there were not much difference for my ship having 3 sals instead of 6 when I had no money to buy them.
When I started playing starfield again I started getting a whole bunch of UA-cam videos popping up about best engines best guns and all that. When it comes to the engines, I don't understand why everyone ignores Mass. For me, if it has super high mass, I don't want it. It just makes me need more engines to counter that mass. In which case the engines I do put on there are pretty much canceled out. I would rather have weaker engines that weigh less that would accomplish the same goal. Now, I haven't watched the rest of this video but hopefully, the address the numbers game on this since I have no clear evidence to back this up. Just the fact that the mass number is unattractive lol
Edit: Nice to know I picked the right engine. But it's even better to know why. Thank you for going through all the hassle so that us math inept people can be properly informed.
Check out this video if you haven’t. It has all of the stats you could want :)
ua-cam.com/video/ekTAhn6u8us/v-deo.html
Why can't they fix the operation Starseed quest?