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On every damn ship!

15 (24.6%)

Only on the slowest ships.

12 (19.7%)

To make fast ships faster!

1 (1.6%)

Here and there - a sort of balance.

8 (13.1%)

Not at all, or very rarely.

7 (11.5%)

Very often, most ships.

18 (29.5%)

Total Members Voted: 61

[Dri]

Seems this hull mod gets a lot of use! I'm curious as to just HOW much use, thus the poll! If a vast majority of players are using it then perhaps it should be removed and baked into the base game fully or partially. After all, if everyone is using it then it's not really an compelling choice, is it? I think we can agree that strategy games should be filled with compelling choices.

[orost]

It's so important because there is too much downtime while travelling, even if you hold down shift.

I modify settings.json to triple the speed of all fleets and only use Augmented Engines for combat speed, or when I need my fleet fast relative to other fleets. I think a game mechanic where the player has to spend resources to reduce tedious waiting is completely unappealing.

[Dri]

Well please take a sec to cast your vote then!

[orost]

Even though I modify my game in a way that drastically changes the necessity of AE? Well, sure, "only on slowest ships" it is then.

[sarducardun]

I run unstables most of the time for the acceleration, bigger ships need this almost as much as top speed, I only run augmented if i need the burn speed.

[Schwartz]

I run unstables most of the time for the acceleration, bigger ships need this almost as much as top speed, I only run augmented if i need the burn speed.

Same here. There's a noticeable difference, though it's a bit of a risk seeing how fragile it makes your engines.

I don't run engine mods on all ships. Mixed fleets mean that you have a smallest common denominator, and at some point survivable loadouts become more important than burn speed.

[Serenitis]

I only run augmented if i need the burn speed.

...which is ALL THE TIME.

Agreed with orost.
As a game mechanic this is really not an ideal way of handling it.
A mandatory 'choice' is not really a choice at all.

[TheHengeProphet]

I would like to highlight that I am currently playing SS+

I put AE on:
-Almost all freighters on which it can fit.  The faster I can get the cargo there, the less it costs me in supplies.  Being less likely to be caught by pirates is a plus.
-Destroyers, if their burn is lower than the rest of my fleet (Overdrive Shunt gets me what I want for 5 OP less, but I think I can count it here).
-Anything cruiser or larger.  The slow speeds of cruisers has actually left me operating without them, as I enjoy running an interceptor fleet.

I have to be able to catch my prey.  If I load my fleet up with "big dogs", everyone runs from me.  Because the "big dogs" are so sluggish, I'll never catch them, which will lead to a long and lonely life in the void of space.

Essentially, I have settled on a burn of 8 as being acceptable, so anything below that gets AE.

[TaLaR]

As far as i understand both AE and UI give max speed (AE a bit more), but only UI does impove acceleration/deceleration (+100%). So,
- if you pilot ship yourself
- are sure you can protect engines
- this ship is not burn speed bottleneck in your fleet
- you value big maneurability boost above minor max speed boost
->  UI can be a better choice.

But i never seriously consider variants without both AE/UI, slow means dead in my book.

[Megas]

I consider Augmented Engines (and Unstable Injector if I do not have AE) so game-changing that it goes on every ship (except Ox and any other ship with too few OP to use AE).  However, sometimes in food runs, I need as much cargo capacity as possible, and strip AE off of 20+ ships to get maximum cargo space.  Once I make it to my destination, I cycle through those same 20+ ships and restore AE.  Earlier in the game, when scraping after cash, I have stripped AE after combat to take more loot, even metal (because metal can be worth lots in disrupted markets); then restore AE after I unload.

I think all ships' top speed to be raised across the board and Augmented Engines should just give +1 burn and maybe +5 to top speed.  Unstable Injector could just be a degraded hullmod for extra-fragile engines on enemy ships that need it like in A Fistful of Credits, and Auxiliary Thrusters can inherit the acceleration from Unstable Injector.

Related:  I consider Dedicated Targeting Core/Integrated Targeting Unit so important that it too goes on almost every warship, with few exceptions.  Few ships, like Gemini, have few enough OP that it cannot afford ITU.  Ships that use nothing but missiles, so as torpedo Mercury or Afflictor, do not need ITU, and civilians that are hopeless in combat do not need it either.

Correction:  I do not use Augmented Engines on Hyperion.  It does not need it in combat (because it teleports), and as a frigate, has high enough burn without Augmented Engines.

[TJJ]

As above; Augmented Engines to maximize & harmonize my fleet's burn speed. (when maximum cargo space isn't the goal)

IMO fleets travelling at the speed of the slowest ship is a design flaw, as it encourages less diverse fleets.

I'd much rather all ships had the same maximum speed, and have burn speed (dramatically) affect acceleration.

[Megas]

IMO fleets travelling at the speed of the slowest ship is a design flaw, as it encourages less diverse fleets.

This is why I use mostly frigate swarms in standard, once I get Navigation 10.  Even Medusa feels too slow.  Fastest carrier at burn 4 makes fighters look unattractive.

Navigation skill needs a balance pass - it favors frigates too much.

[Thaago]

Combat speed is so critical that I put either AE or UI on every ship, period. It drastically increases the combat effectiveness of ships to be able to control the engagement distance. The Burn Speed is just a bonus to me, but its a bonus that I would take on my slow ships even if it was a stand alone hull mod - its a boredom tax.

Unfortunately I think both unstable injectors and augmented engines should either be removed or their combat speed bonuses slashed by half or more.

[Megas]

Without engine hullmods, ships are too slow-paced to be enjoyable.  When I came from Transcendence to play Starfarer, I felt like I was playing in slo-mo, and engine hullmods fix that somewhat.  Helmsmanship 10, Evasive Maneuvers 5, and Augmented Engines hullmod is more like what I am used to.  Combat 10 and Technology 7 will always be AP/SP taxes for me as long as they remain in their current form.

[Nanao-kun]

I actually have a little bit of patience, so I only ever put them on Capital Ships and Cruisers, if at all.