Propulsion Technology

Sublight propulsion varies from ship to ship, depending on the country of origin, it's purpose and the tolerated upkeep costs. For any given nation, it's warships will have the most powerful drives available, passenger liners and high speed couriers would use a more efficient, yet still powerful drive, and large frieghters will use the most efficient drive, even if the performance is lacking.

Propulsion Methods:

 * Antimatter Drives: Offering the highest performance of all engines, Antimatter Drives are the main method of propulsion on Terran and Mioran vessels. These engines utilise the annihilation of antimatter and matter to. After the annihilation reaction, the exhaust is constrained through a magnetic field to provide thrust and avoid components being vaporised in the extreme energies. Higher levels of thrust provide lower levels of fuel efficiency, with the highest levels of thrust being reserved for extreme combat maneuvers.


 * Fusion Torches: Deriving their energy from the atomic fusion of various isotopes of hydrogen, the exhaust gas is funnelled through a magnetic field to derive thrust. Drives of this type are the main method of propulsion on the warships of other nations, and most civillian craft throughout the galaxy. As with Antimatter Drives, efficiency scales inversely to the performance output of the engine.


 * Ion thrusters: An option on vessels looking for efficient forms of propulsion, ion engines produce thrust by ionising a gas and passing it through a magnetic field, creating thrust. The thrust derived from the energy input is pitiful, but the efficiencies can make them useful for large freighters, where large reactors and slow accelerations are no issue and low fuel costs are ideal.


 * Chemical Engines: No truly space fairing empire would use chemical engines as a main drive, the efficiencies are too low. These drives operate by mixing a fuel with an oxidiser and burning the mixture and capturing momentum from the exhaust through an engine bell. Used as main drives solely by primitives venturing forth from their homeworld for the first time. Chemical thrusters do see use by modern empires in the form of docking maneuvering thrusters, to avoid collateral damage to structures, on smaller warships and shuttles.