What do you put inside your space stations?

[Scypio]

So I should use very long power bars instead (lines of reactors surrounded by a sheath of capacitors and armor)?

You should take a look here, everything is explained about power generation and storage.

Power lines are used because they're the easiest and fastest way to produce a lot of power, also on vertical and long ship this is something that makes senses. Depend on your ship/station shapes and design, some other ways could be better depending the situation.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

To further support Scypio's point, I will mention that by using the above reactor build methods correctly, you can not only reach the 2,000,000 soft cap but exceed it by a wide margin.

The early versions of my Mobile Command System used lines and angles to generate roughly 2-3 million power per second. My latest version of the structure uses angles, diagonal lines and arcs. It currently produces over 7 million power generation per second without docked reactors or auxiliary power units and has plenty of room to push beyond 8 million (maybe even 9) if I choose to.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

One of my previous stations was a very long and narrow design. I had 7 - 8 reactor groups on it that spanned the full length of the station and ended up around 4,000,000 e/s power regeneration.

 

[Panpiper]

true but long lines of reactors looks bloody stupid so if he wants to do a nice cube or solid block of reactores to make it look good. more power to him then.

No, that means vastly LESS power to him. This is not a fashion statement. The way the rules currently work, you will get an absolutely piddling quantity of power from those idiotic cubes. You would need a solid mass of no less than 80,000 power modules to generate two million power Any version of power cube is toying with that level of absurdly low efficiency. The same quantity of power could easily be generated using 2000 power modules if done properly.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

No, that means vastly LESS power to him. This is not a fashion statement. The way the rules currently work, you will get an absolutely piddling quantity of power from those idiotic cubes. You would need a solid mass of no less than 80,000 power modules to generate two million power Any version of power cube is toying with that level of absurdly low efficiency. The same quantity of power could easily be generated using 2000 power modules if done properly.

Nice play on words. And I couldn't agree more.

Solid blocks of reactors are by far, the least power efficient setup. Whenever I see someone building something like that, I just shake my head and walk away. The only benefit to such a setup is redundancy in case of damage. On the other hand, you sacrifice any chance of ever passing the 2 million soft cap. Meanwhile, all that wasted space could have been used for more power capacity thrust, weapons and shields.

A true power cube is efficient for its size but tends to be too small to power larger craft effectively. If he's building a roleplay ship, it's no big deal. But when he's on a PVP server he'll learn the hard way; by getting his ships cut to pieces by warships half his size.

 

[Edymnion]

To further support Scypio's point, I will mention that by using the above reactor build methods correctly, you can not only reach the 2,000,000 soft cap but exceed it by a wide margin.

The early versions of my Mobile Command System used lines and angles to generate roughly 2-3 million power per second. My latest version of the structure uses angles, diagonal lines and arcs. It currently produces over 7 million power generation per second without docked reactors or auxiliary power units and has plenty of room to push beyond 8 million (maybe even 9) if I choose to.

No one ever said you couldn't get that kind of power that way, just that it isn't efficient.

Once you hit the soft cap, the power is simply additive instead of multiplicative. It requires huge amounts of brute force block placement that adds a great amount of mass and volume to a ship that requires that much more thrusters and spirals out of control very quickly.

Thats why docked reactors were things, because you could get twice the power in a tenth the space/mass.

 

[kurosawa]

Fugly huh?

Ok... I challenge you to build a 150 meter long ship and reach the 2,000,000 power regeneration soft cap using power cubes.

I'll build a ship 50 meters shorter than yours with more efficient power regen than yours. Then you can ask me why my entire fleet is filled with 'tiny' ships that punch well above their weight while yours can barely fire their weapons and move at the same time.

No, that means vastly LESS power to him. This is not a fashion statement. The way the rules currently work, you will get an absolutely piddling quantity of power from those idiotic cubes. You would need a solid mass of no less than 80,000 power modules to generate two million power Any version of power cube is toying with that level of absurdly low efficiency. The same quantity of power could easily be generated using 2000 power modules if done properly.

You misunder stand, of cause power lines is the better option over cubes for raw power, by far. what i said or meant was that power lines are ugly in my mind and force you to build in a certian way

on topic:
So if Lonnehart wants to build a nice looking power station for his space station with cube reactores more power to him.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

You misunder stand, of cause power lines is the better option over cubes for raw power, by far. what i said or meant was that power lines are ugly in my mind and force you to build in a certian way

You calling my ships ugly?

 

[Lonnehart]

*sigh* if only I could add working tentacles to my station so they can grab and crush any pesky pirates that show up to ruin my day. But I guess I'll just have to settle for swarmer turrets instead...

I checked out how power cubes are built and they're not what I had in mind. Mine are more like THIS...

Spoiler

It's not complete. When it's done the entire thing will be filled AND encased in capacitors.

 

[kurosawa]

You calling my ships ugly?
View attachment 34454

No im saying that line reactor are ugly.

Funny sad face, still, since you ask i do not like the nose of you ship. It could be the angle in the image but it feels cut of

 

[Dr. Whammy]

No im saying that line reactor are ugly.

Funny sad face, still, since you ask i do not like the nose of you ship. It could be the angle in the image but it feels cut of

Just kidding with you man. :D

My design for the Enforcer was inspired by this smuggler ship from Star Trek The Next Generation.

 

[kurosawa]

sweet, the starmade 45 degree angling is making fun at you

 

[jayman38]

*sigh* if only I could add working tentacles to my station so they can grab and crush any pesky pirates that show up to ruin my day. But I guess I'll just have to settle for swarmer turrets instead...

I checked out how power cubes are built and they're not what I had in mind. Mine are more like THIS...

Spoiler

It's not complete. When it's done the entire thing will be filled AND encased in capacitors.

Yeah, that's about as efficient as a power cube gets. Power cubes were challenges to get the most amount of power generation out of the smallest space (the typical challenge size was 5^3.) Such as a fighter's or dropship's "engine room", for lack of a better term. The key to the challenge was "smallest space", so actual power generation is secondary in these challenges.

The "tower" behind that power cube is considered a better design, because it can go as far (high) as you need it to, and you can have power sticks veering out the side as far as you want them to go.

Personally, I wish that power "bottles" (hollow cubes with mostly-solid walls) of power generators were an efficient design, so that you can create a "reactor pod" as a more conventional power generator, without being too terribly punished. Sure, you can build a RP reactor pod now, but the power generation is not very efficient at all, hence the "RP" part of the description.

 

[Lonnehart]

So my strip tower works better for my power needs overall? I'll take your word for it, Jayman (ugh... almost said Jay Jay Binks). I imagine the horizontal version of that could be good as the power core running along an entire ship with other sections around it.

 

[jayman38]

So my strip tower works better for my power needs overall? I'll take your word for it, Jayman (ugh... almost said Jay Jay Binks). I imagine the horizontal version of that could be good as the power core running along an entire ship with other sections around it.

Right. A lot of players have long horizontal stretches of power sticks reaching the length of their ships for maximum efficiency.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Right. A lot of players have long horizontal stretches of power sticks reaching the length of their ships for maximum efficiency.

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