The purpose of this guide is primarily to give players, especially new players, a better idea of what ships and engines to upgrade to. After playing for enough hours, new players are likely to end up with some extra cash, perhaps a couple thousand echoes--enough to start wondering, in particular, whether it's time to upgrade their engines or ship. But would such a purchase be wasteful? Each engine is faster than the one before it--but they are also more expensive to purchase--and what about the cost of operation--how much more fuel do later engines consume than earlier ones?


This chart is intended to provide the information you need to make a more informed decision. I include here several combinations of different ships and engines I tested, as well as whether or not I used the prow light and boost on such ships, and based on those facts, how much fuel and supplies I used, as well as how much terror I had generated along the way.

For most players, the most valuable stats provided on this chart will probably be Speed Increase, in the green column, and Cost Increase, in the blue column.


Speed Increase is how much faster a given engine propelled a ship than the most basic engine I tested with that ship. For example, when I used the starting ship and engine--the Ligeia class steamer with the Elderly Steeple engine--my journey from Fallen London to Varchas took 414-418 seconds; with the light on I used 8 fuel, and with the light off I used 4.1 fuel.

Looking at the Speed Increase field, you can easily see how much each of the different engines changed these numbers. So, the Illyrian engine sped up this voyage by 3.48%; the Boadicea engine by 16.04%; the Manticore by 27.41%; the Admiralty Special by 38.21%; and the Compulsion by 56.98%. Likewise, you can also see how much each engine increased the fuel usage on those journeys.

However, if you look at the Maenad frigate with the Compulsion, you'll see that it shows a Speed Increase of 60.24%. The Speed Increase shown there is compared to the time it took with the first engine I tested with the frigate--the Elderly Steeple engine. So, the 60.24% Speed Increase should be compared with the 266 seconds it took for the frigate with Elderly engine to make the journey--not the 414-418 seconds it took for the Ligeia with Elderly to make the journey.



The other stat that many players will probably find useful is Cost Increase. In this field, you can see the estimated increase in cost of each journey, in supply and fuel costs, from one engine to the next. Note that this column does not show the purchase price of the engine, but rather the operational price, for the supplies and fuel needed for each journey.

First, the Total Cost is reached by adding up the supplies and fuel used up on each journey--the costs are estimated at 18 echoes for each supply, and 7 echoes for each fuel.

At any rate, the Cost Increase is calculated in the same way as the Speed Increase. For example, the Caligo with Elderly engine using prow light and boost incurred fuel and supply costs of approximately 197.95 echoes. When I used the Boadicea in that scenario instead, the cost was 206.5 echoes. Therefore, the Cost Increase from the Elderly to the Boadicea engine for that scenario was 4.32%.

Using the Speed Increase and Cost Increase columns, you can get estimates for how much speed increase you're going to get out of each engine, as well as estimates for how much more the engine is going to cost to operate--or how much less it will cost to operate, as there are several instances where the operational costs actually go down.

All of the testing was done with WE ARE CLAY stokers, which add 250 engine power. This would increase both speed and fuel usage somewhat on all ships, compared to not using the stokers. In particular, the Elderly Steeple engine could be expected to behave more like the Illyrian.

All journeys were made from Fallen London to Varchas, in a nearly straight line. I generally aimed for Point Livingston near Adam's Way at first, after navigating the various islands, light buoys, and enemies along the way, and after arriving at Point Livingston I continued along the coast to Varchas.


For the purposes of this chart, I assumed that each fuel cost 7 echoes and each supply cost 18.
You might find different values to be useful for your own purposes, but I'd say those numbers are close to the average of what I paid throughout the game prior to reaching 40,000 echoes. A great part of that is due to free fuel: I obtained a huge portion of fuel, probably close to half, entirely for free by turning port reports in at Fallen London, since in most of my journeys in the game I spent a long time away from home, visiting many ports along the way. Then, arriving back in Fallen London, I'd turn all the reports in and get tons of fuel. That fuel would then take me quite a long way on my next trip--on many occasions I'd get 20 or 30 fuel in one go from port reports.

Invariably though I did have to purchase quite a lot of fuel. Most of that I bought in Iron Republic for 8 echoes, Mt. Palmerston for 9, Fallen London for 10, and Adam's Way and Aiur for 12. I also bought a fair amount at Khan's Shadow and on the surface for 15, but I tried to get most of my fuel as cheaply as possible. Probably the average cost of my fuel was closer to 5 or 6, but early in the game 7 is probably closer to the reality.

As for supplies, I consistently bought most in Fallen London, but also obtained some for free, here and there. I also bought a lot of supplies for 5 echoes on the surface, but most of those I sold at Abbey Rock, and those that remained could only last so long--most of the time I used them to get back to Fallen London, then Port Carnelian and Iron Republic, back up to the surface, and then Fallen London again. Again, I think 18 echoes is a pretty typical average price for supplies, especially in the early part of the game. Your mileage may vary.


I skipped some engine and ship combinations. I don't think many players use the Steam Launch too much, and so I never felt it necessary to log any stats for it. I did try to record stats for the Lampad Cutter. On my first voyage with it, I ran into a dust storm near Varchas, skewing my numbers so far that I couldn't consider them reliable at all. On my second voyage I arrived in Varchas fine, but then realized that I'd forgotten to take note of how many supplies and fuel I had left Fallen London with--since I had to dump some of both before I started the trip, the Cutter's hold being so small. Considering those two failed journeys and the fact that the ship has such poor stats in the first place (a maximum of 30 cargo and 2 crew members if you use WE ARE CLAY), I lost whatever interest I'd had in logging its stats, and I imagine most players avoid the ship as well.

I skipped some of the engine combinations when I thought they were relatively redundant. I was using the Caligo prior to beginning testing, and first tried four different combinations with the engine I was using at the time, the Boadicea. I got the stats for the voyage with lights and boost on; lights on and boost off; lights off and boost on; and both off. I quickly realized that if I did that with every combination it would add many more hours to my testing, which probably took around 12 hours as it was, and thus skipped doing so further.

I also dropped several more combinations--half of the engine combinations for the Phorcyd corvette, for instance. I tested the Eschatologue dreadnaught a little, but I had hypothesized that since it had the same weight as the Caligo, it would probably end up with the same stats. After I had tested the Eschatologue with the Boadicea and the Compulsion and found that the results were almost exact matches with the Caligo, I decided to forgo any further testing with the dreadnaught. The only thing I could see significantly altering its stats as compared to the Caligo is adding several more crew members, resulting in more supplies being consumed. So for the most part, you can consider the Caligo results as also valid for the Eschatologue.

I used the Avid Suppressor with the frigate, dreadnaught, and cargo ship, but none of the others--they all lack Aft slots. I didn't bother testing the boost with any of those ships either, since I figured most use of the boost in those cases would be only for emergency, on a short-term basis.

I reached a few fairly solid conclusions from charting out all this information. First, my feeling that the Boadicea and Compulsion are the best buyable engines has pretty much been confirmed. I didn't find any of the engines to be all that amazing--the more their speed goes up, the more their fuel efficiency seems to go down. But, the Boadicea purhcase price is pretty cheap, at 1,000 echoes. Its Speed Increase is decent--anywhere from 13-19% increase over the Elderly. And at the most, its operational cost is less than 7% higher than the Elderly--and in some instances its operational cost is lower. To me, its costs combined with its speed actually make it a good choice for first upgrade (though probably after getting a better weapon.

And later, the Compulsion lets you race around the map. The fuel cost is significant, but once again, I think its combined speed and operational costs make it a pretty good deal. In fact, if we can consider my pricing of fuel and supplies to be relatively accurate, then the actual combined fuel and supply price of using the Compulsion engine is probably only about 10% more expensive than the Elderly engine. As such, I see only the 5,000 echo cost to purchase as a significant reason not to buy the Compulsion, and with some good trade routes, that reason should disappear in the mid-game. While it burns through fuel very quickly, the reduced supply cost mostly makes up for it, since journeys are so fast that the crew doesn't spend as long consuming supplies.

Considering the fact that engines sell for so much less than you buy them, it seems to me that the Boadicea and the Compulsion are really the only engines worth buying. Hop from the Elderly to the Boadicea to the Compulsion. Any others will just be wasted cash.

I discovered that the frigate is the fastest ship in the game, when using boosts. Its weight of 3,000, compared to 5,000 for the dreadnaught and cargo ship, give it the speed advantage.

Something else useful: this chart can help you better pin down how much fuel and supplies you should buy before a journey. For example, if you have the Boadicea and plan to use boost with your lights, you'll probably use about 3 fuel for every 1 supply. However, if you expect to pick up some supplies from destroyed ships or other locations along the way, then you might only need to buy 4 fuel for every 1 supply. This can help you plan your trips better, with the advantage of statistics on fuel and supply usage.

My last two tests were to find out if the cargo of a ship increases its weight, and thus fuel usage and journey time. I used the Caligo with 22 crew members for this, and in both cases boosted with the light on and the Compulsion equipped. One time I had 37 cargo in my hold, the other time I had 120. As far as I can see from those tests, cargo has no bearing on ship speed or fuel consumption.


Other than these points, you can find quite a lot of information from the chart. Some of it may be kind of unnecessary, but I'm sure a lot of the data can be useful for various things.

After playing the game for dozens of hours, I'd amassed a fortune of around 40,000 echoes. I had already saved the game much earlier so that it was now on merciful mode. Now, with so much money available, I decided to create yet another save, as a testing sandbox for the game.

I began to make voyages from Fallen London to Varchas, testing the various combinations of ships, engines, etc. Each time after arriving in Varchas I noted down how much fuel and supplies I had used over the course of the journey, as well as how much terror had been generated along the way, and also how much time the trip had taken--then I reloaded and repeated the voyage with a new combination. I chose Varchas because so far as I know it never moves at any time in any game--the distance between Fallen London and Varchas is fixed. Also, the distance between the two cities is far enough that I was able to obtain fairly accurate statistics. Had I chosen a shorter journey to make these kinds of measurements, the accuracy of the information would likely have been reduced as well.

But there are some variables involved. In my voyages while creating this chart, I traveled mostly in a straight line. However, I tried to stick close to buoys, islands, and coastlines where they were close by my travel route, as most players probably would--meaning my course was never an exactly straight line. All told, probably around 30% of the entire distance of each journey to Varchas was near islands, buoys, or coastlines. This certainly kept my terror lower than it would have been had I been completely in open water. It also meant that the actual journey time, fuel spent and supplies spent were slightly higher than had I been on open water.

Also, enemies and the occasional collision slowed down some of my runs, more particularly when using the slower engines, and resulted in slightly higher consumption rates than would otherwise have been the case.

But for practical purposes, I imagine that there is little difference from one run to the next, apart from the variables shown on the chart. Most numbers are probably less than 5% off what they would be in completely open water. Terror is the major exception--it could easily have been double my final results, maybe more, in completely open water.