Wow, Snail, that was a bit harsh.
Anyway, here's my terse believable explanation:
Early fuel-based afterburners use a supply of reactant that's dumped into the fusion torch to create an extra kick. This is the same method of operation used in today's afterburners. However, the torch itself is effectively fuel-unlimited, as it operates by fusion. Only the afterburner uses an expendable fuel. Presumably this fuel is some kind of high-energy compound that combusts nicely in a fusion torch.
Later, a method is developed to temporarily overload the fusion engine by activating a capacitor. This capacitor boosts the strength of the engine's magnetic confinement bottle, allowing for a greater plasma efflux from the fusion drive -- and thus a spike of thrust. When the capacitor's charge is depleted, the strength of the fusion bottle returns to normal, and the capacitor must charge before being used again.
Sound good?
No.
Even simpler; the TVWP afterburners work on the same unstated principle as do the FS1 and FS2 afterburners. However, the recharge rate of these ships is so low as to be insignificant in the course of a battle. Recharge is thus normally completed aboard ship. This concept eliminates any inconsistency with the behavior of later ships, and eliminates the need for any technobabble.
No.
Now, you gave me an even better idea:
This also answers why fighters don't use lasers - they'd have to carry a huge capacitor to run the lasers. Given lasers given huge inefficiency when turning energy into coherent light, fighters were much better off mounting guns.
(This also brings up a wicked idea - initial lasers could use a "limited" energy bank, just like afterburners do now).
When the magnetohydrodynamic generators are refined, that they actually take a surplus energy out of the fusion engine, the well known Freespace energy system is implemented.
BTW MHD generators are already under development. These use an electrically conductive fluid such as salt water, molten metals or - yess - plasma.
No.
Okay, so let's work it backwards, since fusion does seem to be in the tech description, that works for me.
They have fusion.
What kind of a ****-ass regular five second fuel engines do they have in these fighters then? Especially if the fighter already works with a fusion engine (since it works in exactly the same way our retail ships work, sans the extra thrusting power).
Someone give me a plausible explanation on how we got from retard engines with limited push to super engines with unlimited sans the time delay, with the same tech (especially considering Falcons don't have it at all).
Plausible. Here's the opportunity to work the technobabble Herra. Make me BELIEVE it.
The only thing I can think of (or a variation of it) is that at TV-war, the regular engines weren't yet available to produce the brutal short-term maximum thrust needed from afterburners, so it might not have been worth it to make the fusion drives (or whatchamacallits, regular engines, standard thrusters) to have boost feature yet. As a consequence, it was either (or both) economically and technologically more feasible to put chemical propellant thrusters to use as afterburners, separate from the standard thrusters.
Later, when regular engines advanced, their short term top thrust capacity increased (by whatever method) and become easier and cheaper to put in the fighters, so they transitioned to the fuel-unlimited afterburners.
As to technological details why the standard thrusters were not simply boosted but instead they used separate, chemical propellant based afterburners... chances are it would've been that boosting the engines increased the stress and decreased service time too much at that point before materials and production lines were advanced enough to avoid these problems. Or that the cooling systems weren't effective enough to keep the engine intact for meaningful time when the power was boosted to afterburner-levels... Whichever way you would want to look at it, it's the same thing in the end.
Now this works to an extent, until we roll back to the fact that it is in fact, the same thing, the top engine speed works in the exact same manner, and the engines are no different in TVWP or the retail - there's just the insane afterburner difference, which does seem to be important, if they were going to push them in any kind of (albeit limited) quantity on the rest of the ships.
The Chemical Propellant thing does seem to work to an extent - however the fact that in retail, it all spools off the same thing, with the engines clearly having the capacity for the same speeds (at normal rates) the theory just turns inane. You can't claim "tech development" and increasing the engine stress potential when the two things regardless of the period used, are the same at base level.
But hey, this bull**** doesn't have to make 100% sense, so I guess I'm willing to swallow it, but it just FEELS wrong when I hit them and they go out, because I KNOW that's not how it should work.
And I'm sad.
Plus it was really ****ing boring getting to the hangar in some of the missions - when you have to increase time compression, you know there's issues with the missions. Too bad I didn't catch it in the one month it was all put up for testing, I could've *****ed in internal. Oh well. Maybe with the next missions.
