Sustained Burn

	Switch the drives of all ships in the fleet to a mode suited for long-distance travel. The fleet has to stop briefly to make the swith-over. Increases the maximum burn level by 100%, at the expense of lower acceleration, especially in the direction of the fleet's movement. Also increases the range at witch the fleet can be detected by 100%. The burn level increase does not apply to flat burn bonuses, such as those from Nav Buoys or tugs.
–In-Game Description

Boost Burn Level at the cost of acceleration and wind-up time.

Available by default.

Notes

• Doubles the base Burn Level of the fleet using the Burn Level of the slowest ship. Does not include fleetwide bonuses such as tugs, nav buoys or Navigation¹. The bonus from Bulk Transport is doubled.
• Essential for long-distance travel in sparsely populated areas or Hyperspace; can be useful for running away from enemies (with a sufficient head start) or chasing fleeing fleets.
• Lowers the fleet acceleration and turning speed significantly; should not be used for riding hyperspace storms or pushing into star coronas.
• Alters sensor profile by +100% while active, even if the fleet is standing still.
• Has a wind down time when finished that reduces maximum burn. If you find yourself heading unavoidably towards a larger hostile fleet then consider immediately hitting Go Dark for a few seconds until your burn level recovers.
• The maximum burn level of the fleet cannot exceed 20; 30 after going through a Hyperspace storm.

¹ - while the +1 Burn bonus from Navigation is not doubled by Sustained Burn it is not lost either when the ability is used, stacking with the +1 Sustained Burn bonus provided by the skill. This means Navigation still provides +2 Sustained Burn even though the bonus is calculated differently.

Change History

0.9

• Now gives +100% burn instead of +10
  • Means that bonuses to ship burn level (i.e. Augmented Drive Field) are doubled
  • While fleetwide bonuses (tugs, Nav Buoy, etc) are not
  • Slightly increased arc in which it has the highest acceleration penalty
  • Reduced charge up/down time to half a second (was: 2.5 seconds up, 1 second down)
  • Goals are to 1) make burn level of ships mean more and 2) encourage turning SB off sometimes

Up to date for latest version, 0.97a.