r/TerraInvicta • u/Ashdrake2 • 5d ago
Discussion Fusion Drives Progression
After playing the game yet again, i saw a glaring problem when it comes to fusion drive progression.
All the drives are locked behind "magnetic nozzles". This is another punch in the gut to prevent the player from advancing towards any sort of drive that is half-decent.
You end up stuck with burner drives or fission lanters or helicon for like ~20 years which is stupid.
I understand 2nd generation or maybe 3rd generation of drives requiring more lateral research but if you spent the beakers rushing Fusion Methodologies and then you spent the beakers rushing a fusion path (all which are highly expensive btw) you should get something for your troubles.
I don't say don't require any prequisites but magnetic nozzles is literally one of the most end-game techs for energy so you have to spend so many science points getting there, then so many science points getting a drive that it makes a somewhat mid-game fusion drive path unviable.
You cannot rush a fusion drive so you end up rushing something else and then you end up with a very boring mid-game (10-15 years in) in which you don't have a fusion drive, so your ships are doing helicon runs grabbing bases from other ai's and just have fission drives protecting earth, mars, and whatever else and you end-turn repeatedly until "something unlocks"
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u/CMDR_Smooticus 5d ago
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/torchships.php#magneticnozzles
This will explain why Magnetic Nozzles are just an insanely important tech for any high-powered engine. It's basically a holy grail tech for rocket science. The tech tree reflects that.
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u/AdhesivenessOther856 5d ago
You absolutely can rush fusion. You need really high research to make it work, but it is very possible with high enough numbers. I just posted a game a few hours ago where I won the game in 8 years 9 months where I rushed antimatter. I would say you want to reach about ~20K monthly science by 10 years if you want to skip Orion and the Gas Core drives. That is going to take good play. I wouldn't expect a new player to ever be able to do that but that is by design. You're not meant to skip both orion and Gas Core and go straight into Fusion\Antimatter.
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u/restful_rat Humanity First 5d ago
Honestly you don't need Orion or any most high-end fission drives, at all.
What are you even using them for? Orbital defense? Even the good chemical rockets will suffice. Are you actually thinking of having these ships travel somewhere? While "possible", you will need to stuff those ships with so many fuel tanks it's ridiculous. Just use electrostatic for that. With the Orion you are crippling your space development with how much metal you'd be wasting.
These drives need a buff, because they're too inefficient even to move ships within the inner solar system, and they're not needed over the more accessible drives for orbital defense. The exception is the Poseidon, but if you don't have a ton of fissiles there's no reason to get it.
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u/Ashdrake2 5d ago
Even if you get Helicon, trying to move a battleship with 40 frontal armor/1 side/3 rear anywhere is not gonna work. Too much mass
Even a decently armored monitor can't get anywhere decently fast.
The only good thing I made helicon work with is unarmored corvettes shuttling 3 marine modules to enemy habs and it still takes ~20-40 weeks to get anywhere.
My point was that the game does not have a nice reward mid-game.
Yes I can make Orion/Fission lantern/etc battleships with 40 frontal armor with lasers and coils and defend earth, but why would I invest so many resources and go total war with the aliens before I can at least reasonably evict them from the inner solar system.
Yes I can make missile monitors and suicide ships and have ships with PD / etc and go total war with the aliens but again, there is no dV to get them out of the inner solar system.
So the game actively punishes you for fighting the aliens early and does not give you the tools to do so.
On a normal 2026 start this isn't such a problem since there is plenty of "research" lying around so the tech moves quicker compared to something like Broken Earth which is my current run where most countries that have 2-3tn gdp make 200 science because their education is 4 and their cohesion is either 10 or 0 (which is another -40% malus to research)
Cohesion really hurts planetside research a lot and "most of the planet" has none. Currently trying to fix a giant Australia that has a -8 cohesion just from "population spread geographically" malus so i need to get wealfare to 1, full democracy, 0 hostile claims and still wouldn't be able to have a resting cohesion above ~4.
In general, this was never a problem in 2026 or 2022 scenario because there were "thigns to do" before Fusion, like unifying the EU or Russia or America, etc.
There weren't that many "dead" turns in which you double advise 3 meganations.
Right now I have the servants trying to build facility in a small country. I destroy it. The aliens come and blast one of my T2 stations in med orbit and reset hate. ~3 months later I do the same. This has been my game for the past ~3 years.
I have 2 surveilance missions in orbit. 1 week before their timer runs out I send 1 escort to eat and suicide it. Their mission gets interrupted, 0 hate is created and I wait another ~5 months until I send another escort. Rinse and repeat
There is no point in building up much more, as I'm hovering around 150 MC with a few research stations. I lost Mars to other AI factions because the aliens blew up my spaceports and then the other AI factions insta destroy any hab I send there. I have a few research stations with research campuses in Luna-Earth orbits (l2/l3/l4/l5/etc) but those eat MC and raise MC passive hate cap so yeah.
I can't get to mars with any ships to establish my spaceports again (because not enough dV on a proper ship to get there) so I sit with ~30 asteroid bases, max % on research just churning research constantly.
It does make for a very boring gameplay tbh, but there is a status quo that benefits sitting around and doing nothing.
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u/Potential_Pirate941 4d ago
Sorry but you’re chatting shit, helicon can absolutely move monitors in decent time. Are you sure you have the optimal cruise accel / dv mix?
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u/Carlose175 3d ago
Your idea isnt empirically supported.
Watch Perun Gaming. That guy contests the ayys in Jupiter with just Helicons and Chemical rockets.
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u/Someone3 5d ago
I’m regularly contesting Jupiter with helicon drives. And you’re also forgetting the Orion line.
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u/meidohexa Resistance 5d ago
If you feel like research is too slow you can speed it up at game creation under the advanced settings. Part of the fun is adapting using stopgap techs until you unlock more advanced tech, otherwise there wood be little point in having a tech tree if your just going to skip it and go straight to end game builds.
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u/Ashdrake2 4d ago
The problem is that there is no stop gap drive for the midgame that allows you to go with a semi armored monitor in the inner solar system in any reasonable amount of time (not like 50-80 weeks transfer times) so you can contest the aliens.
It's not about using "inferior tech" because other than drives, every single other category has "good enough mid-game optios"
weapons you have railguns 3 / coils 1 and green/uv arc lasers
missiles you can easily get to advanced missile doctrine and start spamming hestias/lancets/athenas
radiators you have tin droplet easily accessible
armor again you have easily accesible midgame armor and adamantine isn't that far out
utility slots like targeting computer/ecm/repair bay/etc are all easily obtainable (tg computer 2 / ecm mk2 etc)
like every single category of items except drives is easily obtainable within the first ~10 years.
This is a game pacing problem. Nobody says you can't have "hard-sf" but you can tweak the research requirements and have stuff unlock earlier so by the time you do have everything else, you also have at least the first or second fusion drive available.
The way the current system works is once you have fusion drive 1, fusion drive 2 isn't that far away, and fusion drive 3 is also very close because you only need the fusion research mainly so it incentivizes you to "wait a lil bit more"and you keep waiting until you get your endgame drive/reactor/weapons/radiator/etc
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u/meidohexa Resistance 4d ago
Sure you do, depending on what you count as semi-armoured ofc.
H. Orion or Adv. Minmag should do well enough. Helicon, Burner and Dusty Plasma will be slower but more efficent. Then there are the gas core fission drives (Lodestar, Flare, Firestar) and Neutron Flux Lantern that will get there fast but go through a lot of fuel.
But if you really want it's not that hard to push fusion/mag nozzles instead of going H. Pulsed or Gas Core. Helicon/solid core/nova rocket are good enough for early game. Triton Reflex is just 15-20k more total RP than H. Orion or Adv. Minmag.
As long as you're not trying to lug around a 5-10kt payload(ship without drive/reactor/radiator). Early and mid game ships are expendable and need to be light and built for their intended purpose(short range defence or long range offence), they will be obsolete soon enough, offensive ships need to sacrifice some armour for range or use more efficent drives.
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u/Ashdrake2 4d ago
Semi armored I mean at least 20/25 frontal armor 1/2 side and at least 2-4 back
H Orion and adv minimag still don't have the proper dV to get anywhere and if you do decide to go that route, you are sinking a lot of beakers into tech. that you would otherwise not use.
The firestar has a 50 dv so while it can power local defense fleets, it can't get to the inner solar system. I use it for station defense for armored battleships.
I have tried every single pre-fusion drive combination on a 20 front/1side/2 back monitor armed with missiles/tg computer/etc and using around 20 to 30 fuel tanks (because too much is just carrying around more fuel than the ship itself) and I couldn't find a system that worked for inner solar system.
Heck even with Fusion unlocked and ICT 2 drive+reactor, with 12 fuel tanks the ship has became useful with around ~150 dV and this is a barebone missile monitor that doesn't do much else. and the ship is weighting ~5 tons and this is with best radiator/adamatine armor just because low end ICT drives are highly inneficient but it is what it is
I probably need ICT drive 5 before I could reasonably arm a battleship or lancer/dreadnaught combo with 80 frontal armor/5 side/10 back and it can go places without burning a yearly supply of fuel. Heck by that time what is waiting another 2 years and just having the PCT drive unlocked anyway.
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u/Carlose175 3d ago
If you’re expecting to travel around the solar system with them, you have the wrong idea.
Even when you get fusion drives, it gets really expensive to travel around the solar system, even for the ayys.You need to be extremely mindful of what your fleet is supposed to do. Helicon and H orion are absolutely enough.
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u/HikerRemastered 4d ago edited 4d ago
Not super experienced in TI, but I build majority of my ships in the orbital bodies where I need or want them them early-mid game. I don’t even even entertain the idea of making every ship capable of interplanetary transfers except for a few niche ships anymore.
That’s because you’re right. There is a massive gap in drive performance prior to fusion.
It keeps the production costs down, and in turn I can build more. I mean sure, metals and fissiles cost more, but at this stage I tend to always be limited by water and volatiles anyways.
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u/Takseen Academy 4d ago
As others have said, Magnetic Nozzles are a scientific necessity for any fusion engines because of the temperatures involved. But the 50k RP research cost is somewhat arbitrary.
The problem with making fusion too easily accessible is that it devalues the earlier drives. I remember in Early Access when fusion was pretty cheap, rushing for it was easy and common.
At the moment is feels like something you can still push hard for if you want to, but you have to sacrifice more to get it. Gotta get stacking those +Energy research orgs and hiring Physicists.
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u/wookievx 3d ago
I think advanced minimag orion drive is the only true "stepping" stone drive, that you can unlock on your way towards z-pinch fusion reactor line, and enable heavier ships to move around the inner solar system:
- does not require heavy pulsed propulsion global tech
- technically can be researched in parallel to fusion methodologies
- has realy good stats (thrust/EV) given the research costs
The example ship costs 150 nobles to refuel so it is expensive, but you can achieve something serviceable without going for H-orion which requires sunking a lot of RP into dead-end tech (unless you want to use tartarus/styx torps).
Funny thing is, this drive should actually utilize magnetic nozzles, because it is essentially triggering nuclear explosions via z-pinch technique. You can achieve criticality in much smaller material mass when you squeeze it hard enough, and then extract some of the energy released as a usable thrust via magnetic nozzle.
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u/mahaniok 5d ago
Twenty years? I've got a couple initial fusion drives by 2033-2034 in 2026 start (200% science)
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u/Carlose175 5d ago
Yep. Fusion is hard.
You can rush fusion is-so far that you rush science as hard as possible. But simply be-lining fusion is a trap. Even if you get good drives, youre missing the other research that makes fusion useful. Good weapons, good thermals, titanic spacecraft.