Power System Overhaul Proposal

Gasboy said:

Since many systems will require less room, this is a direct buff to small ships, not a nerf.

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If systems require less room bigger ship will simply have way more rooms to put other systems, like weapons for example. In fact small ships that got a lower volume compared to big ship are even more disavantaged by that as they can't have more secondary systems compared to bigger ships.

I'm wondering also with heat areas, won't this be a performance killer just to put the checks in to make sure players are not trying to force the heat areas outside the ship. And those checks when collisions happen, armor blocks get destroyed, will come into play... situations where player makes a 5x5x30 nassel redistributing the heat to be in the armor sounds like a lot of calculations...

I'm also feeling star trek Nassel design will become very popular

kingreol said:

I'm wondering also with heat areas, won't this be a performance killer just to put the checks in to make sure players are not trying to force the heat areas outside the ship. And those checks when collisions happen, armor blocks get destroyed, will come into play... situations where player makes a 5x5x30 nassel redistributing the heat to be in the armor sounds like a lot of calculations...

I'm also feeling star trek Nasser design will become very popular

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that's probably the reason the OP started with a box-based design as opposed to a complete map/grid of heats

TOOLS WE NEED, Schine

There are going to be a bunch of tools we're going to need if this is going to go smoothly.

1.) A way to see inside our ships without having to run around inside them, and pull of armor panels and the floorboards. An indicator of how many of each block we have, and where the blocks are located.

Like a World of Tanks mod:

Or even better, since it's much clearer, the World of Warships armor viewer:

Now just add in the numbers, X power auxiliary, Y shield rechargers, etc. The biggest part of this is being able to see how much empty volume we have. This is important later.

I would also suggest a way to pull away parts of a ship, but still leave them visible, so that we can view the internals.

Kinda like this:

But I think this might be rather time consuming and difficult to add?

2.) A way to remove all of a system. To be able to pull out all power related blocks, all hull blocks, etc. Every last player, who wants to continue using designs they have, is going to have to overhaul their ship. This will be incredibly frustrating if we have to do this entirely manually. No, check that, it's going to be incredibly frustrating anyways, but automating it will make it a bit easier.

3.) A way to visualize the space we will need to provide power in the new system EQUAL to the power the ship has in the old system. A readout that says, "This is how much power you have currently, and this is how much space it takes up. #power #volume". And also says, "This is an approximation of how much space you'll need to put in a system to provide roughly equal power as the old system. #volume". Maybe even have the tool make a suggestion, "You'll need a #volume reactor core, with two coolant chambers of #volume, and conduits connecting the chambers to the core. The heat zone will be roughly #size".

Being able to see how much empty space we have (from #2 above) allows us to visualize where we can place reactors.

4.) Shipyards absolutely need to be able to do the three things above, so that things can be done with designs and blueprints. That means fixing shipyards too.

Anyone else have ideas for tools that we will probably need?

EDIT: edited a bit for clarity.

Gasboy said:

Have you fully read the original post? They specifically said (and implied in some parts) that smaller ships will only require the core (implied) since their power requirements (and thus heat) are much less than the larger ships. Also other systems (weapons, shields, armor) will be scaled down as well (as in take up less room).

The "chambers" in the diagram are coolant chambers, heat sinks. And the heat armor is the "inner hull" block they've announced.

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Okay, I see now, I wasn't fully awake while reading the original post. With all of those implied, I'm all for it.

Criss said:

...
Reactor rods could mean a simple heat sink, as that is what they really are in this situation. A component of a larger structure. No defined power generating processes are being used. It's just simply power. Furthermore, it's just an idea. We might not use reactor rods.

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Fair-enough.

However, if you really want to go all SciFi on power: think about referring to SM's power system as a fusion generator with a gravity-based confinement system.

FWIW: I would actually enjoy a "hunger" mechanic which requires collection of stellar plasma for fuel, and supports market trade thereof. I believe such a mechanic would go far towards reducing propagation of abusive/doomcube entities.

About what to call the power system...
The human race has just learned we have the knowledge/technology to generate gravity waves. Considering that fusion-based power inherently exploits several plasma properties, and that LIGO requires form of plasma to operate... If you were to peer a few hundred years into our future, it's plausible that fusion systems could ultimately utilize gravity-based confinement. With such power, reactionless drives also become an interesting topic as well; something which can be somewhat emulated in SM already (e.g. by covering thruster outlets).

I do wonder...if/when SM integrates physics to support dynamic water, if we'll then begin seeing things like ignitable plasma exhaust, navigable interstellar clouds, etc.

...anyways, back to killing Space Spiders now. Thanks for working to improve SM.

Scypio said:

If systems require less room bigger ship will simply have way more rooms to put other systems, like weapons for example. In fact small ships that got a lower volume compared to big ship are even more disavantaged by that as they can't have more secondary systems compared to bigger ships.

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Well, yes, that is the natural consequence, bigger ships will become easier to build and use. But they pay a penalty in having to have larger reactors, and larger heat zones. And if you haven't seen the outrage yet from PvPers, since now they'll have "rooms" that they'll have to fill with something, wait for it.

What secondary systems to do you mean? And uh, of course smaller ships will have less room than big ships. That stands to reason, doesn't it?

Within the heat shroud area, you can basically put in anything you want, except for systems, that are vulnerable to heat. Doesn't matter if it's hull or armor or a bunch of interior, as long as it acts as a ballast between the reactor itself and the systems. As far as the stuff you put in there isn't vulnerable to heat effects, anything goes. On bigger ships, you could build a nice cosmetic engine room with maintenance annexes for other power related stuff, a long as the materials you use are not a part of the active systems of the ship.

Likewise, you could just use the new interior blocks as ballast, or use any other thermally inert block. It's not like the heat from a reactor is gonna instantly burn anything within the heat shroud area.

Extremely happy to see Schine adressing the power issue.
Extremely happy to see Schine willing to make changes even if it means ships becoming obsolete.
Extremely happy to see Schine taking feedback on a feature before implementing it.

Actual suggestion? Not so much, but hey at least we can talk about it :D

Must read posts for people who haven't gone through thread:
Power System Overhaul Proposal (MANDATORY read by Zackey_TNT)
Power System Overhaul Proposal
Power System Overhaul Proposal
Power System Overhaul Proposal
Lecic explaining the chandelier system, although i think that got eaten by the ministry of truth...

schema said:

Forced design choices

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schema said:

More systems and power means a better ship, and there is no incentive or mechanic that would ever make a pretty ship with interior as good as one filled with systems.

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This is a problem exclusive to the RP/cosmetic players, and one you are never going to fix, unless you remove all control over ship systems.

Instead of trying to reward interior, just remove all the penalties for it. Make armor lighter (and useful) and remove the mass% based defensive effects. Now RP ships will just be terrible because the people making them don't have a clue what they're doing

People should not be rewarded for cosmetic building, it should have zero impact on the ship, like empty space.

schema said:

Lack of complexity

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It's not about having to place things in arbitrary patterns, it's about having different outcomes; Ships with high capacity aren't currently viable because they end up MUCH weaker than ships with constant output; but if they were viable you could build ships able to one-hit-kill similar sized ships with high delay weapons and a ton of capacity.

Hypothetical power system setups:

• Ship with high capacity but slow regen able to run for 1minute+ so it's able to accomplish something in combat before running dry; but it will be weaker once the period is over
• Fighters with no onboard power systems, relying on carrier to provide for their power needs
• Ejectable batteries/heat sinks like docked reactors but ejected after use

are examples of more complex power systems; building in predefined patterns just results in more forced design.

schema said:

Too many blocks involved (number, not types)

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I don't believe this is an issue with the game's design, better fixed with tools like using the replace feature on a weapon computer with another weapon computer also replaces all the slave blocks with the corresponding slaves for the new computer.

Replace feature works fine for non-slaved systems

schema said:

Focused on regen

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See 2. I don't see how the new design will solve this, please elaborate if it does.

I think generally the suggestion is still stuck in the mentality where you've decided what the outcome has to be (small ships get free power regen, big ships get much slower) which leaves players with very little control over how their ships function, and will only get worse with this much limitation on systems being added.

Adding depth to the game doesn't mean having a lot of hoops to jump through to achieve one thing, it means being able to achieve many different things that are all viable. We don't want to jump through hoops to build ships as you intended, we want to build our own. This is why the most fun ships to build in starmade are the ones breaking the rules.

Also concerned that it seems thrusters will still require power. It is not possible to have power function as a speed limit and system limit simultaneously, because all combat ships need to move, quickly and constantly. This means every power system must supply quick and constant power; there is no negotiation here. A ship that cannot move in combat is useless; it can't dictate range or avoid incoming fire.
I believe this is what prompted the power bonus in the first place; to let small ships move faster than big ships while still able to power weapons, but what that's done is just encouraging multiple entity designs, or fleets of tiny ships because they are much more energy efficient.
If small ships continue to have power advantages over large ships, this will continue the trend of docked power.

How does this heat mechanic not favor 500 small guns on your ship over a few larger ones, if the small ones can be done with a few highly efficient small reactors?

Consider instead making thrusters use 0 power while only producing 5% of the thrust they currently do, while making overdrive effect much faster (reaching current speeds) but cost power similar to the current thruster cost (exponential cost with thruster amount). That way all ships are able to reach a minimum speed (0% overdrive) and small ships don't require a huge power boost to keep up.

Since you've introduced fleets to the game, the only thing stopping players from overwhelming larger ships with groups of smaller and more efficient ships are the ai issues; hardly a good ballancing tool.

If you can spend 10 hours mining to get 1 large ship or 1000 small ones, but the 1000 small ones are 10x stronger, why would you have large ships?

My concerns with the old power systems were overly emphasizing modular design and the lack of viable design variety. I don't see how this suggestion solves either.

how will this affect aesthetics? I like to use certain system and weapon blocks as detailing, but now I will be forced not to do that in order to have a efficient reactor. Might I suggest a way to not have this loss of efficiency; how about systems that aren't connected to a computer do not affect the efficiency, which does mean that you might have to include more computers for systems that work without one, as of today.

Lecic said:

What? The entire reactor is out on the chandelier, not just the chambers. There's no loss in efficiency from long conduits there.

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Maybe as in real life the conduits could be a choke point under heavy load(resistance builds heat) thus dropping output,and your cooling systems could wrap the conduit . I wonder if this would change the build dynamic to make reactor/cooler chains?

OP said, systems will take much less space in ships. What will prevent pvp-players to fill most of the ship's hull with systems(except some empty space for new reactors - anyway, current reactors and power capacitors took many space too) like before, and have hundreds times more battle strength than players, who used significant volume of the ship for interiors?
They said, systems will take about 5% on huge ships. What, if someone will put, for example, shields systems in another 95%?
I think new system can produce much more possible pvp-exploits than previous docked reactors & shield-rechargers and docked hulls with defensive effects.

arouq said:

The goal should be, small scale systems = easy to do, this is what a beginner will be making. They're not going the be making a massive, or even medium sized ship when learning. Finally, large scale systems = complicated. A new player shouldn't be able to master the art of creating large ships, hell, they shouldn't be able to master the art of creating small ships. All they need to do, is understand how to design small scale to actually play the game. Mastering late game complexion is actually a gameplay element.

What people fail to understand, is that you need to make the start game simple enough for a beginner to walk right in and learn. Make the late game complex enough that it takes time to learn, and takes much longer to master.

I do like the creative use of colours in your post and the attempt to address issues you see with the idea! Unfortunately I couldn't comment on how good it is

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I absolutely agree that it should be simple to start and become in-depth as the player progresses. That is the actually the primary reason I want to advocate for starting with a relatively small number of core requirements. Say a single reactor to help store the heat while your core dissipates a base amount per tick.

A starting player would then be able to learn how to store and dissipate heat on a base level with only a single block. As they progress through the game they would naturally become curious about an abundant resource clearly labeled Coolant. Clear labels being ever so important to folks who have no clue what is going on. So as they look through the game they will discover that certain plants can become coolant, gas giants contain coolant, there are passive ways to dissipate heat or create tiny amounts of coolant.

Complexity and mastery should come from the depth of options not forced design choices like reactor rods, coolant baths, and rigid bounding boxes. So yeah, in agreement with you on this one, I just feel forcing specific choices creates a rigid meta.

I'm really trying to understand the logic behind the chandelier ships and why they would be more effective in combat. So, why would a ship that puts reactors on spokes and uses the entire volume of it's main hull for systems, be more effective than a ship that places the reactors in the same location relative to each other and it's systems while also filling a volume with systems identical in size to the chandelier ship, but has a conventional hull design?

The conventionally hulled ship will weigh more possibly but that's the only advantage i can see. However, that is also true for RP ships currently, with more hull and armor wasted on interior instead of systems. It's a negligible amount in most cases which is why i feel like i'm missing something.

Arkudo said:

Take this simple phrase on mind:

Current power systems ARE NOT EQUAL to new heat power systems.

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I realize that, but you seem to assume that the new power system is going to require more space to power current systems, which from what I am reading, this is not the case.

Arkudo said:

Remember that phrase for the first post?

More systems = bigger heat, and perhaps the heat gain can not being managed with a figther size reactor.

As i said without a Dev build on the hands talk about is or is not a nerf is like talk about how smells the clouds.

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I seriously doubt that they are going to handicap a fighter that way. I'm running on the assumption that to power current systems in any given ship, you will require less room in your reactor in the new system. Thus, it is a buff.

As an RP player, I like this system; we'll be able to mount a reactor room and the attendant components around it, rather than filling up all the empty spaces between corridor and armor with blocks as though a shield projector were foam insulation. Being able to keep the ship systems distinct and separate within the hull allows for realism which appeals to me.

I don't like building a space craft where none of the parts would be accessible for repair or replacement as in the current system. (My ships have a huge amount of wasted space from a meta perspective, as I build them with a full, functional interior, and already have the systems broken up into sections for the most part.)

Criss said:

Well I believe we disabled docked reactors anyway. Power supply beams cannot fire at their mothership.

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I actually think he was referring to the possibility of this reactor "heat area" being overlappable on docked entities. Another post a few pages back made some excellent points regarding the consequences of both overlap and non overlap.

Personally I'm not in favor of heat areas at all, it adds too many factors to consider that could end up in disaster. When in doubt the simplest solution is often the best. Adding heat in favor energy is great, adding various means of cooling down is great to. But forcing us to use boxes and craziness that may or not may lead to the exact same issue, does not feel at all like a solution.

I'm not saying ride the bleeding edge of Occam's Razor, but at least recognize it's in your back pocket before you sit on it. =)

Beliant said:

maybe melting ice would be very cool, it could be done on assembler or factories

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this is already in game.

Arkudo said:

Figther ship type = around 25 meters, ship focused on thrusters, energy and weapons, other systems at smalls numbers.

Current power system -> To be useless have 2 ways: break the bobby computer or make it overheat.

Heat "power" system -> To be useless have 4 ways: the 2 from above + Get the generator destroyed with a luckyshot or shutdown for generator problem.

*Remember at combat ships loss blocks to understand better the stuff i am triying yo say.


The only ships that are going to be better than now are going to be the big ones [more than 50 metters], that supossing we have the same shield, weapon and armor mechanics than now.

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I agree on the point that considering how it gets damaged is paramount to make sure we do not return to coring, but having critical systems is going to be key to making combat fun (I think anyway).

schema said:

• Keep in mind that the heat boundary box doesn’t go out of the ship dimension box. Putting your reactors on the edge of your ship will make the heat boundary box move till it’s not overlapping with the edges. It’s basically forcing the heat boundary box to be more inside of the ship than the reactor itself.

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While i still cant choose on which side i am, i cannot not to mention that quoted idea is complitely wrong.
Just another forced design choise, but without much sense behind it.
It must be the choice of the builder - to put that reactor deep inside to protect it, while wasting more space because of heat boundry,
OR to place reactors near the outer hull, making them easier targets, but saving space for system blocks.