Engine List

Engines are listed here roughly in order of their appearance in the tech tree.

X-6 'Clarke' Fission Fragment Rocket Engine

This novel engine considers an important question: what if you just stuck an open nuclear reactor core on the back of a spacecraft? The spinning platters in the core are coated with uranium dust, and undergo fission as they spin through the core. The fission products fly out the back at ludicrous speeds, resulting in maddeningly high specific impulse! A secondary set of magnets decelerates stray fragments, inducing a current in powerful generator coils. This creates enough power to run the engine system and more, so once this engine is running, it produces an acceptable 75 kW of electricity. However, there are downsides - barely noticeable thrust, no refuelability, and radioactivity, lots of radioactivity.

X-20 'Verne' Pulsed Fission Engine

A curious property of really, really high currents - when arranged properly, they generate a collapsingmagnetic field. This engine exploits this by directing pulses of extremely high current into small fission bombs, which explode with moderate force and are directed backwards by a magnetic nozzle. It's a mini Orion drive, without the powerful nukes, higher efficiency and the need for big blue capacitors.

JP-10 'Impulse' Magneto-Inertial Fusion Engine

Simple, entry-level fusion by using cylindrical plasma liners made of lithium, crushed by magnetic coils. These coils crush fuel gases which undergo fusion. Deuterium or a Deuterium-He3 mix can be used - using the higher performance fuel increases power and decreases heat generation. This engine needs to charge its power banks to be activated, and still uses a small amount of power when running.

X-7 'Asimov' Afterburning Fission Fragment Rocket Engine

A direct improvement on the fission fragment platter design, this engine suspends a particulate dust of fissionable particles in the centre of a reaction chamber using a weak magnetic field. The dust undergoes fission, and the reaction products are expelled at high energy from the rocket at incredible speeds, guided but not restrained by the magnetic field. A secondary set of magnets decelerates stray fragments, inducing a current in powerful generator coils. This creates enough power to run the engine system and more, so once this engine is running, it produces an acceptable 125 kW of electricity. In order to try to boost the thrust, Liquid Hydrogen can be injected into the beam of radioactive death, cutting efficiency but improving thrust from barely noticeable to merely pitiful.

X-2 'Heinlein' Nuclear Salt Water Rocket Engine

Basically a continuously detonating, barely contained nuclear explosion, this rocket engine is highly radioactive, highly unpleasant and highly... awesome.

JR-15 'Discovery' Spherical Tokamak Fusion Engine

This basic thermal fusion engine reacts Helium-3 and Deuterium in a spherical tokamak design. A variable amount of Liquid Hydrogen can be injected into the exhaust, increasing thrust at the cost of efficiency. This engine needs to charge its power banks to be activated, but can produce a cool 500 kW of power from onboard fusion fuel once activated, even if the engine isn't running. Keeping the reactor running in this way allows instant throttle response. Make sure to pack radiators!

JR-45 'Fresnel' Mirror Cell Fusion Engine

The long, thin plasma chamber of the gasdynamic mirror engine does away with confining the plasma for fusion and says 'why not just throw it down a long, narrow hallway and hope it fuses by the end of it?'. This gives great energy release and high possible fusion gain. Hydrogen can optionally be injected into the plasma for additional thrust. The length of the reaction chamber determines the performance of the engine - higher lengths cost and weigh more, but net great dividends. This engine needs to charge its power banks to be activated, but can produce a modest 250 kW of power from onboard fusion fuel once activated, even if the engine isn't running. Keeping the reactor running in this way allows instant throttle response. Make sure to pack radiators!

A-134NG 'Casaba' Antimatter Catalyzed Microfission Engine

This engine detonates small nuclear charges with precisely directed beams of antiprotons. Simple, really. Antimatter... triggered... nuclear... bombs. The blast from the charges vaporizes an ablative nozzle, providing high efficiency thrust. This engine needs to charge its power banks to be activated, but onboard generation systems ensures that it will run independently once it gets going.

A-7007 'Dirac' Antimatter Initiated Microfusion Engine

This engine leverages antimatter to help small quantities of deuterium and Helium-3 along to fusion temperatures, producing efficient, albeit low-thrust propulsion with smaller mass and volumes compared to inertial or magnetically confined containment. Can also function as a fusion reactor producing a modest 200 kW of power.

JX-200 'Cascade' Axial Flow Z-Pinch Fusion Engine

This engine uses a combination of magnetic confinement and zeta-pinch effects to compress fusion plasmas highly efficiently. This results in great performance as the plume of nuclear fire sprays out the back of the 'open concept' reaction chamber. This engine needs to charge its power banks to be activated, but once running generates up to 750 kW of electrical power siphoned off from the plasma stream to charge ship power banks.

K-80 'Hammertong' Inertial Confinement Fusion Engine

Commence primary ignition! A precisely timed array of high-power laser beams converges on a single isolated pellet of Deuterium and Helium-3, generated in the onboard pellet factory. Vaporization of the outer shell compresses the fuels to a high degree, initiating fusion of the core. This model of drive uses only reaction products as exhaust using a powerful magnetic nozzle, resulting in a great specific impulse but a low thrust. Additional Deuterium feedstock can be used in each pellet, modestly increasing thrust. This engine needs to charge its power banks to be activated, but uses no energy while running.

JR-20A 'Ouroboros' Torroidal Tokamak Fusion Engine

This advanced magnetic fusion engine reacts Helium-3 and Deuterium in a spherical tokamak design. The reaction system has been optimized to heat large quantities of Liquid Hydrogen, resulting in higher thrust but much lower specific impulse than other fusion systems. The use of an aerospike nozzle allows effective atmospheric operation. To reduce weight, this engine's onboard reactor does not produce a significant amount of power when running, though keeping the reactor active in this way allows instant throttle response. Make sure to pack radiators!

A-834M 'Frisbee' Antimatter Engine

An endgame torch drive, the Frisbee reacts large quantities of matter with large quantities of antimatter. The resulting multi-kilometre beam of reaction products provides excellent impulse and adequate thrust. Unfortunately, the vast amounts of high energy gamma rays make the engine large, unwieldy and prone to overheating. Luckily, the integrated radiator truss can be extended to reject a fair amount of heat without adding separate radiator parts. When at its full 110m length, no additional radiators are needed to cool the engine.