TL;DR:
Combat Impulse Engines are efficient at low energy levels ,but with today's endgame options for buffing power levels, their benefit is useless. The mechanics for impulse engines need to be changed so that combat impulse engine serve a purpose again.
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A part of post by a fellow poster made me think about an old problem with combat impulse engine vs hyper-impulse engines.
4. Great performing Hyper-Impulse Engines are part of the set. With the high subsystem power levels across the board possible today, Hyper-Impulse Engines bring completely superior speed and turn rates. I have been turned away from sets because they slap a mere Impulse Engine or worse, Combat Impulse Engine as part of the set, bringing my ship handling performance down. For me, this is not an Escort/Raider issue. This is an issue for ALL my ships because I can achieve high Subsystem Power levels no matter what. Having high power levels, leaving Hyper-Impulse Engines for the sake of Impulse or bottom rung Combat Impulse Engines is a night and day affair.
For those not familiar with the differences:
Combat Impulse Engines lose less turn rate and speed at low power levels than standard engines.
Hyper Impulse Engine gain more turn rate and speed at high power levels than standard engines.
This problem is really not new - it was already in the game with the original skill system and the availability of the efficiency skills - those tended to buff your engine power in the areas where there is no real difference between combat, hyper and standar dmipulse engine, or an advantage for hyper-impulse engines or standard engines over the combat impulse engine.
I think that's unfortunate. Basically, a combat impulse engine always seems to be the inferior option. It's probably not as big as a factor in sets as warmaker personally considers it.
What I would suggest as an alternative to distinguish the three types of impulse engines:
Alternative 1:
- Standard Impulse Engines work as now.
- Combat Impulse engines do not lose turn rate once engine power is below 50, but lose more speed than standard engines.
- Hyper-Impulse engines do not lose speed once engine power is below 50, but lose more turn rate than standard engines.
This might be the most balanced one, but ultimately probably means most people are not affected by it.
Alternative 2:
- Standard Impulse Engines work as now.
- Combat Impulse engines do gain more turn rate than standard engines at engine power above 50, but gain less speed.
- Hyper-Impulse engines do gain more speed than standard engines at engine power above 50, but gain less speed.
Alternative 3:
- Standard Impulse Engines work as now.
- Combat Impulse engines have an innate +10 % turn rate bonus, but a 5 % speed penalty.
- Hyper-Impulse engines have an innate +10 % speed, but a -5 % turn rate penalty.
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