Stabilizer Mechanics: Flux Dissipation

[Valiant70]

The connection between reactor and stabilizers has done a passable job of dealing with islands. While they're still possible, they're harder to defend. The trouble is the mechanics still end up tying everything to a single axis, and in one direction at that. Additive stabilizer distance attempted to resolve this, but all it really does is pull stabilizers in closer to the reactor. Heat mechanics tried to add flavor and choices and were successful at that, but the Schine crew prefers the stabilization terminology because there are more possibilities.

Thus, I've reworked the heat mechanics idea with terminology that fits into what's already in game. schema , Lancake , Criss , please have a look and let me know if part of this is imperformant, contradicts future plans, or has other issues. I'll see if I can think up a way around the problem.

Ship HP:

• Go back to SHP for killing ships. Reactors tie into this strongly by blowing up other parts of the ship when they get shot up.
• This also makes interiors more viable because the blocks add HP to the ship.
  
• While interiors cannot be encouraged except by crew, their cost can be reduced.

Stability mechanics:

• Reactors have a stability value, which decreases as they produce power. This is measured by "flux."
• Flux generated equals power generated. It must be dissipated to restore and maintain stability.
• Stabilizers absorb and dissipate flux. They have a flux capacity which is constant, and an efficiency value which varies.
  
• Flux capacity increases the amount of flux it takes to reduce a reactor to 0% stability. One block always adds the same capacity.
• Stabilizer efficiency determines how fast stabilizers dissipate flux. The farther a stabilizer is from the reactor, the smaller the group, and the farther it is from other groups, the higher the efficiency of each block.
• Stabilizers are connected to the reactor by flux streams, so islands or tons of small groups are not only annoying to build, but extremely vulnerable.

Damaging the ship:

• Shooting a flux stream blows up some of the connected stabilizers.
• Shooting the reactor itself causes a large amount of flux to build up suddenly. The more of a reactor is destroyed, the more flux builds up per block destroyed.
• Less than 0% stability is critical. Random explosions occur throughout the ship, damaging the ship but releasing flux in the process.
• Explosions get worse the further stability drops below 0%, and stop if stability goes above 0%.
• -100% stability is super-critical. All flux is released in a huge explosion originating in the reactor, most likely destroying the ship. This might happen if a large fraction of the reactor is destroyed within a few seconds.
• General concept: the amount of flux generated when you produce power is dwarfed by the flux build up when you take damage. Thus it takes a while to recover from damage and it usually isn't too easy to overload your own reactor.
• Anti-exploit: When flux streams overlap, shots that hit the overlapping parts apply damage to both groups, essentially dealing double (or more) damage.

Things I expect this to do:

• Make interiors more viable. Ships with interior were nerfed by the reactor HP system because decoration blocks no longer served any function.
• Create a strong (but not hard) correlation between ship size and effective power output.
• Remove the one-dimensionality of the stabilizer mechanic while improving the power-durability tradeoff.
• Squeezed-together ships get better redundancy, but will be heavy. Spaced-out ships will be less durable, but have more power output per mass and tend to be faster. This makes sense stylistically.
• Potentially encourage space inside ships without forcing it. If you want to put stabilizers further out and hide where they are, you're going to need a bigger hull.
• Give reactors the feel of a powerful, volatile machine as one would expect them to be. This makes the game more exciting.
  
• Provides an opportunity for weapon effects that add or remove flux.
• Flux could provide a more interesting way to do stealth, similar to the stealth mechanics discussed here. TL;DR: The more power you generate, the easier you are to see. You can hide yourself at the expense of building up flux, but that puts you in a precarious situation if you destealth to make an alpha strike. This makes stealth more interesting and balances stealthy alpha strikes.

 

[paladin.oa]

The connection between reactor and stabilizers has done a passable job of dealing with islands. While they're still possible, they're harder to defend. The trouble is the mechanics still end up tying everything to a single axis, and in one direction at that. Additive stabilizer distance attempted to resolve this, but all it really does is pull stabilizers in closer to the reactor. Heat mechanics tried to add flavor and choices and were successful at that, but the Schine crew prefers the stabilization terminology because there are more possibilities.

Thus, I've reworked the heat mechanics idea with terminology that fits into what's already in game. schema , Lancake , Criss , please have a look and let me know if part of this is imperformant, contradicts future plans, or has other issues. I'll see if I can think up a way around the problem.

Ship HP:

• Go back to SHP for killing ships. Reactors tie into this strongly by blowing up other parts of the ship when they get shot up.
• This also makes interiors more viable because the blocks add HP to the ship.
  
• While interiors cannot be encouraged except by crew, their cost can be reduced.

Stability mechanics:

• Reactors have a stability value, which decreases as they produce power. This is measured by "flux."
• Flux generated equals power generated. It must be dissipated to restore and maintain stability.
• Stabilizers absorb and dissipate flux. They have a flux capacity which is constant, and an efficiency value which varies.
  
• Flux capacity increases the amount of flux it takes to reduce a reactor to 0% stability. One block always adds the same capacity.
• Stabilizer efficiency determines how fast stabilizers dissipate flux. The farther a stabilizer is from the reactor, the smaller the group, and the farther it is from other groups, the higher the efficiency of each block.
• Stabilizers are connected to the reactor by flux streams, so islands or tons of small groups are not only annoying to build, but extremely vulnerable.

Damaging the ship:

• Shooting a flux stream blows up some of the connected stabilizers.
• Shooting the reactor itself causes a large amount of flux to build up suddenly. The more of a reactor is destroyed, the more flux builds up per block destroyed.
• Less than 0% stability is critical. Random explosions occur throughout the ship, damaging the ship but releasing flux in the process.
• Explosions get worse the further stability drops below 0%, and stop if stability goes above 0%.
• -100% stability is super-critical. All flux is released in a huge explosion originating in the reactor, most likely destroying the ship. This might happen if a large fraction of the reactor is destroyed within a few seconds.
• General concept: the amount of flux generated when you produce power is dwarfed by the flux build up when you take damage. Thus it takes a while to recover from damage and it usually isn't too easy to overload your own reactor.
• Anti-exploit: When flux streams overlap, shots that hit the overlapping parts apply damage to both groups, essentially dealing double (or more) damage.

Things I expect this to do:

• Make interiors more viable. Ships with interior were nerfed by the reactor HP system because decoration blocks no longer served any function.
• Create a strong (but not hard) correlation between ship size and effective power output.
• Remove the one-dimensionality of the stabilizer mechanic while improving the power-durability tradeoff.
• Squeezed-together ships get better redundancy, but will be heavy. Spaced-out ships will be less durable, but have more power output per mass and tend to be faster. This makes sense stylistically.
• Potentially encourage space inside ships without forcing it. If you want to put stabilizers further out and hide where they are, you're going to need a bigger hull.
• Give reactors the feel of a powerful, volatile machine as one would expect them to be. This makes the game more exciting.
  
• Provides an opportunity for weapon effects that add or remove flux.
• Flux could provide a more interesting way to do stealth, similar to the stealth mechanics discussed here. TL;DR: The more power you generate, the easier you are to see. You can hide yourself at the expense of building up flux, but that puts you in a precarious situation if you destealth to make an alpha strike. This makes stealth more interesting and balances stealthy alpha strikes.

I quite like this idea, makes for a more cinematic feel to the game because when sci-fi ships have their reactor hit, very bad things happen to them. It would also be neat if you could somehow eject your reactor to save the rest of the ship and crew for RP purposes and as a signal for unconditional surrender. It could also be made a crime to attack a ship with an ejected reactor, this way NPC factions may attack your faction on sight and player factions can attack your faction with impunity.

 

[Valiant70]

The only think I'm not sure about is how this could tie into the use of multiple reactor and switching between them.

 

[NeonSturm]

Is this intuitive? I think yes. But is it intuitive enough?
Because it works the same way as heat.

But it would add another capacity to the ship - shine scrapped capacitors for power.

 

[Valiant70]

Is this intuitive? I think yes. But is it intuitive enough?
Because it works the same way as heat.

But it would add another capacity to the ship - shine scrapped capacitors for power.

Capacity provides purpose to blocks that can’t reach full efficiency for one reason or another. Efficiency is needed for operation, while capacity is needed to withstand battle damage (or maybe to use stealth).

 

[NTIMESc]

Would this turn Stabilizers into Flux Capacitors?

This idea is creative, but I'm not sure if the term "flux" is the right one for measuring reactor stability.
Since flux is generally the "flow" of something (energy, for example) I would find it's use as a measure of stability confusing.
Replacing the word "flux", with "heat" in your Stability mechanics results in this:

Stability mechanics:

• Reactors have a stability value, which decreases as they produce power. This is measured by "heat."
• Heat generated equals power generated. It must be dissipated to restore and maintain stability.
• Stabilizers absorb and dissipate heat. They have a heat capacity which is constant, and an efficiency value which varies.
  
• Heat capacity increases the amount of heat it takes to reduce a reactor to 0% stability. One block always adds the same capacity.
• Stabilizer efficiency determines how fast stabilizers dissipate heat. The farther a stabilizer is from the reactor, the smaller the group, and the farther it is from other groups, the higher the efficiency of each block.
• Stabilizers are connected to the reactor by heat streams, so islands or tons of small groups are not only annoying to build, but extremely vulnerable.

To me, this is more sensible, and understandable to both technical and non-technical players.

 

[Nosajimiki]

sooo... escentially, reactors do what reactors do which is make power, and stabilizers keep your ship from just blowing up. This could be a viable compromise.

The closest thing to a major problem I see off the top of my head here is those flux/heat streams. If your reactor has a bunch of those coming out of it, then a single missile hitting your reactor might also hit 8 streams making for a very cataclysmic failure of the stabilizer system as a whole, but I suppose could actually help foster more creative reactor designs unto themselves.

 

[Zoolimar]

sooo... escentially, reactors do what reactors do which is make power, and stabilizers keep your ship from just blowing up. This could be a viable compromise.

You could make this in current config files. After devs added the ability of reactors to generate full power at partial stabilisation.

Set distance needed to 0
Set minimal stabilisation needed to 0

Now reactors will always generate full power and blow up if you so much as sneeze at them if there is no stabilisers. How hard they will blow up could be tinkered with too.

The only problem is inability to have more than one active reactor on a dock chain.

 

[Valiant70]

Would this turn Stabilizers into Flux Capacitors?

This idea is creative, but I'm not sure if the term "flux" is the right one for measuring reactor stability.
Since flux is generally the "flow" of something (energy, for example) I would find it's use as a measure of stability confusing.
Replacing the word "flux", with "heat" in your Stability mechanics results in this:

To me, this is more sensible, and understandable to both technical and non-technical players.

I imagined flux as a sort of weird science-fantasy energy that messes with the reactor if you don't get rid of it. Does heat affecting stability make sense to non-technical players?
[doublepost=1514583807,1514583715][/doublepost]

You could make this in current config files. After devs added the ability of reactors to generate full power at partial stabilisation.

Set distance needed to 0
Set minimal stabilisation needed to 0

Now reactors will always generate full power and blow up if you so much as sneeze at them if there is no stabilisers. How hard they will blow up could be tinkered with too.

The only problem is inability to have more than one active reactor on a dock chain.

Heh... That's better than what's in the pre-release, but still kind of crappy. A correlation between reactor output and ship design isn't a bad thing in itself. A hard limit that causes weird meta things is what's bad.

 

[NTIMESc]

Does heat affecting stability make sense to non-technical players?

I think so. If I get too hot, I might pass out. If my car's engine gets too hot, it breaks. If my ice-cream gets too hot...
It's a fairly relatable term.

 

[Valiant70]

I think so. If I get too hot, I might pass out. If my car's engine gets too hot, it breaks. If my ice-cream gets too hot...
It's a fairly relatable term.

Fair enough.

 

[Dire Venom]

A solid Heat (or insert scfi term here) would do the power system wonders imo.
Not too complex (e.g hard to understand in a short paragraph), yet not too one dimensional at the same time (e.g the current stabalizor mechanic) would be the ideal.
It could also be a good way to get some sort of capacity back into the game imo.
Different ways of placing stabalizors results in them either being able to Store more (heat/flux etc) or dissapate more (heat/flux) at a faster rate.

 

[Skwidz]

A solid Heat (or insert scfi term here) would do the power system wonders imo.
Not too complex (e.g hard to understand in a short paragraph), yet not too one dimensional at the same time (e.g the current stabalizor mechanic) would be the ideal.
It could also be a good way to get some sort of capacity back into the game imo.
Different ways of placing stabalizors results in them either being able to Store more (heat/flux etc) or dissapate more (heat/flux) at a faster rate.

Perhaps replace the stabilizers with radiators and thermal generators with different mechanics? Maybe the generators could be close to the reactor for more efficiency and the radiators, well, how can those work without being stabilizer 2.0?