[Molybdenum]

Say you want to get somewhere fast.

Like you have 1% hull on an escort destroyer and you see that last Helios coming towards it just out of range of your primaries...

 Obviously you max out engine power. But what is the most effective way to burn your afterburner fuel if every nanosecond counts. Should you go "Tab to the metal" and burn out everything and repeat ounce its full again. I usually leave a small reserve so I can give myself constant boosts(just for that cool whooshing sound  ).

What is your method of using those fiddly bastards that are the thrusters?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

If the recharge is faster than the drain (so, always with engine power on maximum) I go full-out, and burn again when it's fully recharged. If not, I let it recharge to 75% before burning again.

[Goober5000]

If the recharge is faster than the drain

Is that ever the case?  That would mean you'd never need to turn off the afterburners.

When I first started playing FS1, I would pulse the afterburner when the energy level got to about half or two-thirds its capacity.  Then my roommate told me it was more efficient to fully discharge the afterburner and wait for it to recharge before going again.  Somewhat later I realized that I had never asked him how he managed to arrive at that conclusion.

[jr2]

HIt the burners, allow it to reach max speed for awhile, or pulse so the average speed is higher... hmm.  I think that depends on your acceleration, and your AB capacity... IDK how you'd figure this out, and even then, you'd have to be coordinated enough to pulse them just right.  But, side note: holding the AB down whilst it recharges keeps you at full military thrust (100% normal throttle) - even if you've got the throttle set to something different.  Just remember to let off the burner and hit it again to re-engage.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

If the recharge is faster than the drain

Is that ever the case?  That would mean you'd never need to turn off the afterburners.

Alright, bad formulation. What I meant is: when the gauge goes up faster than it goes down.

[WMCoolmon]

Pulsing seems to be the most efficient way to go. However, it's not like I've conducted any speed tests or anything. I've just noticed that the AB slows down the most when disengaged depending on how fast you're traveling. The faster you're going, the faster it speeds down. So if you keep thrusting, you maintain a higher constant speed - say AB max is 150, your top speed is 100, your average speed ends up around 120. If you let the AB burn fully, your speed has more time to drop down lower while you wait for it to recharge again.

However in the short term, I think it's faster to just burn it all at once than to feather it.

[Iranon]

Relation burn to recharge should have nothing to do with efficiency as it affects only which total fraction of your journey you can use the afterburners. Instead, it should be dependent on respective acceleration and deceleration.
According to the tables, the only ship which decelerates faster than it accelerates with afterburners is the Valkyrie; accordingly Valks should hold it down while other craft should use pulses - in theory.


However, afterburner acceleration doesn't seem to be linear - kicking in fully after a time and petering out at the end. This might mean that actual performance is different from what it should be. Hmm.

[Mongoose]

According to the tables, the only ship which decelerates faster than it accelerates with afterburners is the Valkyrie; accordingly Valks should hold it down while other craft should use pulses - in theory.

It also helps that the Valkyrie has, by far, the longest continuous afterburn ability in either game.  (God, I loved that thing...)  With your engines set to full, your average speed is probably somewhere in the 155-160 range if you fully drain it during each burn.  I've never tried pulsing myself, since the sound usually annoys the hell out of me, but it might be interesting to crunch some numbers and estimate the average speeds you'd be looking at for each ship.

[S-99]

Fs1 ships have way better afterburner capacity than fs2 ships. Either way yeah, as soon as you let go of the afterburner, your ships decelerates. And doing afterburner pulses means that you'd need to turn on afterburners before your ship decelerates to whatever max engine speed you have it set at depending on what setting your engine energy at max will give you.

Also you have to wait for the burners to recharge. This can get you in a situation easily where you do a pulse, it recharges a little bit while your coasting and slowly decelerating to your engines normal speed. If you can do a pulse and have ample time to recharge while your ship is still decelerating to normal engine speed and pull off another pulse before you ship decelerates to normal speed. Then i'd say go ahead and pulse. But, since the afterburners can't really be cheated with, meaning their mostly inefficient enough to keep you from pulsing into infinity without dropping to your normal engine speed in between pulses and recharge enough to keep you from running out of engine energy.

This is also where i just find that i run away faster, and get to my destination faster setting the engine power at max and just lead foot, recharge all the way, and lead foot again. As opposed to the hard to do pulsing. Of course no one in this topic mentioned that they do use pulsing for afterburners into infinity without having to recharge from a total drain. Do people who pulse have this pulse into infinity in mind?

Also, don't forget, there's a limit to how frequently you can activate your burners. Meaning everyone who does pulse is forced to doing steady pulses, and not "hit the button as fast as you can" pulsing. That also affects burners big time. Otherwise i'd just set my afterburner button to turbo and have an above average cruising speed at any given time, especially with max engine power. The above average cruising speed wouldn't last forever, it'd still run out, but afterburners recharge reasonably fast. But all afterburners recharge slower than they are spent...another reason that factors into why i don't pulse, why it's faster for me to run away and get to destinations faster doing pedal to metal, recharge, repeat.

EDIT: Actually i just remembered it's different with all ships. Some ships recharge faster than they are spent.  Some recharge slower than they are spent.

[tifi]

With Engines @ max.
Just floor it until it gives out and wait the all of 0.5 seconds for it recharge. Repeat.

With Engines @ normal
Just floor it until it gives out and wait for the recharge. If you were going somewhere in a hurry you'd have set engines to max. right?

[karajorma]

Bah. Test it properly. Get two computers on a LAN and run a race. Then run it the other way. If the same technique wins both times you have an answer.

[Black Wolf]

Kara, you're flying in the face of all tradition! There's supposed to be a 14 page thread of people arguing before anyone tries that!

[karajorma]

I've been watching too much Mythbusters recently I guess.

[Droid803]

I, personally, pulse the afterburners and maintain a speed a little less than the maximum if I'm traveling long distances. Its because it uses more afterburner fuel to get that last little bit of speed than it takes to hold a lower speed for a much longer time. (I'm sure that came out in an unintelligible blerb).

If my target is just barely out of range, than I just floor it.

[Rodo]

I dont worry about that... I use lokis

[Polpolion]

I edit the tables so my normal speed is faster than my afterburner speed, then I can use the afterburner as breaks.

[Droid803]

set afterburner speed to zero and use it as rapid brakes?

[S-99]

set afterburner speed to zero and use it as rapid brakes?

Wouldn't work. You'd still keep going. Wonder why you have no weapons and can't steer. Turn around and you see your ship fading into the distance.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Bah. Test it properly. Get two computers on a LAN and run a race. Then run it the other way. If the same technique wins both times you have an answer.

    Don't need a lan. Just throw down two nav buoys, and use both techniques to get from one to the other. And keep an eye on the clock for when you start and arrive at the second. That's simple enough.

[Retsof]

set afterburner speed to zero and use it as rapid brakes?

Wouldn't work. You'd still keep going. Wonder why you have no weapons and can't steer. Turn around and you see your ship fading into the distance.

Now there's a weird glitch.