Radbolt Engine

The Radbolt Engine is a rocket engine used to power radbolt-fueled rockets. It trades payload capacity for range: these rockets can support only a small number of modules, but they can travel exceptionally far. Compared with a Hydrogen Engine, its height allowance is more restrictive, but it also has the advantage of not needing fuel tanks to lift off.

In practice, the engine’s travel speed is heavily affected by rocket burden. Although its base speed is lower than a Hydrogen Engine’s, a radbolt rocket can still be faster when its non-engine module burden is very light. Once the rocket carries more weight, the Hydrogen Engine often becomes the faster option, especially if the rocket also needs power generation or other utility modules.

A useful side effect of the Radbolt Engine is its exhaust. It produces highly contaminated Nuclear Fallout, and that fallout can be turned into a powerful source of radiation when paired with Radbolt Generators. If the fallout is cooled enough to become Nuclear Waste, the radioactive contaminants in it can dramatically raise Rads production, especially after repeated launches and landings. The contaminants decay quickly on their own, so sustaining this setup requires frequent engine use.

• Radbolt Engine exhaust can be collected and cooled into Nuclear Waste for radiation farming.
• The first launch can produce roughly 1000 Rads/cycle when used with the right setup, with even higher output possible on repeated cycles.
• Radbolt projectiles are treated as a resource in motion: they cannot be carried directly by Duplicants, lose 1 unit of distance-related value every 10 tiles traveled, and move at 8 tiles/second.
• They collide with solid tiles such as Window Tiles, Airflow Tiles, and Mesh Tiles, but pass through Pneumatic Doors and can be transferred across walls by Radbolt Joint Plates.
• Radbolts can always pass diagonally through the upper corners of solid tiles, but lower-corner passage is limited and only works in specific cases.