Engines

After you have selected a hull size and type, the smart first step to take is to equip your ship with the engines, since without them it won't be able to move and that could turn out to be an expensive mistake! The engines are responsible for moving and rotating a ship. Ships in ❌ can move in four directions; forward, left, right, and backwards. The speed of the engines refers to the top speed an engine can go. The more engines the higher the top speed. The same applies to the ship’s rotation speed. However, engine components can come specialized where one has a very high top speed yet it adds little to the ship’s rotation speed. Then there would also be an engine with a great amount of rotation speed with little contribution to the ship’s top speed.

The different engine specializations between speed and rotation can allow some ships to perform better in combat in different ways; a high speed ship can reach its destination much faster than a ship with more engines specialized for rotation. The rotation specialized ship will be able to turn itself much faster to engage enemies that are attempting to flank it using their speed to get into a vulnerable spot. Thus, high rotation speed provides a great defensive edge for a ship as it can bring its stronger frontal armour to face enemies that are trying to attack the weaker side and rear armour.

At least one engine providing a passive base speed stat should be equipped on a ship before it is built and deployed. Ship engines can be a regular engine, a booster, and a multi-purpose engine. The engines provide only a constant passive speed for the ship that can differ between each other in their base speed, acceleration, side speed, reverse, and rotation. It is wise to have at least one reliable engine on all your ships. Boosters are single-use activated engines that provide a very large boost to some movement stats. They can be used to raise your base speed to chase ships down; boost your speed to escape or flank, boost your rotation to quickly change your direction, etc. Boosters are very cheap! So you can equip them onto a fleet in large numbers without worrying about your budget being filled. Multi-purpose engines are engines with a re-usable activatable ability that stacks on top of their passive movement speeds. These engines are either low powered with a higher powered activatable or a very expensive high end engine with a useful activated boost. These engines are best for ships without many choices for engine slots and for ships you want the best for.

Stats:

 * Speed : The contribution of the engine to the ship's maximum speed
 * Acceleration : The rate of how fast a ship reaches its maximum speed
 * Deceleration : The rate of how fast a ship reaches zero speed
 * Rotation : The rate of how fast a ship can turn
 * Reverse : The speed the engine contributes to reverse movement
 * Side : The speed the engine contributes to side movement
 * Active or Passive : (not implemented yet)
 * Active Duration : The time in seconds the engine’s active effects last
 * Reload Cost : The supply cost to reuse the active effect if multiple activations are available
 * Reload Time : The time it takes until the active effect can be activated again

(Multi-purpose engines as well as Boosters aren't implemented yet and not for the forseeable future)