I've been doing some brainstorming about power recently. After trying to build hybrid ships to accommodate the current power setup and any reactors that Schine comes up with, I came to the conclusion that most of the issues that led to the idea of an over haul stem from the simple fact that there are way too many blocks required to power a combat-worthy ship.
My suggestion; Instead of completely redoing the power system and breaking EVERYTHING, has anyone from the Schine team considered doing the following tweaks?
Reactor Blocks
- Recommended name change; "Power Conduit".
- Greatly increase the amount of power regeneration given for efficient reactor group dimensions.
- Significantly reduce the amount of power regeneration given per reactor block.
- Retain the regeneration soft cap mechanic for this block; allowing small ships to have more power without encouraging giant-ism.
If the regen increase is large enough, "power cubes" and actual "reactor core" shapes could easily power a ship, while power strips" or "power lines" can still be placed without taking up the entire ship. The number of blocks needed to power a ship would be reduced; removing any supposed design restrictions. The soft cap discourages giant-ism like before.
Power Capacitors
- Stores power; same as before.
- Incorporate the above reactor blocks as "power conduits" so that power capacity is only added to the ship if the capacitor group touches a power reactor block group.
Auxiliary Power
- Recommended name change; "Reactor Core".
- Regenerates power at the the default rate when the entire aux group is surrounded by a reactor group with matching or greater dimensions like this...
- Multiply the aux group's power regen rate by the number of reactor block groups surrounding it
- If a surrounding reactor block group is damaged so that it no longer surrounds the aux block group, the system loses the regen bonus for that group. Only the complete groups give a bonus.
- Cut the power regen in half if the aux block group is not surrounded by any reactor group.
- Retain the regeneration soft cap mechanic for this block.
Similar modifications could be made to the shield and thruster systems as well but that's a discussion for another thread.
Your thoughts?
My suggestion; Instead of completely redoing the power system and breaking EVERYTHING, has anyone from the Schine team considered doing the following tweaks?
Reactor Blocks
- Recommended name change; "Power Conduit".
- Greatly increase the amount of power regeneration given for efficient reactor group dimensions.
- Significantly reduce the amount of power regeneration given per reactor block.
- Retain the regeneration soft cap mechanic for this block; allowing small ships to have more power without encouraging giant-ism.
If the regen increase is large enough, "power cubes" and actual "reactor core" shapes could easily power a ship, while power strips" or "power lines" can still be placed without taking up the entire ship. The number of blocks needed to power a ship would be reduced; removing any supposed design restrictions. The soft cap discourages giant-ism like before.
Power Capacitors
- Stores power; same as before.
- Incorporate the above reactor blocks as "power conduits" so that power capacity is only added to the ship if the capacitor group touches a power reactor block group.
Auxiliary Power
- Recommended name change; "Reactor Core".
- Regenerates power at the the default rate when the entire aux group is surrounded by a reactor group with matching or greater dimensions like this...
- Multiply the aux group's power regen rate by the number of reactor block groups surrounding it
- If a surrounding reactor block group is damaged so that it no longer surrounds the aux block group, the system loses the regen bonus for that group. Only the complete groups give a bonus.
- Cut the power regen in half if the aux block group is not surrounded by any reactor group.
- Retain the regeneration soft cap mechanic for this block.
Similar modifications could be made to the shield and thruster systems as well but that's a discussion for another thread.
Your thoughts?