I'll be honest, I don't understand the thought process. Lets start with a explanation of the old power systems;
The old power system was a soft-capped equation, where power per block was put on a curve, which took into account the total dimensions of the reactor group (Height, width, and length of a box surrounding the entire thing). The soft-cap was not always in place, but became so after a user fully understood the mechanic (which was the sum of dimensions squared at the time) and reached the hard-cap of 2.14 billion regen (Java limit at that time).
Most users would use straight lines in a waffle setup, maximising regen along 1 dimension, however there are players like me who would wrap the enegry groups around the ship in an attempt to maximise on the dimensions of that ship.
From what I can hear, because I am not so eager to jump into this mud pit, the new system allows you to place a cube or blob of reactors, and connect them to another cube or blob of stabilisers (in a recent update, allowed you to connect more than 1 group of stabilisers, so now reactors can benefit from the full dimensions of a ship like the old system, Sort of).
The result is 2 or more blobs with a stretch of empty space, which a large beam running through the middle to connect them. This confused me, because the plan was originally to "encourage" empty space for interiors for future updates, but then they made it unusable as good interior by putting a beam there. At some point they added the option to redirect and wrap the beam around the interiors, which is what I was doing with the old system so thanks for retaining some of the features?
I don't understand what the plan was. They made reactors take up less space overall, then put a ugly ass beam in the way. They freed up interior space, but then made systems more potent, needing less space. They had also recently nerfed the mass of decoration blocks come to think of it, so even decorating all that empty space would put a strain on systems, needing more thrust and power.
Everything just needs less, and the result was dumb-bells and stick spaghetti ships, because there was no need to armour up that massive hollow space. Then they tried to nerf that with shield bubbles, which they were wholeheartedly against in the past, and the community actively shot down suggestions about because of that. The result was no change to the spaghetti meta, because honestly Alpha became so potent that all you needed to do was click and win.
Then they nerfed cloaking because of the cloak and alpha meta that they themselves had created, which I suppose sorta worked, but now everyone is gimped and basically unable to use cloaking.
All of this, all of these problems, were created because Schine sought to solve the problem of players packing systems into ships? I wasn't aware system packing was a problem, but they saw it as such. When I asked devs about it pre release, they all said it was for future content (which any veteran knows means stuff in 6-12 months minimum), and they honestly gave no indication of what to do with this newfound space. It was just "this was a problem, so we solved it. You're welcome".
I don't even know how I would build if I started playing again. Apparently I'm expected to smoosh reactors against the hull of my ship to maximise power, which is a terrible idea from a design and immersion standpoint. I'm honestly terrified of seeing how starter salvagers are supposed to look and work.
The TL;DR is this is a confusing mess and no one, not even schine knows what to do about it in the current game. I cant even call it a side-grade, we have Less weapon effects, Worse quality cloaking, Identical power mechanics (dimensions mainly), Broken and outdated all NPCs in game.
With the old system, you could just place down blocks and see how they worked, making it easy to get started. Now its apparently menus and the need to connect something to something else. The barrier to entry is higher, because you cant just put something together and see how it works, because it just wont work if it isn't set up properly (And for some reason, some players actually praise the higher barrier to entry, which I consider elitism and isn't something a game intended for everyone should build on).
A lot of people say its an alpha and these things are expected and not to get too attached to your ships. The problem isn't even it being alpha, or being attached to ships. Most of the complainers Hope mechanics will change, and are willing to refit ships. The problem is the change was suddenly, had no regard to feedback, and ultimate made many people unable to enjoy a game they had paid for. I don't want to be an ass, but we didn't come here to bugtest and stroke your fiddle. We paid money for a game we saw promise in, and wanted to help guide and nurture it into something worthy of release, and some of us are even more than willing to help hunt and report bugs. Problems arise when the game shifts into something objectively inferior than it was, making systems arbitrary, not complex. People are upset because it stinks, and Schine wants to build off it.
People once thought they could build a tower in the mud, and now its just a tourist meme that no one can live in cause its fucking sideways.
