More types of engines and energy generators

[Keynesian]

And where does it say that this is an idea to stop death cubes?

Read the comments

 

[NeonSturm]

Take a 20x20x20 area out of the middle of your death cube and fill it with hull. Or add 2 or 3 extra layers of hull around the side of your death cube. I instantly ruined your idea in less than 3 seconds unless you have a workaround.

Seems like the code really has to learn some way to know how many of each blocks are at the side/top/below/behind/in-front all others in at least one direction.
So many nice ideas ruined by this fact ... (cloak hull,...)

 

[jayman38]

Take a 20x20x20 area out of the middle of your death cube and fill it with hull. Or add 2 or 3 extra layers of hull around the side of your death cube. I instantly ruined your idea in less than 3 seconds unless you have a workaround.

Great thoughts! It's needed to work out details. Thank you.
1. A hole in the middle of a deathcube is not visible, but at least makes it more interesting, even if not externally and forces it to have 8000 less blocks inside to use. That makes a deathcube less viable as a design choice.
2. Since my idea was about surface squares, not just outer hull, the thickness of the hull wouldn't matter. Just the outermost layer. So adding 2 or 3 layers of hull won't matter. By using a bigger hull, you have more surface area, and by having thicker hull, there's less room for hot power sources inside the hull. However, you can still build hull wings/fins for more surface area.
3. The idea isn't ruined. Just detailed more. We definitely don't want suggestions that make the game less fun or suggest features that can be grossly misused, so by all means, please continue finding chinks in the armor of my ideas so I can either figure out how it can be better, or abandon it. (I have been convinced to change my mind before, and it'll happen again.)

 

[Keynesian]

I'm sorry I didn't read the whole thing. Excuse me if I seemed rude.

 

[tery215]

There should be more types of what-you-said, but they shouldn't be tiered exactly like that.

Like, none of what you labeled as "Fusion Generator" or "X-8000 generator".

 

[max stripe]

If there were a heat-dissipation gameplay element in power supplies that required adequate surface area, for instance one surface square for every two power cores, it might be a good game-integrated way of eliminating boring ship designs, like deathcubes. You might still encounter deathcubes, but at least they would have interesting heat-dissipation fins sticking out the sides. Maybe to keep from getting excessive lag, only have the heat/surface-area comparison in build mode. You'll have enough to worry about in battle without worrying about your power cores overheating when someone blows a hole in your dorsal fin or one of your lateral wings. Some might find it tedious, so it would need to be server-side configurable. Most good ships will probably already have enough surface area for adequate heat-dissipation.

this would totaly ruin my capital ship
its insides are packed with power gens and sheilds

 

[WaffulMann]

Isn't the most effective design of "ship" just basically a cross shaped bundle of interlacing power and shieldgen blocks with giant blocks of shield powerstorage and thruster? Heat dissipation would get rid of that. And I like getting rid of those abominations of ships.

EDIT: Oh, and two more blocks of weapon.

 

[NeonSturm]

Then you might encounter hollow borgs which are built 45° rotated vertically and horizontally for more surface area.

Or warping saucers :D
At least every troll would then get his own Enterprise

 

[Keynesian]

Or as a second thought you could just make another layer with a space between the other layers.

 

[Lenier]

Given that this thread is about engines and generators, and:

There should be more types of what-you-said, but they shouldn't be tiered exactly like that.

I have some suggestions!

Maybe this multi-layered system could be simplified into a 3-tier system (I love 3-tiered systems) so that its easier to balance. It also may be able to increase the possibilities for creative design by allowing creative players to include realistic external structures based on the generators/engines they use but still including the standard ones to not make existent ships obsolete. Here are my rough ideas for a three tier system:

power:
1. standard generators (micro fusion generators)

• Act like current generators
• The total x-y-x determines power output
• Perhaps make these less efficient, but not enough to ruin anyone. Maybe lower the cap.
• Perhaps make them MUCH more costly.
• Possibly high power storage+low power regen

2. solar panels

• Must contact sunlight to provide energy
• Medium cost
• Energy determined by the number of blocks contacting sunlight
• Provide lots of energy but are easy to destroy since they must be external
• possibly high regen but no storage making power storage worthwhile

3. nuclear reactor

• Must have water and/or some cheap fuel to run (at this point we no longer need uranium 238 haha)
• Low cost
• Energy determined by the largest solid cube, but the larger they are the hotter they get (making banks of smaller reactors better, but more space costly)
• Provide the cheapest load of power, but have the possibility of heat problems, and in battle when they are destroyed they go critical.
• Fuel storage becomes an issue, and fuel is also dangerous.
• I want these generators to be the only way to have enough power to cloak/jam efficiently with a large ship, and perhaps be the only way to have superweapons on ships.
• I want these to have LOADS of regen.

IF YOU SKIPPED THAT READ THIS
The basic concept here is that there are 3 types of power. One which is balanced but capped and expensive, one which is easy to destroy but super efficient and cheaper, and one which is super powerful and cheap but super dangerous and not space efficient.

engines:
1. gravity drives

• Act like current engines using power to run
• Can be placed anywhere
• The number connected determines the power
  
• Perhaps lower cap
• Perhaps make turning very difficult
• Maybe make them more expensive

2. Standard rockets

• Use some cheap but volatile fuel
• Must be placed per-side to move that direction
• The surface area facing the direction determines acceleration, the extra blocks behind the surface area determine max speed
• Very good at turning and very good at accel for small masses especially
• Fuel storage is now a problem, and fuel storage is dangerous
• cheap to build

3. Current FTL drives

• look it up, I think it fits here.
• Maybe make a ship with FTL completely drain its power with every jump, depending on distance.
• I think charging it up already leaves you defenseless anyway.

IF YOU SKIPPED THAT READ THIS
The basic concept here is that there are three types of engines. One which is balanced but expensive and capped, one which is powerful and maneuverable but dangerous and easy to target, and the current FTL drives which are long-distance but take up space/energy and may leave you vulnerable in a fight.

The most maneuverable warship will now contain the most explosive materials. Same with the most powerful warship. Fighters, being small, could easily use rockets to be maneuverable, and no fighter would be able to have a nuclear reactor unless it was very small. The most efficient scouting vessel would also be the most vulnerable, making ship classes and specialization a thing. You don't want your freighters using expensive power or power that takes fuel, so solar panels would be in style. If you don't want to spend tons giving your station a fusion array, maybe solar panels are better. Maybe your warship has nuclear power that it only turns on when its solar goes offline. Maybe your fighter can deploy an escape pod using solar energy to get away.

CONCLUSION
These are just preliminary sketches, so I am not against a completely different system. However, I think the 3-tier is the way to go.

 

[Byamarro]

I will explain why I rather like more engines at the same/similiar level.
People will use types of engines depending on resources. Like in real life.
Sometimes there are wind generators, solar generators etc.
Depending on geoeconomical situation.

 

[NeonSturm]

I agree with @Byamarro

But I think generators should also be partially unique.

1. Solar power sources should work near stars (good if you have enough storage for a 12..16 sector jump or install them on a gate).
2. Other could use energy cells (a tiny bit like Star-Gates Zero-point-modules) which you can charge in factories. Empty cell -> 10% charged -> 20% charged -> ... -> 100% charged will be used (would be more efficient during battle or for a small shuttle, but rather annoying for use on your carrier)
   
3. And again others could produce free energy like now.
4. Fusion generators could use capsules you don't need (for example these refined from asteroid blocks, (= not these from shards or ore)) but should like energy cells be rather annoying for exclusive use on your main ship carrying them (it would be ok for the 10 seconds of a battle)

 

[Lenier]

In addition to that, I like the idea that the most efficient engines/generators for a battle are also the most dangerous in a battle.
This adds a very interesting level to the game. Do I go with the bad engines/power and hope to get a lucky shot, or do I go with the efficiency but use heavy armor?

 

[_TheRealAmeRicA]

This is all going waaaaay beyond me... So complicated, and starmade is already complicated, so that puts things on a new level of complexity...

 

[NeonSturm]

This is all going waaaaay beyond me... So complicated, and starmade is already complicated, so that puts things on a new level of complexity...

Just use infinite energy sources for travelling,

finite for charging your weapons during combat if you want more efficiency for lower cost for just one or two fights.

regenerative fuel for taking-off planets in shuttles or cloaking a short time if you see pirates and want to be able to do this again after some cooldown-time (cooldown and active time would depend on fuel-regeneration and stored energy cells and is scale-able.)

It is basically a way to satisfy everyone.

 

[starhaiden]

power reactors or thrusters could use lava as fuel so people can get off planets easy.
What about solar hull: solar panels that have about 200HP no amour. they absorb a third of the energy solar panels absorb. making so they aren't too op.

 

[NeonSturm]

What about solar hull: solar panels that have about 200HP no amour. they absorb a third of the energy solar panels absorb. making so they aren't too op.

Low-power blocks are interesting for 4 purposes only:

1. for a cheap power supply if you are stranded on a planet before you got your first reactor.
2. if you want a ship dedicated to refuel at stars (aka StarGate Universe's Destiny)
3. A cheap power-supply for stations where mass doesn't matter, but cost does.
4. If it is the only source of infinite energy or the only thing that does not require a player to maintain it.

As long as solar hull can be used for one of above 4 situations, and is at least 50% better than other solutions, I see no problem adding it. But then it shouldn't come in 8 different colors but as a penta, a wedge and a tetra only, if not just as a penta. (who needs full blocks if you have pentas)

 

[Byamarro]

This is all going waaaaay beyond me... So complicated, and starmade is already complicated, so that puts things on a new level of complexity...

If Starmade will be too simple then it will be "Ship Builder 2000" forever instead of awesome game with awesome gameplay.


BTW
I would love to gather gases from gas planets (aww... imagine gas station at Saturn's orbit...) for engines :D
Would be stunning.

 

[WaffulMann]

I would like starmade to be as deep as the player is willing to.
So simple (though not as simple as now) ships can be a thing
And ships with directional thrusters, radiators, advanced logic, power cells, super advanced generation, AI scanning, crews, magic wands and potato guns can also be a thing

 

[NeonSturm]

I like magic wands - and garlic guns against the power-vampire guns