Spaceships - Ramscoops and Fuel Tanks

[SCAR]

Looking at a few things in more detail last night I read the details of Ramscoops and noticed the 1800mps required for usage and thought it seemed quite high, not many engines have a high enough delta-V to reach this sensibly.
However, a little number crunching showed it was quite reasonable for those engines specified in the ramscoop entry!
Since I had done the calculations I thought I would share them.

First, the multiple fuel tanks delta-v increase gives 19 fuel tanks a factor of 3, and they will therefore provide a total of 57 times an engines delta-v, so an engine needs to provide 32mps per tank to reach 1800 (1824). I'm not exactly sure of the use of 19 fuel tanks, since with the engine the spaceship is full!?
With 18 fuel tanks (enough for the engine and ramscoop, but nothing else) we get a total multipler of 45, which means an engine needs 40mps to reach 1800.

This rules out a Fusion Torch at TL10 which has a delta-V of 15. (With a multi-stage spaceship it still needs 6 booster stages (5 if the final spaceship also does a fair bit of boosting itself) to reach 1800mps!)

The following table lists Engine, TL, delta-V of the engine, and the number of fuel tanks required to reach at least 1800mps.

Engine			TL	delta-V	Fuel Tanks
Fusion Torch		10	15	-
Fusion Torch		11	45	18
Fusion Rocket		10	60	16
A/M Plasma Rocket	10	120	11
A/M Plasma Torch	10	120	11
Fusion Torch		12	150	9
Fusion Rocket		11	180	9
A/M Plasma Rocket	11	360	5
A/M Plasma Torch	11	360	5
Super A/M Plasma Torch	11	360	5
A/M Plasma Rocket	12	360	5
A/M Plasma Torch	12	360	5
Super A/M Plasma Torch	12	360	5
Super Fusion Torch	11	450	4
Fusion Rocket		12	450	4
Super Fusion Torch	12	450	4
Super Conversion Torch	12	10000	1
Total Conversion Torch	12	10000	1

18 fuel tanks, and even 16 fuel tanks seem excessive for a single stage Spaceship under most circumstances.

In most cases the sensible limit is going to be 13 fuel tanks and an engine (core systems in Centre and Rear sections) with an Upper Stage Spaceship which has the ramscoop and its own engine! This gives a factor of 20.8, so an engine needs 87mps to reach 1800 (1810).

Spaceships with those engines requiring 11 or 9 fuel tanks will likely use a 'booster' stage to reach the 1800mps, and then separate the Upper Stage with the ramscoop and its own engine.
Spaceships with those engines which require more than 13 fuel tanks will probably want 2x 'booster' stages, or the Upper Stage Spaceship will need a fair number of fuel tanks itself.

I hope these calculations are of use to others!

Si