Make Chamber Size A Set Percentage (Remove Levels)

[Sven_The_Slayer]

One big problem I am seeing with the Power 2.0 comes from the implementation of reactor levels. This system is not very intuitive in game and more or less forces you to build your reactors in predetermined sizes to avoid penalties/ get bonuses.



All levels have a set number of chambers that could be a 50% relation all the way down to 25% the size of the reactor based on reactor size. You can see at levels 10, 19, 28, 37, 46, and 55 the chambers require the least amount of blocks to get the desired effects. This also creates a system where your required chambers can double in size by placing down a single reactor going from one level to another.

This structure is far to rigid in the world of free form ship building as ships will not have set free space, trying to get a little more power out of a system could be impossible in confined space while giving min-maxers a potential huge benefit over more novice or casual players.

If there is some ultimate justification for this system I would like to hear it, otherwise reactors levels should be removed and replaced with a set 25% size.

 

[MacThule]

I am also unclear regarding the over-arching value of levels and not a fan of the dynamic. If it serves some greater function, it is far from apparent.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

oops, I made a mistake copying the numbers from one page to another... give me a sec to correct my mistake

Fixed

 

[Dire Venom]

Thanks for posting this!
As much as I enjoy planning out ships and ocassionly using spreadsheets the new system is absolutlt fricking nuts imo.

I barely understand it, and to get max effciencey or make a decent reactor I need to do a bunch of calculations every time I want to change the power output/chambers, or have everything preditermined -_-

Why does it have to be so complicated? With the old system it was very easy to understand, and you could do any calculations in your head.

The new features are cool and all, but from a builders perspective trying to optimize my ship feels like a fricken Rubics Cube imo.

Wasn't this update supposed to REDUCE complexity?

 

[Maramonster]

I have to agree with you Dire. between managing systems like the new shield bubbles, distance with stabilizers, integrity and the reactor chambers (The UI leaves me scratching my head for those). I find that I'm spending my time trying to juggle a knife, a bomb and a rabid cat.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I have to agree with you Dire. between managing systems like the new shield bubbles, distance with stabilizers, integrity and the reactor chambers (The UI leaves me scratching my head for those). I find that I'm spending my time trying to juggle a knife, a bomb and a rabid cat.

I was streaming today and one of my viewers said he was interested in getting the game for a while. Later he said the menus were overwhelming.

 

[Maramonster]

The UI's not awful, but i'm having trouble using the reactor menu, with the chambers, and selecting what benefits I want. There's not a lot of feedback on navigating the tree.

Anyone know why I'm being soft-muted? Every post requires moderator approval. I have no warnings.

 

[Kiithnaras]

The UI's not awful, but i'm having trouble using the reactor menu, with the chambers, and selecting what benefits I want. There's not a lot of feedback on navigating the tree.

Well, in advocatus diaboli, the system is still in its early stages of implementation and documentation of the various effects aren't complete. I still have no idea what it means, for instance, by "hotspot" range for Alpha/DPS shield chamber effects.

It is also because of the level scaling that I actually dropped chamber scaling from the default 50% down to 10%, and things can still be on the bulky side with a lot of active (and even some inactive) chambers. Mathematically, I can see why the levels were used - it keeps things simple, keeps round numbers for chamber sizes, and so forth, but you're right - the optimal reactor sizes are not at the minimum for a level, but at the maximum for the previous level. It is not immediately intuitive.

That being said, the chamber system as a whole does rather heavily suffer from:

• Lack of flexibility: I agree that not every ship should be able to do everything on just one reactor, but the effects as they exist now (with fixed costs to fixed capacities regardless of sizes) are far too limiting. It is, for example, actually impossible to make a ship that can permanently cloak and jam - something that was handily done on very small "space bikes" (albiet hideously), while also having full overdrive and fast jump charging at the same time.
• Lack of modability: While the configuration files for the effects themselves exist within the config directory, altering the values therein does not appear to have any effect on the actual game environment. Cranking up the multipliers on Top Speed, for instance, does not have any effect on a ship's top speed over what is expected with unaltered files. Additionally, the point costs of the effects are not present in any configuration files and cannot be changed.
• Linear Scaling: This is actually less of a problem per se and more simply a complicating factor. It does make huge capital ships less appealing because of this - or at the very least makes them more challenging to build and design. By itself, it's not a bad element, but it does make things worse when the following factor is considered.
• Excessive redundancy: A corollary of the lack of flexibility and compounded by the linear scaling, a reactor setup that is large enough to power a sizable capital ship's shields, weapons, and thrusters, complete with a full set of chamber effects, will take up a significant portion of the space within that capital ship. In order to comply with the design philosophy of the chamber system, that entire setup needs to be copied for each desired operational mode with considerations for ship operation. One that incorporates reactor setups for Interdiction, Mobility, Defense, FTB Boosts, Scanning, and Power Efficiency (Logistics and Stealth optional) needs at least six nearly-identical reactor setups to justify its enormous size and cost. Setting those up has a compounding complexity of design cost on top of the already high material cost.

In summary, people are very unlikely to design ships with more than two or three reactor systems at the most; since the Interdiction setup essentially removes your own jump drive, it isn't something that most players will want to have to go in to navigate the menus to turn on or off in chamber reassignment. A ship that is designed to be a combined stealth-interdictor or stealth-tank is the only time I could reasonably see having three reactor setups.

 

[Maramonster]

While I understand that this is an alpha, that doesn't change the fact that some talents take more than one chamber of the same type, and the only interface indication is a blue vs white line. It's poorly done.

I also agree that the level system leaves for wonky optimization. I was surprised it just wasn't a flat % of blocks based on reactor size.

Alpha means it's a work in progress, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be critical of what's been done.

 

[StormWing0]

What'd also be nice is being able to make it so certain systems and weapons are powered by certain reactors. Say make it so one reactor is powering the weapons while active but the others can be powering other things while active. This way we don't have to make a f'ing gigantic reactor each time the same size as all other reactors just to get everything powered before we can spec the thing to what we want. >.>

 

[MacThule]

some talents take more than one chamber of the same type, and the only interface indication is a blue vs white line.

Good point! That is difficult to interpret at a glance.

What could make this specific problem better? Higher contrast colors? An icon set tagged to the lines? There must be something...

 

[Maramonster]

I think something along the lines of an icon at either end of the line denoting what type of 'connection' it is. or, even a legend with the colors and connection types.

Edit: The problem isn't the colors themselves, it's just that within that interface there is no obvious established meaning. There's no case of red means stop or green means go. The colors are arbitrary and unexplained.

 

[MacThule]

I think something along the lines of an icon at either end of the line denoting what type of 'connection' it is. or, even a legend with the colors and connection types.

Or both. Maybe adding a texture to the connection lines - making it wavey or dotted or doubled or whatever - could improve its clarity as well or instead of icons (though I feel like using icons would be more attractive).

 

[Maramonster]

Or both. Maybe adding a texture to the connection lines - making it wavey or dotted or doubled or whatever - could improve its clarity as well or instead of icons (though I feel like using icons would be more attractive).

Well, changing the distinctiveness of the lines isn't the entire problem. We'd still run into "what does dotted or wavy mean?" What would likely be clearest is using the actual conduit block as the icon.

 

[MacThule]

Well, changing the distinctiveness of the lines isn't the entire problem. We'd still run into "what does dotted or wavy mean?" What would likely be clearest is using the actual conduit block as the icon.

A block icon would also be easiest to implement, I assume. Something like this has to happen because the reactor UI/UX needs a ton of work.

You wanna suggest, or should I?

 

[Maramonster]

You're more than welcome if you want. I'm on holiday today, and being 'bad' by being on the computer.

 

[Arcaner]

The new features are cool and all, but from a builders perspective trying to optimize my ship feels like a fricken Rubics Cube imo.

Its called rocket science for a reason

Later he said the menus were overwhelming.

Not really. Try introducing him to WOT lol. Absence of tutorials is the problem here.

Anyone know why I'm being soft-muted? Every post requires moderator approval. I have no warnings.

There are many like you...gifted. Okay, jokes aside, you should be seeing some message on the top of the page on starmadedock.net explaining why.

What'd also be nice is being able to make it so certain systems and weapons are powered by certain reactors. Say make it so one reactor is powering the weapons while active but the others can be powering other things while active. This way we don't have to make a f'ing gigantic reactor each time the same size as all other reactors just to get everything powered before we can spec the thing to what we want. >.>

This is actually partly possible.
Let's say your ship has laser canons and missiles. You want one reactor to power the laser canons and a second one to power the missiles, correct? Build a reactor on your ship. In it's priority list, put the lasers on top and the missiles on the bottom. Build a second reactor. In it's priority list, put the missiles at the top and the lasers at the bottom. Done. In battle, if you are repeatedly using the lasers while the first reactor is active, you won't need to worry about the missile group charging/taking power and vice versa for the second reactor being active.

 

[Maramonster]

Its called rocket science for a reason

-snip-

There are many like you...gifted. Okay, jokes aside, you should be seeing some message on the top of the page on starmadedock.net explaining why.

-snip-

When I posted that, the message wasn't showing. Duke caught it, fixed it, and notified me in another thread. At the time it was a valid question.

 

[Ratchet Hundreda]

• Lack of flexibility

The perma cloak/perma jamming mechanic would still be possible if not for a slight miscalculation on the numbers during balancing and as I heard will be fixed. If anything the only slight annoyance there is in terms of the mobility balancing is perhaps the auto-charge chamber tree other than that I would say it is nicely balanced.

• Lack of modability

I think those are hardcoded numbers and for a reason. They are meant to keep balance so there won't be a hundred different servers with a hundred different settings.

• Linear Scaling

I don't know of your arithmetic knowledge my good sir but I don't believe it gets any simpler then the linea.

• Excessive redundancy

I would say this is just another clever way of making sure there is actually a little bit of a curve to that linea towards the end game ships or the capital ships you so calling them. It will make ships with the 4 digit dimensions less common therefore encouraging smaller better optimized designs. What you are describing is in fact very much difficult but i would say it is rightly so. Building and designing a capital ship shouldn't be an easy feat for one engineer. It encourages cooperation and patience. I personally find it an ingenious way it works now and most definitely a step in the right direction for the game.

Other than that what i mostly see discussed here is just another attempt at over complicating an already complicated mechanic. I would say it has just enough depth to it right now that i would say it brings a challenge i take with a smile and something which can be very easily balanced with the change of some hardcoded values here and there which is something if i remember correctly what the devs wanted originally.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

One big problem I am seeing with the Power 2.0 comes from the implementation of reactor levels. This system is not very intuitive in game and more or less forces you to build your reactors in predetermined sizes to avoid penalties/ get bonuses.

View attachment 47522

All levels have a set number of chambers that could be a 50% relation all the way down to 25% the size of the reactor based on reactor size. You can see at levels 10, 19, 28, 37, 46, and 55 the chambers require the least amount of blocks to get the desired effects. This also creates a system where your required chambers can double in size by placing down a single reactor going from one level to another.

This structure is far to rigid in the world of free form ship building as ships will not have set free space, trying to get a little more power out of a system could be impossible in confined space while giving min-maxers a potential huge benefit over more novice or casual players.

If there is some ultimate justification for this system I would like to hear it, otherwise reactors levels should be removed and replaced with a set 25% size.

While a bit on the complicated side, I think part of the (intended) benefit of "levels" for chambers is the ability to reconfigure a ship on the fly. You can enable, disable, strengthen and weaken systems without the need to connect/disconnect blocks. In theory, you can have every type of chamber in the game and create a "jack of all trades" with regard to ship type and you'd have the ability to "pull a Scotty" and "reroute power from the starboard power coupling to the phase inducers" when things get hairy.

For example; You're responding to an attack on a distant station. You have every bit of reactor capacity routed to your jump drive so you can get there in time to fight the intruders. You get to the system and can't find the enemy because they're using jamming/cloaking. So you tune down your jump recharge and jump range and increase power to your jump inhibitor and sensors. During your fight, you find out they have a lot of missiles and AI controlled weapons, so you tune down your inhibitor and boost power to your stealth drive so you can jam their AI guns or delay/prevent them from getting a missile lock. Turn on your logistics chamber to beam a team mate over to the over-heating station to reboot its systems before it explodes. ...without dropping the shields.

The chamber system seems to be yet another work in progress. While not necessarily a bad implementation, it does need some work. ...or at the very least, a thorough explanation via wiki article.

As far as possible changes to the chamber system go, I think that they should ease back on either the power consumption or chamber size requirements. After all, wasn't their original intention to reduce required block count so that people don't stuff every crevice of their ship with system blocks?