Thruster

	Plasma
	; A plasma thruster, with a redstone lamp for the glow block.
Properties
Acceleration	0.75
Speed	2.5
Weight	1.0
Resource Requirements
Redstone Block	1
Thruster Block	1

	Ion
	; An ion thruster, with a sea lantern for the glow block.
Properties
Acceleration	0.05
Speed	4.0
Weight	1.0
Resource Requirements
Sponge	1
Thruster Block	1

	Afterburner
	; An afterburner thruster, with a magma block for the glow block.
Properties
Acceleration	3.0
Speed	17.5
Weight	5.0
Resource Requirements
Iron Block	1
Sponge	1
Gold Block	1
Thruster Block	1

Thrusters are the primary source of propulsion for starship cruising.
Thrusters add speed and acceleration in the direction that they are pointing; therefore, applying thrust to one or multiple sides of a ship is possible.
A thruster's exhaust path may not be blocked by any block of the active starship at any distance, with the exception of one glass or glass pane block with no space in between.

Afterburner Thruster

Afterburners provide plenty of acceleration and speed in a small package but are less efficient than other thrusters. They are typically the best thruster for most applications.

The magma block can be any thruster block.

Ion Thruster

Ion thrusters accelerate very slowly but can be used to achieve high top speeds. These are typically used on cheaper vessels where acceleration is less of a concern than cost is.

The sea lantern can be any thruster block.

Plasma Thruster

Plasma thrusters have a lower top speed but provide efficient acceleration. These are typically not used on most ships because of their poor overall stats.

The redstone lamp can be any thruster block.

Calculation

The speed and acceleration of a given starship is determined by a number of functions and variables. For this reason, most players simply add thrusters by increment while testing the speed and acceleration values, until either of these values starts going down. That said, the discerning shipwright may still be interested in calculating the optimal thruster count beforehand, to save themselves time and energy.

Speed calculation:

To begin, let t = the total sum speed of all thrusters on a ship (for example, if a ship has 3 ion thrusters, then t = 12).

THIS IS NOT THE ACTUAL SPEED THE SPACESHIP WILL HAVE. Rather, this value is used in two equations to determine the actual ship speed. Firstly, the weight of each thruster must be considered to get the effective speed s.

s = t * 0.85 ^{w^0.5}

Where

t = total speed from all thrusters

w = total weight from all thrusters

The next equation is "calculated speed" c, determined as follows:

c =(s ^0.5 )/ (m^0.2 * 50)

Where:

s = effective speed

m = mass of the starship

So we can just add thrusters indefinitely to get a super speedy ship, right? WRONG!! The next equation is the max speed equation, and it caps the top speed of your starship. The max speed v is calculated as follows:

v = (r * 0.4) / s

Where:

r = reactor output

Note that the max speed reduces with each thruster you add. Thus, a careful selection of thrusters must be made for optimal ship performance.

Acceleration calculation:

tbd

Source Code:

the following code is used to determine the speed and acceleration of ships ingame. The above equations derive from this code.

"effective speed", "calculated speed", and "max speed" are derived from variables totalSpeed, calculatedSpeed, and maxSpeed respectively.

private fun buildThrustData(faceThrusters: List<ThrusterSubsystem>): ThrustData {
        if (faceThrusters.none()) {
            return ThrustData(0.0, 0)
        }

        val baseSpeedFactor = 50.0
        val speedExponent = 0.5
        val massExponent = 0.2
        val reductionBase = 0.85
        val finalSpeedFactor = 1.0

        val mass = this.mass
        val totalAccel = 1.0 + faceThrusters.sumOf { it.type.accel }
        val totalWeight = faceThrusters.sumOf { it.type.weight }.toDouble()
        val reduction = reductionBase.pow(sqrt(totalWeight))
        val totalSpeed = faceThrusters.sumOf { it.type.speed } * reduction

        val calculatedSpeed = totalSpeed.pow(speedExponent) / mass.pow(massExponent) * baseSpeedFactor

        val maxSpeed = if(type.tech2){
            reactor.output * .4 / totalSpeed}
        else (reactor.output * .4 / totalSpeed)*1.1

        val speed = (min(maxSpeed, calculatedSpeed) * finalSpeedFactor).roundToInt()

        val acceleration = if(type.tech2) {
            ln(2.0 + totalAccel) * ln(2.0 + totalWeight) / ln(mass.squared()) * reduction * 30.0 }
        else (ln(2.0 + totalAccel) * ln(2.0 + totalWeight) / ln(mass.squared()) * reduction * 30.0)*1.1
        return ThrustData(acceleration, speed)
    }

The following code sets the parameters for each thruster type

enum class ThrusterType(val accel: Double, val speed: Double, val weight: Int) {
    PLASMA(0.75, 2.5, 1) {
        override fun MultiblockShape.buildStructure() {
            at(0, 0, 0).thrusterBlock()
            at(0, 0, 1).type(Material.REDSTONE_BLOCK)
        }
    },
    ION(0.05, 4.00, 1) {
        override fun MultiblockShape.buildStructure() {
            at(0, 0, 0).thrusterBlock()
            at(0, 0, 1).type(Material.SPONGE)
        }
    },
    AFTERBURNER(3.0, 17.5, 5) {
        override fun MultiblockShape.buildStructure() {
            at(0, 0, 0).thrusterBlock()
            at(0, 0, 1).type(Material.GOLD_BLOCK)
            at(0, 0, 2).type(Material.SPONGE)
            at(0, 0, 3).type(Material.IRON_BLOCK)
        }
    };

TBD

code block formatting
check that it's actually correct (pretty sure the linked spreadsheet is bad)