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So, we talked a lot about spaceships, weapons, defense, economics and whatsoever, but I found one particular topic missing on the discussion:
What damn engines do we use to get our spaceships propelled their way in range to the enemy?
So I created this topic. All Ideas made here, even the most stupid ones, will be listed in the OP by me.
I already have listed some RL-engines
Note: low tech is currently in use, medium tech requires atomic science and high tech is theoretically IRL. Very high tech means we are currently lacking the basic principe the engine uses.

Solid fueled rocket engine: lowest tech of thruster there is, no fuel requirement, no energy requirement, medium speed. Note: propably what you use to get your first space probes and sattelites into orbit. Also destroys itself in the process of flying.

Liquid fueled rocket engine: very low tech, high fuel requirement, no energy requirement, low speed. Note: Basic rocket engine in use today. Duh.

Ion engine: low tech, little fuel requirement, very high energy requirement, low speed. Note: This engine is best suited for the time between you manage to get fusion energy and the point where you actually get the more cool stuff.

Arcjet: low tech, medium fuel requirement, high energy requirement, low speed. Note: Maybe you use it for position control of sattelites or as maneuvering thrusters. That´s what they do with these things IRL, after all.

Solar thermal engine: low tech, low fuel requirement, no energy requirement, very low speed. Note: Just make a large solar collector and have it used to heat your fuel, then have the hot fuel thrusted out. Your ship might end up looking like a large TIE, though...

Solar Sail: low tech, no fuel requirement, no energy requirement, extremely low speed. Note: You´ll have to build a very big solar sail to get anywhere in time... meaning less than a year.

Poddle thruster: medium tech, medium fuel requirement, secondary fuel required, no energy requirement, low speed. Note: You basically let your radioactive waste decay and use the resulting heat to get thrust.

Nuclear thermal thruster: medium tech, medium fuel requirement, secondary fuel required, no energy requirement, medium speed. Note: Run your hydrogen through a nuclear reactor. Done.

Fission-fragment engine: high tech, no fuel requirement, secondary fuel required, no energy requirement, medium speed. Note: You run a fission reaction and throw the results straight into space.

Nuclear pulse propulsion: high tech, no fuel, secondary fuel, no energy, high speed. Note: Throw nukes behind yourself and ride on their shockwaves. Better have a blastproof hull...

Fusion engine: high tech, high fuel, no energy, high speed. Note: You use fusion power to heat your hydrogen or whatever you use. Maybe something heavier to keep the propellant from fusioning...

Antimatter engine: very high tech, low fuel, secondary fuel, no energy, very high speed. Note: Heating your propellant with antimatter will make your ship outrun the millienium falcon... at least at sublight.

Magnetic engine: very high tech, no fuel, very much energy, high speed. Note: Get yourself pulled along (ferro-)electromagnetic fields in the universe and just fly off!

Complication engine: very high tech, medium fuel, extreme ammounts of energy, very high speed Note: Super-heat the hydrogen, ionize it, add some magnetic stuff, make it radioactive just in case, then use dynamic flux oscillators and throw the weapon-grade plasma flame-thrower to move you around from the back of your ship.

Nerfed Warp drive: very high tech, no fuel, very high ammounts of energy, extremely high speed. Note: A Warp Drive that´s not strong enough to make it above c. However, steering with something that fast might become difficult on shorter distances. Also, do you really want to build a warp drive for sublight propulsion? I doubt it, honestly.

Juice thruster: stats=??? Note: Why would you use juice as propulsion?

Space crane: stats=??? Note: You take space in front of you and put it behind you. Why would you do that?

Troll engine: stats=??? Note: Your general put-a-magnet-in-front-of-you-troll-physics-engine! Yeah!

Reactionless engine: extremely high tech, no fuel, no energy, extremely insane speed Note: Happy breaking physics day, everyone!

Dunno but do know some classic fighter engine designs: My personal fav is that there is a standard speed cap for the fighter but for a limited time the pilot can "Kick the thrusters" to gain more speed than usual. This is useful for dogfights, tight manoeuvres and breakoffs. After usage the thrusters recharge.

Aka the afterburners.

Yea you can call them like that ...

What about passive propulsion like solar sails that are not engines but still move the ship?

No, too slow. This isn't Orbiter 2010.

what about using electromagnetic waves to pull them thru the universe

or use a teleport ray to teleport the piece of space infront of you to your back [you said you would post even the most stupid ideas]

joykler wrote:[you said you would post even the most stupid ideas]

That wasn't meant as a challenge, Joykler.

What about a engine that uses Juice for fuel??

[url=http://www.servimg.com/image_preview.php?i=87&u=17969639][/url]

Instead of making a single suggestion like a sane person would, I'm just going to make my own list.


In-atmosphere:

Propeller- Normal, everyday spinny-thingy.

Jet engine- Normal, everyday turbojet engine.

Ramjet- Makes things go forward quickly.

Bigass turbine thingy- Used on large ships (mostly gas harvesters and miners) that need to be in-atmosphere for a large amount of time. Often used to counteract high-gravity.


Exoatmosphere:

Solid-fuel rocket engine- Lowest-tech engine available. One use only, moderate thrust.

Liquid-fuel (hydrogen+oxygen) rocket engine- Variable thrust, decent maximum. Low efficiency.

Radioactive decay- the slowest of the slow, basically a mirror in front of a chunk of unstable uranium.

Magnetoplasma engine- High efficiency, requires heavy propellant, thrust varies with energy pumped into it.

Thermalnuclear thruster- Find out what happens if you put a fusion reactor outside.

Ion beam emitter- Same concept as the magnetoplasma engine, but larger, and therefore better.

Repulsor engine- Crawls along loose particles and space debris.

Warp drive- bendyspace

Reactionless engine- breaks physics.

E: Oh, and antimatter-matter collision.

Fusial thrust - fuse two things together (fusion engine), and kick the result out and exhaust port. No heating involved, really.

Fusion by definition heats things up a lot.

Just caught up with this thread. Too many words to look up. Let's go with magnets.

+1 to fr0sty.

Please don't make the +1 be a thing we start doing.