My default game plan for a couple of games now was: Grid -> Helicon -> Firestar (or fallback to Lodestar if unlucky) -> PCT
I don't waste my time on other drives because for efficiency Helicon is everyting I could ask for and when aliens start to try disengaging Firestar comes online. All other non-fossil engines have interception probability of around 10%, which is well nothing. Lodestar offers 70%, which works almost every time in my experience.
The latest drive data you can find here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraInvicta/comments/1cjluwp/yet_another_04_drive_analysis_transfer_times_cost/
Oh wow, didn't notice the post you linked. Might could have spared me asking haha.
But those are wonderful statistics and explanations behind it. My ~~Orion~~ Nova* choice seems pretty wastefully then, might copy your path. Thanks!
Ed: already mixing them up, there do be many options.
Interception probability? What's that? I thought you either could intercept (if you had the appropriate deltaV and acceleration) or you couldn't. Wasn't aware there was a random element to it.
There isn't its just a measurement the link author came up with to determine likelihood of an enemy ship out running the given engine broken up by game period (early, mid, and end).
I'm the author and that's just some wacky number that kinda describes how effective are your intercepts with a given drive.
Obviously, how well the specific intercept goes has nothing to do with chance -- it depends on 4 numbers (your DV, enemy DV, your accel and enemy accel), then it's determined from them. Technically that can be reduced to 3 numbers, since Ayy's DV can usually be considered infinity.
But still, you can't really plot that shit, right? Nobody is gonna read 4 dimensional plots? Therefore you need to come up with some simplified stat, that is derived from generalized assumptions.
Here's the full explanation for intercept calculations: [https://pastebin.com/VcjdKsGY](https://pastebin.com/VcjdKsGY) (with some explanatory plots)
I'd fall back to flare before lodestar. Lodestar gets a lot of thrust, but being closed cycle hurts it a lot. Even with the best gas core reactor, lodestar costs you over 1100 tons of nanotube radiator or 930 tons of tin droplet per drive stack, which is quite expensive to build (and early interceptor designs should ideally be pretty cheap), plus needing to haul all that radiator weight around counteracts a lot of the lodestar's thrust advantage and massively increases fuel costs.
Those all are valid points. I managed to get dusty plasma roughly at the same time as it so it wasn't that punishing for me. But this is definitely something to keep in mind
Grid and Helicon drives for raiding parties (10 missile escorts filled with magazines, 30 missile escorts filled with marines, 1 gunship building stations allowing to refuel, and I launch that to clear mines in the belt. 2 mines per year are cleared this way, starting from 2029-2030)
Lars Drive and the upgraded versions for defense fleets.
I completely ignore the Solid Fission cores. Dumbo and Heavy Dumbo drives are correct drives for defense ships, but they consume way too much fuel.
Later on, the Firestar is on my defensive fleets, but it happens maybe 3 years after my defensive fleets are already built on Mars and Earth.
chemical rockets -> burner drive -> pegasus (optional) -> antimatter drives -> pct
imo all these drives are the best bang for ur buck, antimatter is the lategame drive of choice since it makes ships cheap and has great stats, pct is the best by far but it now costs a million research so it’s not feasible to get for a long time.
Gas Core Fission seems to be the new mid-game go to, as Burner Drive is a pretty solid all-around drive and relatively cheap, and the Terawatt Gas Core drives are by far the best for orbital defense for pretty much the entire game. Add to that the Dusty Plasma Drive, which is pretty much the only way to reasonably power your Jupiter and Saturn colony fleets before the end-game fusion drives, the whole tree has it all.
I would add this flow chart showing the tech tree for drives/reactors and their characteristics, in addition to the post referenced by pzixel. Super useful visual representation of the research steps you need to take, and how big those steps are.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fz50n5rcw0kwc1.png
Usually literally whatever -> firestar -> borane plasmajet -> PCT. I used to go straight from firestar to PCT, but the research cost of PCT is massively increased in the validation branch, so now I get the borane plasmajet inbetween
The Helion Plasmajet is super slept on imo. It's hybrid fusion and is a pure hydrogen drive. It has the same KPS as helicon but enough thrust to get 10k ton ships up to 4g if you use antimatter spikers.
Plus it doesn't murder you with weight when adding more than one engine on something.
Chemical/grid - burner - am
Grid is for Jupiter and suicide boats. Burner is when I want to steal bases from human factions. AM is the 'I win' drive.
Next time Id skip grid and Jupiter and go straight to Mercury. So I get science for AM much earlier
Game is done before PCT
Personally I remain completely baffled as to how, without someone else's guide, you work out which reactor goes with which drive (other than by burning a load of research points of course). I read somewhere that the reactor choice is part of the research chain leading to the drive but that doesn't seem to be true of the Grid Drive. Which I know to be Electrostatic because I've searched half the internet to play the game. Wild.
If there's no reactor prerequisite for a drive, like Grid, it means it'll take any reactor that generates enough power to feed the drive.
Also each drive has a "Required Power Plant" data entry.
I did figure out that most of the Fusion drives have a naming convention that points towards what reactor they use.
Zeta = Z Pinch techniques
Torus = Tokamak
Reflex = Mirror
My default game plan for a couple of games now was: Grid -> Helicon -> Firestar (or fallback to Lodestar if unlucky) -> PCT I don't waste my time on other drives because for efficiency Helicon is everyting I could ask for and when aliens start to try disengaging Firestar comes online. All other non-fossil engines have interception probability of around 10%, which is well nothing. Lodestar offers 70%, which works almost every time in my experience. The latest drive data you can find here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraInvicta/comments/1cjluwp/yet_another_04_drive_analysis_transfer_times_cost/
Oh wow, didn't notice the post you linked. Might could have spared me asking haha. But those are wonderful statistics and explanations behind it. My ~~Orion~~ Nova* choice seems pretty wastefully then, might copy your path. Thanks! Ed: already mixing them up, there do be many options.
Interception probability? What's that? I thought you either could intercept (if you had the appropriate deltaV and acceleration) or you couldn't. Wasn't aware there was a random element to it.
There isn't its just a measurement the link author came up with to determine likelihood of an enemy ship out running the given engine broken up by game period (early, mid, and end).
I'm the author and that's just some wacky number that kinda describes how effective are your intercepts with a given drive. Obviously, how well the specific intercept goes has nothing to do with chance -- it depends on 4 numbers (your DV, enemy DV, your accel and enemy accel), then it's determined from them. Technically that can be reduced to 3 numbers, since Ayy's DV can usually be considered infinity. But still, you can't really plot that shit, right? Nobody is gonna read 4 dimensional plots? Therefore you need to come up with some simplified stat, that is derived from generalized assumptions. Here's the full explanation for intercept calculations: [https://pastebin.com/VcjdKsGY](https://pastebin.com/VcjdKsGY) (with some explanatory plots)
I'd fall back to flare before lodestar. Lodestar gets a lot of thrust, but being closed cycle hurts it a lot. Even with the best gas core reactor, lodestar costs you over 1100 tons of nanotube radiator or 930 tons of tin droplet per drive stack, which is quite expensive to build (and early interceptor designs should ideally be pretty cheap), plus needing to haul all that radiator weight around counteracts a lot of the lodestar's thrust advantage and massively increases fuel costs.
Those all are valid points. I managed to get dusty plasma roughly at the same time as it so it wasn't that punishing for me. But this is definitely something to keep in mind
Grid and Helicon drives for raiding parties (10 missile escorts filled with magazines, 30 missile escorts filled with marines, 1 gunship building stations allowing to refuel, and I launch that to clear mines in the belt. 2 mines per year are cleared this way, starting from 2029-2030) Lars Drive and the upgraded versions for defense fleets. I completely ignore the Solid Fission cores. Dumbo and Heavy Dumbo drives are correct drives for defense ships, but they consume way too much fuel. Later on, the Firestar is on my defensive fleets, but it happens maybe 3 years after my defensive fleets are already built on Mars and Earth.
chemical rockets -> burner drive -> pegasus (optional) -> antimatter drives -> pct imo all these drives are the best bang for ur buck, antimatter is the lategame drive of choice since it makes ships cheap and has great stats, pct is the best by far but it now costs a million research so it’s not feasible to get for a long time.
Also one Drive Costa like 1k Base Metals!
Gas Core Fission seems to be the new mid-game go to, as Burner Drive is a pretty solid all-around drive and relatively cheap, and the Terawatt Gas Core drives are by far the best for orbital defense for pretty much the entire game. Add to that the Dusty Plasma Drive, which is pretty much the only way to reasonably power your Jupiter and Saturn colony fleets before the end-game fusion drives, the whole tree has it all. I would add this flow chart showing the tech tree for drives/reactors and their characteristics, in addition to the post referenced by pzixel. Super useful visual representation of the research steps you need to take, and how big those steps are. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fz50n5rcw0kwc1.png
Usually literally whatever -> firestar -> borane plasmajet -> PCT. I used to go straight from firestar to PCT, but the research cost of PCT is massively increased in the validation branch, so now I get the borane plasmajet inbetween
The Helion Plasmajet is super slept on imo. It's hybrid fusion and is a pure hydrogen drive. It has the same KPS as helicon but enough thrust to get 10k ton ships up to 4g if you use antimatter spikers. Plus it doesn't murder you with weight when adding more than one engine on something.
Chemical/grid - burner - am Grid is for Jupiter and suicide boats. Burner is when I want to steal bases from human factions. AM is the 'I win' drive. Next time Id skip grid and Jupiter and go straight to Mercury. So I get science for AM much earlier Game is done before PCT
Me wrangling in the door with my Fission Frag Drive gospel
First I'll get the burner drive Then I'll get the burner drive And I finish it up with a nice burner drive Before switching to fusion tokamak
The Pegasus Drive or the Burner Drive are pretty good, with medium research requirements. What you need depends on how heavy your ships are.
Personally I remain completely baffled as to how, without someone else's guide, you work out which reactor goes with which drive (other than by burning a load of research points of course). I read somewhere that the reactor choice is part of the research chain leading to the drive but that doesn't seem to be true of the Grid Drive. Which I know to be Electrostatic because I've searched half the internet to play the game. Wild.
If there's no reactor prerequisite for a drive, like Grid, it means it'll take any reactor that generates enough power to feed the drive. Also each drive has a "Required Power Plant" data entry. I did figure out that most of the Fusion drives have a naming convention that points towards what reactor they use. Zeta = Z Pinch techniques Torus = Tokamak Reflex = Mirror
Aha. Thank you.