Spaceship travel time ?

[Pole Doctor]

Searching the forums didn't return anything relevant, so here's my question :
Near the end of my last BTS game (Epic - Prince), I was on the way to complete my spaceship. The SS was complete, except for the motors. As I finished one of them, the travel time was 18 turns. The thing is, I didn't know which advantage a second motor would give me as I needed 9 turns to complete it.

So I went for it and, 9 turns later, the travel time was 15 turns ... bad move here.

I searched for this info and didn't find it so far : how is the SS travel time calculated depending on the number and type of parts ?

 

[J-man]

The engine and truster parts make it go faster, more (shielding) parts doesn't make it go slower.
I don't know many turns are cut by every engine/truster part but it's virtually always faster to launch to SS as soon as possible instead of making more engine/trusters.

 

[Pole Doctor]

The engine and truster parts make it go faster,

If I remember correctly, I recently built a SS by finishing with the propellers (Epic speed), and every propeller I added made me shorten the trip by 3 turns. IMHO there should be a chart or something to let us know how many turns a definite component is 'worth'. At least browsing the Civilopedia should bring this kind of information.

more (shielding) parts doesn't make it go slower.

As for the casing parts, I read somewhere (but I can't remember where) that the more casing parts the SS had, the more successful the space trip was, with a rule of thumb of 20% per casing part (1 part = 20% success, 5 = 100 %). Can anyone confirm this ?

To be fully honest, I own the vanilla Civ4 and built (rushed on) the BTS extension when I read that an 'Extended Space Race' had been re-added. Well, I must now admit this version is rather cheesy. I miss the Civ II (?) SS version, which was really thrilling.

Should there ever be a Civ 5, please bring it back like it was, please please

 

[J-man]

Yes, each casing increases the chance of succes by 20%, (5 casings = 100%).

 

[Jaybe]

At Marathon speed, one engine is 75 turns, 2 engines is 60 turns. If I were to build them sequentially it probably wouldn't get me there sooner. Last game I was building them in 2 cities, being completed just 3 turns apart.

Not that it mattered. 60 turns is still a long time to wait -- getting bored I went the glory road to domination.

 

[Willem]

At Marathon speed, one engine is 75 turns, 2 engines is 60 turns.

Are you referring to travel time or build time? I play Marathon and having both engines only means 30 turns for the spaceship to arrive at AC, not 60.

 

[dodgerphreak]

I also can confirm that each casing part is 20%, with nothing being guaranteed until you have all 5 casings. I once had everything done on my SSwith the exception of the casings, and I had four casings and the last one had just started when I saw that Zara Yaqob was on the verge of launching his. So I launched mine and I beat ZY by about 4 turns, and lo and behold it failed to reach AC. Ugh. So all my work wasted. ZY was about 10 turns from reaching AC, so I amassed a HUGE army and went knocking on his capital's doorstep and blew him out of the water.

But yeah, nothing is guaranteed unless you are 100% done with your SS. I almost found that out the hard way.

 

[Junuxx]

Ah, so that's what casings are good for.
I've sent several succesful spaceships with just one casing component!

 

[J-man]

Ah, so that's what casings are good for.
I've sent several succesful spaceships with just one casing component!

Then you were very lucky!

 

[srad]

Does anyone know the exact travel times with one / two engines for the different game speeds (marathon, epic, normal)?

Are these values located somewhere in the game xml files?

 

[srad]

Did some digging in the xml files and found these values:

iVictoryDelayPercent for thrusters is 100%
iVictoryDelayPercent for engine is 50%

iVictoryDelayTurns for space victory is 10.

So what does this mean? 10 turns flight time on normal speed if you build all thrusters and all engines? Only one engine means 15 turns flight time?

What is the travel time on epic speed with all thrusters and one engine?
(10x1.5)+5=20?

 

[kochman]

Searching the forums didn't return anything relevant, so here's my question :
Near the end of my last BTS game (Epic - Prince), I was on the way to complete my spaceship. The SS was complete, except for the motors. As I finished one of them, the travel time was 18 turns. The thing is, I didn't know which advantage a second motor would give me as I needed 9 turns to complete it.

So I went for it and, 9 turns later, the travel time was 15 turns ... bad move here.

I searched for this info and didn't find it so far : how is the SS travel time calculated depending on the number and type of parts ?

What you aren't considering is your chance of a successful mission. Incomplete spaceships have a chance of failure.
I once launched a spaceship with one engine (instead of two), and it was missing 1 casing.
It failed... I was furious, had to build another one before the AI could finish his...

 

[kochman]

Are you referring to travel time or build time? I play Marathon and having both engines only means 30 turns for the spaceship to arrive at AC, not 60.

Ditto...
one engine = 37 turns on marathon, 2 = 30 turns on marathon.

 

[davelisowski]

there's one easy solution. turn off the space victory option.

but yeah, there is no info really on this victory condition other than what you need to do.

 

[catfish99]

Will the AI launch an incomplete spaceship? I'm currently neck and neck with Saladin, and he only has one engine and no docking bay on his ship. I have two engines, and an trying to get all five casings attached before launch. If he launches with one engine, I would have four turns to complete and launch, everything else being equal. I'm actually hoping he does. Completing the bay and then not launching will force force my hand. I'll take a 20 or 40 % win chance backed up with invasion plans over invasion plans on their own.

 

[catfish99]

Bumping back up. Any thoughts? Has anyone seen an AI launch first with less than a full blown ship?

 

[DaleSwanson]

I usually play on quick, so I tested this for quick speed. Here are the values I got in game:

Engines		Thrusters	Travel Turns
1		1		12
1		2		11
1		3		9
1		4		8
1		5		7
2		1		10
2		2		9
2		3		8
2		4		7
2		5		6

Edit:
I was bored so I made a test map and found the marathon speed travel times:

Engines  Thrusters  Travel Turns
1        1          61
1        2          55
1        3          49
1        4          43
1        5          37
2        1          54
2        2          48
2        3          42
2        4          36
2        5          30

So each thruster saves 6 turns, the extra engine saves 7.

 

[Seraiel]

there's one easy solution. turn off the space victory option.

but yeah, there is no info really on this victory condition other than what you need to do.

In HoF and (S) GOTM all Victory Conditions must be turned on.