Engine dropoff when things are in front of them, like how radiators work in the meltdown preview

[ripe oak]

You know how radiators' efficiency lowers when they have things in front of them? Add that but for engines, that's my idea. That way there would be a penalty to encasing engines in armor, but it would still be possible to do it

[stiff barn]

Could be coupled with https://discord.com/channels/314103695568666625/1371494178680209438

This is probably a controversial change though, with the long history of the encased engines meta.
How does the community feel about it I wonder.

[ripe oak]

Ah that's a great idea too, and yes they could work in tandem

[ripe oak]

I don't think people would like my idea though to be honest, cause of how prevalent encased engines are, like you mentioned

[spice garnet]

if this change was done in the switch from classic to modern before almost every builtin over like 200k credits used internal engines, i'd probably support it

as it is now, it would break too many ships to be feasible imo

[stiff barn]

Yeah that's my concern

[candid wing]

I like it overall, and I tend to encase my engines from time to time. And would not be first time more or less all designed ship for wacked in the head. Ammo production change did it as well so I see no reason why limit this one as long it's not nerfed to unuseable

[rugged spear]

Maybe you could have a switch for the engines. Like in the TRBs. Either they control their power so that they don‘t heat up things in their danger zone but are weaker or they heat them up and are as powerful as normal.

[idle raven]

Me who would have to update more of my built-in ships than not, sweating:

Y-yeah this, uh, c-could be neat

[torn canopy]

the encased thruster meta seems pretty toxic to ship design possibilities so i wouldn't be bothered to see it go. i support this fully.

im not really convinced thrusters causing heat is the solution on its own; it'll either be too much or too little, so this seems like the best way to deal with it directly without completely invalidating existing ships.