Pulsing Kerosene

[nanoduckling]

So a question arose yesterday about the best way to use kerosene on a squid (actually the question didn't so much arise as was forcefully put to me by some jackass I will leave nameless who felt 'you really need to learn how to pilot a squid' is effective pedagogy and a good way to introduce yourself). I've gone and dug up my old calculations from when I started piloting to try to figure out when you want to switch it off. Assuming GoIO uses a linear drag model the ship will top out at 150% faster with kerosene with fully repaired engines as the drag forces match the thrust forces. If engines take damage the ship produces less thrust, and I again assumed this is linear. There is likely an effect from the turning here if engines are asymmetrically damaged but I assume this is minor. It seems to me you fall below normal top speed if engines are on average damaged below 66% (1/1.5).

A decent set of squid engis making use of parkor tricks can easily keep the engines well above 66% average damage (heck I can do that on my own and I'm a crap engineer), so it seems to me leaving kerosene on will always maintain higher speed than turning it off.

As to average speed the calculations for pulsing the kerosene depend entirely on the drag model, which I don't have access to. Has anyone ran speed tests with various duty cycles for the squid in the blast yard? I thinking run from one end to the other with repeated trials at different duty cycles and cycle frequencies and measure which one is faster with the same engis with some randomised design. I'm not especially interested in anecdotes here, it is likely psychological factors will screw with perception so multiple time trials under as controlled conditions as we can get are likely the only way to get an answer to this question. Anyone done this?

[Watchmaker]

Drag is not linearly related to thrust.  Drag force is proportional to the square of velocity (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation).  Top speed is proportional to the square root of thrust if nothing else has changed.

[nanoduckling]

Ah so it is quadratic drag rather than Stokes drag. Guess that makes sense given the Reynolds numbers involved. That makes the equations a bit more fiddly but as you say matching drag and thrust again gives us max velocity proportional to square root of thrust. I assume the calculations for engine damage work out the same though since that will only effect the thrust portion of the calculation.

[Sprayer]

Use moonshine and all your kerosine problems go away.

[ShadedExalt]

Use moonshine and all your kerosine problems go away.

Agreed.

When I use Kero, I just have the engi change his cycle a bit and add a whack or two to engines.  No real need to pulse.

[nanoduckling]

Oh I agree folks, I love me some moonshine. Newer engineers don't necessarily like my abuse of Moonshine though...

[Kamoba]

As long as you're not completely killing the engines and you're coming with the engineers (which I know you do as I've piloted alongside and inboard your ships) then you're not doing anything fundamentally wrong. Chances are it was the same engineer who told me I should not use kerosene because it damages the engines and the pilot tools which cause damage are the wrong ones to use...
Boy that was a fun debate mid match....

[Indreams]

As a pilot, I don't like the moonshine. Too much lead and metal shrapnel for consumption.

Kero does the job. No need to pulse Kero, as the engineers repair faster than kero damage.


I think kero and moonshine stops being effective once the engines down half health. In such case, pulsing might be helpful.

You could do a short pulse to accelerate faster; you reach max speed faster.


Pulse moonshine backwards for less than a second to bring your ship to an almost complete stop, laterally and angularly.

[Crafeksterty]

You would use moonshine for other reasons. Moonshine is pretty specificaly used for ramming. It keeps your ship stable even when crashing into an enemy ship.

So its use is not for the sake of going fast. Its for the sake of going fast for the short moment while your hitting and crashing into an enemy. there is a reason why pyra rams can be super hard with moonshine. They go THROUGH you. Or force itself through you.

[HamsterIV]

With two engineers using spanners and the underside engine trick. Your squid's engines can be maintained at 90% thus removing the need to pulse kerrosine. Kerrosine damages engines slower than the spanner repair rate. Moonshine on the other hand damages engines faster than mallet repair rate, and must be pulsed. I have not run a comparison between pulsed Moonshine and always on kerrosine but I suspect the kerrosine would win.

[DrTentacles]

I'll try to find the sheet with the calculations, but pulsed moonshine is faster. You burn engines down to 25%, stop the moonshine, let an engi mallet them back up, wait for a second or so, then start the burn again.

[nanoduckling]

Thanks to everyone for the responses and clarifications. Tentacles if you do dig up those calculations I'd be interested in reading them.

[Sprayer]

You would use moonshine for other reasons. Moonshine is pretty specificaly used for ramming. It keeps your ship stable even when crashing into an enemy ship.

So its use is not for the sake of going fast. Its for the sake of going fast for the short moment while your hitting and crashing into an enemy. there is a reason why pyra rams can be super hard with moonshine. They go THROUGH you. Or force itself through you.

We were talking about the squid right? So it's also for getting out of enemies effective ranges really quick.