Most Efficient 3-Way Engine (Shield/Power/Thrust)

[CJMilla]

First off I would like to emphasize that this is the most effecient COMBONIZATION of the Shield, Power, Thrusters. NOT the best of each one. Not much to say atm, so I will just post the images and give some explanation (I will add more info if needed to this post)

It all started with 2 small L's that I interlocked. I thought to myself "Isn't there a way I can evenly distribute the same block count of power and thrusters with the same amount of L's, T's, +'s, etc etc... (Good for very very small tight spots).

So here is blueprint 1

I realized that I could not make it any bigger without leaving spaces so I added I changed it up some... (I use these in my small fighters 1-6 of them).

(Exclude the blocks not highlighted. They are for demonstration & weren't there for the pic of the stats)

Yet again the same problem as the first one. So I thought about placing this exact structure to a duplicate of itself. The method worked somewhat. I ended up creating a 9x9x9 engine made up of 27 3x3x3 of the engine above! In order to prevent certain blocks from touching other of the same blocks (preventing block dimensions break) I had to switch out the middle piece with the sides and rotate the cubes aswell. It became a hard but very fun puzzle. If you are not intrested in this engine then purhaps your into puzzle solving?! (Good for 10x10x10 - 10x10x40 ships [1-3 reactors]. I wouldn't use these for anything larger as longer L's outweigh the space efficiency).

(Exclude the blocks not highlighted. They are for demonstration & weren't there for the pic of the stats)

Just for a little comparative I put this design up against a common highly efficient build of SIX 5x5x5 engines agianst my 9x9x9 multi-purpose engine. Pretty good aye? Just a reminder "most effecient COMBONIZATION of the Shield, Power, Thrusters. NOT the best of each one."

(Exclude the blocks not highlighted. They are for demonstration & weren't there for the pic of the stats)

I did say that this is the best combination but don't let that stop you from finding better ones! This is just the best to my knowledge.

PS: Also I bet you cant recreate my block >=D! And post your best balanced multi-purpose engines below =D!

 

[me2005]

41, 9-block long power stacks arranged so they don\'t touch is way more efficient for power generation; the others are straight block-count so \"effiiciency\" is kind of hard to nail down.

I alternated power sticks, ed: shield sticks, & thruster sticks:

Power : 52,441/sec

Thrust: 396

Shield: 25,720, 1,176/s regen; 180 blocks

 

[CJMilla]

Seems I made an error here.. I triple checked to see if it occurs elsewhere and it doesn\'t. Which means the overall output should be a little bit higher then the ones above if done correctly.

 

[DracoNB]

Longer power blocks are much more effective than lots of small ones, heck, under 9 long as they are more efficient / block to be separate.

I made a quick 9x9x9 using the box edge 3 leg L shapes (so not as efficient as spiraling power blocks) and got 33217.5 e/sec, 538.9 thrust, and 35509 shield with 292 blocks.

Once I got higher than your numbers I just filled the rest with shields, so it could have even more... I also left a few ice crystals inside that I forgot to remove.

Total mass: 71.5 so I\'m even missing some filler inside (was quick!)

 

[CJMilla]

Make sure you have an equal ammount of all 3 blocks (power/shield/thruster) and then compare the speed, shield power, & power reg. Its an effecient multipurpose engine. Any 1 or 2 types could out do this. but sofar nothing can outdo this build of the combo of the 3. Show me a screenshot if you do happen to please

 

[Apples]

uhh... thrusters and shields no longer et the BOX dimension bonus\'s

shields, maybe but thrusters are best just to clump

 

[Mason]

The apple speaks the truth.

 

[Archer6621]

When I was experimenting around with thrusters, I noticed that adding thrusters in a certain way added more thrust than it would normally though, I suspected it was the box dimension thing, because it became better when I kept expanding it into 1 direction.

But I\'m not so sure about it, maybe they work like power storage does, getting slightly better exponentially, very slowly though.

 

[Moph]

You don\'t have equal numbers of each in your block, there should be 243 of each, but you have 249 shield blocks.

 

[Dire Badger]

That should be slightly better.

Engines gain more efficiency based, not on box dimension, but on how many of them are touching faces.

strips of power would be better, but best yet would be sliding the front ends of some of the power around along the outside corners so that you have some of them as a 3-dimensional power structure.

So, while I am sure that geometry could come up with a better method of creating the most efficient power generation structure, I tend to try and create as many power \'lines\' that can extend to all 6 sides without touching as possible, up to the limit of power/engine/shield that I desire.



Obviously, it tends to look very borg-like, but even such a complicated chaos tends to be extremely efficient.

Within that, I try to jam as many engines with TOUCHING FACES as possible, up to my limit of engines.

Then you basically fill the remaining random blocks with shields.

 

[Moph]

I don\'t even know what you\'re going on about now.

This has all been done before, there are loads of 5x5x5 box designs for power, but anything that\'s going to be longer in length than 9 blocks, is far better being made up of individual sticks.

Also, if the rule was \'Touching faces\' then a solid brick of 9x9x9 power blocks would be the best since the 7x7x7 = 343 blocks in the centre of it would have all 6 sides being \'touched\'.

Also, your new design is 10x10x10, not the 9x9x9 you originally started with.

I suggest you build a simple 9x9x9 ship made entirely of those single sticks of power blocks, check the power regen rate, then try to beat that.

 

[Moph]

One minor improvement to the sticks layout though, is by capping the sticks at both ends. By that I mean adding a small cross (+) to alternating stick ends, then capping the other side by adding that small cross (+) to the ones which weren\'t capped the other end.

 

[Moph]

For illustration purposes, here\'s the standard 9x9x9 block of sticks:





And here\'s the capped 9x9x9 block:

 

[Moph]

The challenge is to beat 57768.5 e/sec within a 9x9x9 block frame.

 

[Moph]

One last addition... if we\'re trying to keep the number of blocks equal, here\'s the capped version of the above.





35730.0 e/sec if trying to keep power blocks, shields and thrusters in equal numbers. You\'ll notice some power block strips cut short at the top, that\'s to make up for the extra blocks needed in making the caps.
243 power, 243 shields, 243 thrusters.

 

[DracoNB]

Look at my numbers they are higher in all three already