New power generator setup? *UPDATED*

[konhx126]

Hello fellow Starmaders!

Is it hust me or has the power setup in Starmade Changed with the last major update?
Since the last update it looks like the power generators get the biggest boost in 'Energy Per Second' generation if they are placed in lagre stripes/lines.(regardless of X, Y or Z axis)

Does this mean a huge row of power generators (to any direction) is more efficient than the checkerboard setup for power generation?
Cause it really looks like that!

Reply and correct me if I am wrong and also post your oppinion and test results about the best power setup, after the recent updates!

 

[hindos]

Did you have 1 million regeneration already? Since, once you reach the cap, just mass-placing energy power blocks is the most efficient thing to do.

 

[konhx126]

Did you have 1 million regeneration already? Since, once you reach the cap, just mass-placing energy power blocks is the most efficient thing to do.

I never reached the 1 million, cause I prefer mid to small size ships. When you say "cap" do you mean the 20000 you have without power tanks? And with mass placing do you mean filling the ship gaps or just big 10x10x10 block of power?

 

[hindos]

I never reached the 1 million, cause I prefer mid to small size ships. When you say "cap" do you mean the 20000 you have without power tanks? And with mass placing do you mean filling the ship gaps or just big 10x10x10 block of power?

Ah, no I mean the soft-cap on power regeneration. Before 1million e/second the dimensions are definitively relevant for efficiency. After that though each power block contributes the same amount of e/second, making the placement irrelevant (although its always a good idea to have more than one 1mil regen, in case your ship gets damaged). In terms of mass-placing I meant filling the gaps, but those 1000block cubes would do the trick as well.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

As far as I know power generation has not been changed. All the ships I've refit so far seem to have the same power stats, although I've not looked that closely.

The Thrust equations have changed, before thrust was generated exactly like power where lines of thrusters was the most efficient. Now thrusters act more like power tanks where you gain more and more thrust the more of them you pack together.

 

[konhx126]

Ah, no I mean the soft-cap on power regeneration. Before 1million e/second the dimensions are definitively relevant for efficiency. After that though each power block contributes the same amount of e/second, making the placement irrelevant (although its always a good idea to have more than one 1mil regen, in case your ship gets damaged). In terms of mass-placing I meant filling the gaps, but those 1000block cubes would do the trick as well.

That is VERY usefull information and I thank you very much for it, but the questing is still up: BEFORE the 1mil e/second, wich is the BEST and MOST EFFICIENT power setup? Is it some of these weird box like designs or huge strips of power blocks that are NOT connected to each other?

 

[hindos]

That is VERY usefull information and I thank you very much for it, but the questing is still up: BEFORE the 1mil e/second, wich is the BEST and MOST EFFICIENT power setup? Is it some of these weird box like designs or huge strips of power blocks that are NOT connected to each other?

I haven't noticed this phenomenon of multi-dimensional strips not being effective anymore, as does Sven-the Slayer evidently, hence if all is well it should be the huge unconnected strips of power blocks. Of course the more dimensions the better, but if you have a really long ship, so that one line generates 1mil e/sec, then it ceases to matter all that much.

 

[Lt_Duckweed]

As far as I know power generation has not been changed. All the ships I've refit so far seem to have the same power stats, although I've not looked that closely.

The Thrust equations have changed, before thrust was generated exactly like power where lines of thrusters was the most efficient. Now thrusters act more like power tanks where you gain more and more thrust the more of them you pack together.

Actualy Sven, I ran some tests, and rather that the calculations running off of the SUM of x+y+z it now runs off of the PRODUCT of x*y*z

In other words, it calculates off of the cubic volume of the area enclosed by the group.

The old equation was:
( x+y+z-3) + (n^1.125)
Where n is the number of blocks

The new equation is this:
[(x-1)(y-1)(z-1)]+(n^1.125)
Where n is the number of blocks

I can actually get 1,000,000 thrust out of 301 thrusters, just place them in a 101x101x101 cross. You get precisely 1,000,614.3

I actually used this new mechanic to make a ship with a 200-1 Thrust mass ratio, it can accelerate to 1000 speed in around 1 second, and hits 10000 in around 12 or so seconds.

 

[Saba]

from experience, I get the most efficiency from long strips or L/T shaped single lines, but, for a large ship it doesn't matter much atm.
and the guy above is right, you get ALOT of thrust of you make a nice shape going in all directions with 1 line each

 

[konhx126]

ALRIGHT EVERYONE!!! I have the final test results and wanted to post them to inform everyone!!!
(I use the ~ sign because the 13 is around 12.8 and 13.2 but always constant)

If you place 1 block of power you get 140 e/sec regeneration.
If you stick a second one to it you get ~238 e/sec regen, wich means +98 e/sec.
BUT!!! If you stick another one to them in form of a line, then you get 98+13=111, so you have a total of ~351 e/sec.
On the 4th block you get 111+13=124, so in total ~476 e/sec and on the 5th you get 124+13=137, so in total ~615 e/sec.

To round it up: It ADS the previus amount +13.
This means after the 6th block, a 6-block line is more efficient than randomly placed 6 blocks and the more blocks you add in a line the more efficient it gets (because of +13)

To PROVE it, one 100 block line of power generated 48959.4 e/sec
and two 50 block lines of power only 32071.6 e/sec

And thanks to "hindos" we learned that after 1million e/sec, power blocks add the same, regardless of placement.

I hope this is usefull information for future shipbuilds!!!

 

[Saba]

when building in a line, I build 5 out, then 5 up, then 5 over, on the 5 over it seems to go up about 700 per block easily, meaning that it is accumulative and multiplicative, (if thats a word) it adds the block power, but also multiplies it by the x,y,z same as thrusters, so if you have a large ship that only need 1m power, feel free to make 1 power gen

 

[konhx126]

when building in a line, I build 5 out, then 5 up, then 5 over, on the 5 over it seems to go up about 700 per block easily, meaning that it is accumulative and multiplicative, (if thats a word) it adds the block power, but also multiplies it by the x,y,z same as thrusters, so if you have a large ship that only need 1m power, feel free to make 1 power gen

Interesting concept, but I dont really get the picture of the layout. Can you maybe take a screenshot and post it?

 

[Kitts]

Didn't know that bit about how it was after you had reached 1mill/e sec. Thanks!

Also; Duckster, thanks for the thruster tip!

 

[testkil]

thank you guys i learned a thing with this

 

[Nerixel]

It really amazes me how some people are able to work these equations so perfectly :P

 

[Saba]

basic math =)

 

[WolfChild]

I just place power in big, long 1x1 lines....

 

[Trafalgar]

Speaking of math, I originally posted this explanation of the power regen formula, once it had been determined, back in October, on the old forums. The math is fairly simple, by which I mean there's no calculus or anything confusing like that.

See if this makes sense once you've read through it:

((1/(1+(1.000696)^(-((XS*.333))-.5)*2000000)+25*B

Where B is the number of power blocks in the entire ship, and XS is what you get when you add the following for every generator (collection of connected power blocks) in the ship:

Xn = (Nn/3)^1.7. For each generator, Nn is the width + height + length in blocks of the generator*. If you have some number of generators with the exact same dimensions, you can remember that the sum of all of their Xn values would be the number of generators with identical Nn values multiplied by their (also identical) Xn value.

* You want the actual dimensions. If it curves back on itself like a snake but is only three blocks wide at its widest, you're using 3 for the width.

XS = sum of all Xn

And the equation that you put XS into again is

((1/(1+(1.000696)^(-XS*.333))-.5)*2000000)+25*B

So if you just have one ship with ten 1x1x200 generators and a 25x25x25 cube, you could do the 25x25x25 cube like this:

X0 = (N0/3)^1.7, where N0 = (25+25+25), so X0 = 237.956742339

and then one 200-length generator as X1, and just add it to XS 10 times (multiply by ten).

X1 = (N1/3)^1.7, where N1 = (200+1+1), so X1 = 1282.30458472

XS = X0 + 10*X1 = 13061.0025895

To calculate B (total number of power blocks), just multiply the block dimensions together. 200x1x1 generators are 200 blocks each, and the 25x25x25 is going to be 25*25*25. With ten of the 200x1x1s, B will be:

B = 200*10 + 25*25*25 = 17625

Now to solve the final equation:

((1/(1+(1.000696)^(-((XS*.333))-.5)*2000000)+25*B

Plug in the values we calculated:

((1/(1+(1.000696)^(-13061.0025895*.333))-.5)*2000000)+25*17625

Result: 1,348,101.12242

Note that the result may be slightly different from what starmade gives, despite using the exact same equations, particularly for numbers in the millions or above. Might be due to using different precision data types? Hard to say.

P.S. I used google's calculator this time, but if you do this in a spreadsheet or the like, you're much less likely to make a mistake. I had to double check everything after I noted that the result was too low, as I had made several mistakes, likely due to being quite tired. What I mean is, you can set it up to have number of generators, width, height, and length fields, and take from those to generate values that it automatically plugs into formulas to generate a result for you. Then you only have to worry about getting the equations and math right once.

The original post is at http://oldsite.star-made.org/comment/68440#comment-68440 and if you want to see the rest of the thread (which is to say, the posts before that) they're at http://oldsite.star-made.org/content/power-generation-cracking-code.

 

[der_scheme]

(I use the ~ sign because the 13 is around 12.8 and 13.2 but always constant)

Wrong. The power regen function has at least one local maximum, the growth you describe is therefore not possible.

This means after the 6th block, a 6-block line is more efficient than randomly placed 6 blocks

Wrong. The line must be at least 9 blocks long for it to be more efficient than single blocks. "Proof":

• 6 single blocks:
• 6 blocks in line:
• 9 single blocks:
• 9 blocks in line:

I hope this is usefull information for future shipbuilds!!!

I don't want to spoil anything, but it isn't. Everyone already knew that power should be laid out in long lines.

 

[GROOV3ST3R]

You are *ALWAYS* better off making huge generator lines going through the entire length/width/height of the ship. The SHAPE of your line is irrelevant. It's worth mentioning that weaving up an down won't do you any good - because the generators ''draw'' a box from the maximum dimensions in all 3 axis and base their regeneration bonus on that.

To explain it a little better, You want a single GROUPING of generators (i.e a set of generators connected together that are separate to other generators if that makes sense) to be as large as possible in X, Y and Z dimensions. This is the most efficient way. The shape of your lines does not matter, as long as they add more to the overall size of your group. The huge weird boxes of generators use that principle but they only exist because people make very small ships and want as much energy as possible out of a tight space like that. They are actually much less efficient than if you just used all those blocks and arranged them into an X/Y/Z line generator.

I find it works best for me to build generators that span the maxium dimensions of my entire ship first, before any other system and then fill other systems in afterwards. You will be better off doing that in almost every case. I don't know the maths, but I made a ship the size of a heavy fighter which generates 420k e/sec and is able to permanently jam while shooting and flying with a mass of around 700 units. (to perma jam it only needs around 350k but I also want to fly and shoot at the same time).


NEVER make 1x1 single line generators on their own. You should ALWAYS add at least 1 or 2 blocks in the other 2 axis to get at least something out of them. A 1x1 line will waste more space on it's own, while you could really benefit from adding just one block on top of it.