| Do I need to do something special to activate these engines? |
Yes. You need to install them on your ships!
Your ships do
not automatically upgrade their engines. You must create custom ships with the new engines in order to take advantage of them.
Here's how it works:
-Normally, the technology affects the size of the engines, allowing you more room to add improvements to your spacecraft.
-Every once in a while (at those large jumps), the speed of the engine is increased by one square. You will, of course, need to design a custom ship to install the new engines.
-When designing the ship, the lower right corner shows the stats of the ship you're designing, including speed. The speed is how many squares your ship can travel in a turn.
-The best way to get a lot of speed is to add a lot of engines. Every time you add another engine, your ship goes faster.
-No, it does not affect combat. It may, however, affect how many weapons you can put on a ship, since higher technologies are generally smaller.
Custom ships are pretty much the bread & butter of this game. You'll find yourself designing ships for all kinds of purposes. The ships supplied by the game are okay for people new to the game, but you will find that custom ships are much better and are required for harder levels.
