#Engine Rework/Fuel & Engine Variants

15 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

gaunt gull
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The current fuel engines feel clunky, slightly unrealistic, and difficult to use when attempting to jam them into aircraft and land craft. It would be pretty cool to see engines receive smaller versions such as real-world V, inline, W, rotary, radial, or flat variants. Although some of these engines can technically be made in-game, they don't have the same size, look, or feel as their real-world counterparts and it's usually unnecessary to create engines with many cylinders for smaller craft like cars, tanks, and planes.

This could also make way for the implementation of torque into the game on top of horsepower.

With an engine update, diesel fuel, and its unique characteristics can also be implemented into the game. This could mean that diesel engines would have advantages over gasoline engines such as:

• More torque than gasoline engines (especially when paired with a turbo)
• Better fuel economy as diesel is more power-dense than gasoline
• Diesel is less flammable than gasoline, so the destruction of a diesel fuel tank would do less damage and the radius and power of the explosion would be significantly reduced
• Lower RPMs: Reaches full power faster

However, diesel engines could also have their disadvantages:

• The higher temperatures of a diesel engine compared to a gasoline engine would mean it is a bigger target to enemies using IR
• Diesel engines are more expensive and usually heavier than their gasoline counterparts
• Lower RPMs: Can often feel sluggish and wouldn't be as fast when used for propulsion unlike gasoline

The current engines can stay as they are perfectly fine for crafts with lots of space, but adding smaller variants would be appreciated. Adding torque can be seen as unnecessary but it would add another aspect of realism to the game. Different fuel types would definitely be fun to experiment with and use in combination with each other.

Lemme know what yall think.

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Also, the addition of different engine sounds, especially iconic sounds like turbocharger whistle and supercharger whine, would be cool. Different engine variants/fuel variants could produce different sounds

halcyon wind
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Yeah sure, I’ve got some thoughts…

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1: the game’s goal isn’t realism, and making it possible to build the engine types listed above adds unnecessary complexity.

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2: engines are the smallest form of power generation. The smallest one is literally 2 blocks (3 if you include the fuel). You shouldn’t struggle to fit one if you’re willing to compromise efficacy a bit.

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3: this game uses 1x1 cubes as its base unit. It’s hard to build realistically sized vehicles because of this limitation, and thus things in ftd are larger.

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4: implementing torque would remove the biggest advantage fuel has over steam: instant throttlability.

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5: diesel’s downsides are often not taken into consideration when designing a vehicle, thus gasoline will never get use.

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6: Your engine doesn’t really determine the speed of your vehicle. You either have enough, or you don’t.

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7: reworks of how things are made and how parts fit together don’t happen. I can’t think of a single instance where a system was changed in this manner. There have been systems that have been replaced, like dediblades and custom cannons. I don’t see that happening with fuel engines.

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8: different sounding engines would be sick!

solar zephyr
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Almost every system has been fully reworked at least once

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While the game was in early access

halcyon wind
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It hasn’t happened recently though.