A few quick observations on the new auxiliary generators...

[Scypio]

Luckily there is now in game tutorial videos.

 

[Olxinos]

I figured it out in under five minutes. I'd venture a guess the rest of the current player base, or least a substantial majority, did the same. I won't argue that in game documentation wouldn't be convenient, but any who cannot (or will not) fathom the basics in an hour or two in the year 2016 is likely to fit into my previous definition.

Well, I'm sure you can figure it out quickly, and I'm sure a lot of people out there can. That's still not a reason to make it cryptic for everyone else. There might be 10 years old playing this game, or people which aren't familiar with games...
Not to mention people asking questions about Starmade mechanics in chat, or poorly built systems on community content (or even on screenshots) really aren't that uncommon (this isn't limited to reactors).

The thing is, Starmade is a game. You can't blame the player for not understanding the rules, and even if you're stubborn about blaming him, it's in the game's best interest to make them as clear and obvious as possible. There are a lot of other games out there that player could play, you can't afford to pass on a player because he wasn't smart enough, this isn't a contest.

For now, it's okay, because Starmade is in alpha, it isn't supposed to be polished. But truth be told, Starmade has one of the worst "tutorial" I've ever seen and the new tutorial videos barely raise the bar... not that they are particularly poorly made, but this is a very old approach to tutorials: you don't want your players to have to read/watch a manual before starting having fun playing the game.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Well, I'm sure you can figure it out quickly, and I'm sure a lot of people out there can. That's still not a reason to make it cryptic for everyone else. There might be 10 years old playing this game, or people which aren't familiar with games...
Not to mention people asking questions about Starmade mechanics in chat, or poorly built systems on community content (or even on screenshots) really aren't that uncommon (this isn't limited to reactors).

The thing is, Starmade is a game. You can't blame the player for not understanding the rules, and even if you're stubborn about blaming him, it's in the game's best interest to make them as clear and obvious as possible. There are a lot of other games out there that player could play, you can't afford to pass on a player because he wasn't smart enough, this isn't a contest.

For now, it's okay, because Starmade is in alpha, it isn't supposed to be polished. But truth be told, Starmade has one of the worst "tutorial" I've ever seen and the new tutorial videos barely raise the bar... not that they are particularly poorly made, but this is a very old approach to tutorials: you don't want your players to have to read/watch a manual before starting having fun playing the game.

I definitely agree about the tutorial videos. Not that I'm against having them included, but it's a poor substitute for encouraging the player to learn by doing, like for example using the quest system.

 

[Dvaren]

People like you will be the death of this game. The same kind of people who defended Docked Reactors, "because they made the game more complex!".

Super Mario Kart may be more your cup of tea if you wish to avoid complexity. Haven't "people like you" ruined enough games with your incessant demands for ease?

It was ridiculous to tell people that they needed Docked Reactors if they want to have decent regen above the soft cap without using a million reactor cubes.

Although we would not argue their faults, pray tell how the idea of a docked reactor in itself is ridiculous?

And its just as ridiculous to make some of the games most basic systems be needlessly over complicated.

Which system(s) do you find needlessly overcomplicated? The developers have been quite clear about the reasoning behind most of the systems. Have you read their articles?

But when the very first thing somebody new to the game needs to do is build a little ship to fart around in and you tell them "oh sorry, you can put down your capacitors in a big cube or whatever shape you want, but not your reactors because reasons.", thats bad game design.

You just explained all that needed explaining to a new player about power in a single sentence at the end of that paragraph, yet you believe a new player would not be able to grasp it or would balk at the "complexity?"

So you are telling me its okay to alienate new players, so long as the experienced players are happy?

And where did these experienced players come from, many of which defend the game's complexity, if not from new players? Have you asked them if they often feel/felt alienated? Perhaps if relative complexity and minorly steep learning curves alienate one, this game is not for them. There are plenty of Farmville clones on Android that would welcome them warmly.
[doublepost=1473812719,1473812336][/doublepost]

Well, I'm sure you can figure it out quickly, and I'm sure a lot of people out there can. That's still not a reason to make it cryptic for everyone else. There might be 10 years old playing this game, or people which aren't familiar with games...
Not to mention people asking questions about Starmade mechanics in chat, or poorly built systems on community content (or even on screenshots) really aren't that uncommon (this isn't limited to reactors).

The thing is, Starmade is a game. You can't blame the player for not understanding the rules, and even if you're stubborn about blaming him, it's in the game's best interest to make them as clear and obvious as possible. There are a lot of other games out there that player could play, you can't afford to pass on a player because he wasn't smart enough, this isn't a contest.

For now, it's okay, because Starmade is in alpha, it isn't supposed to be polished. But truth be told, Starmade has one of the worst "tutorial" I've ever seen and the new tutorial videos barely raise the bar... not that they are particularly poorly made, but this is a very old approach to tutorials: you don't want your players to have to read/watch a manual before starting having fun playing the game.

There are 10 year olds who play chess, many quite adeptly, and I'd venture a guess that mastery...proficiency even...in chess far exceeds Starmade in complexity. Shall we water chess down to checkers so those incapable or uninterested can participate? =)

Also, this is 2016, not 1999, and information on this game, much of it professionally presented, is readily available in multiple places and in multiple formats. Not every game need be a handholding session. There is plenty of this available currently and boatloads more on the horizon. Many of us have been waiting for something truly challenging, and for now at least, this is it.

They have their checkers. Leave us our chess.

 

[Sen OTS Tier]

There are 10 year olds who play chess, many quite adeptly, and I'd venture a guess that mastery...proficiency even...in chess far exceeds Starmade in complexity. Shall we water chess down to checkers so those incapable or uninterested can participate? =)

Also, this is 2016, not 1999, and information on this game, much of it professionally presented, is readily available in multiple places and in multiple formats. Not every game need be a handholding session. There is plenty of this available currently and boatloads more on the horizon. Many of us have been waiting for something truly challenging, and for now at least, this is it.

They have their checkers. Leave us our chess.

Every chess set I've seen at a general store comes with an instruction booklet.

 

[Madman198237]

Every chess set I've seen at a general store comes with an instruction booklet.

Just gonna point out, that the instructions do not guarantee instant mastery. For a good reason.

 

[Sen OTS Tier]

Just gonna point out, that the instructions do not guarantee instant mastery. For a good reason.

Of course. In the same way, a tutorial only needs explain the basic behavior of the blocks. It doesn't need to tell them how to min-max.

 

[Jojomo]

For now, it's okay, because Starmade is in alpha, it isn't supposed to be polished. But truth be told, Starmade has one of the worst "tutorial" I've ever seen and the new tutorial videos barely raise the bar... not that they are particularly poorly made, but this is a very old approach to tutorials: you don't want your players to have to read/watch a manual before starting having fun playing the game.

As a new player, I pretty much agree. The documentation side of StarMade is definitely weak. I learnt what I needed to know by watching Youtube videos, as the tutorials and documentation that come with the game (and even in the wiki) were insufficient.

I assume this is because of the game's Alpha status - no-one wants to spend too much time on documentaion for things that could change later, and time spent on documentation means less time developing. I guess the situation will be different at release.

 

[Bladeriker]

so here is a question I have, as I have yet to test this new power system out.

If I have more than one Aux power system, is there more than one button for it? or is all the Aux systems linked to one button?

 

[Olxinos]

Bladeriker
All of them are linked to one button.

 

[Panpiper]

Am I perhaps missing something? Is there any reason why we would want to have such aux reactors off? And if there is no advantage from having them off, why bother having them be in an on or off state at all? Just make them always on, no?

 

[Captain Tankman]

depends on what you need. If you simply wanna have a higher power regen, then yes, you can have them always on. But if you just need some back-up or one-time extra power boost, e.g. for just launching one heavy missile, then you can have them toggled off

 

[nightrune]

I'd like to see the on/off distinction a bit more meaningful, but we'll see how things progress as the game goes.

 

[terra mining corp.]

are the aux blocks less volatile in the off state?

 

[Lecic]

Am I perhaps missing something? Is there any reason why we would want to have such aux reactors off? And if there is no advantage from having them off, why bother having them be in an on or off state at all? Just make them always on, no?

If you have an alpha weapon, you can fire off your first volley and quickly refill your tanks from the auxiliary's tanks.

are the aux blocks less volatile in the off state?

I've heard they are, but I haven't tested it.

 

[Panpiper]

If you have an alpha weapon, you can fire off your first volley and quickly refill your tanks from the auxiliary's tanks.

I dunno. Maybe I've been away from the game too long. The last ship I built was a beast that 'needed' no less than 40 docked power reactors to do it's job. Leaving them off line, it wouldn't have been able to even power it's shields, let alone move. I suppose it might make a small amount of sense for a much smaller ship that would have the equivalent of one or two such reactors, but I suspect the VAST majority of people will turn them on, leave them on, and build as if they were always on.

 

[Lecic]

I dunno. Maybe I've been away from the game too long. The last ship I built was a beast that 'needed' no less than 40 docked power reactors to do it's job. Leaving them off line, it wouldn't have been able to even power it's shields, let alone move. I suppose it might make a small amount of sense for a much smaller ship that would have the equivalent of one or two such reactors, but I suspect the VAST majority of people will turn them on, leave them on, and build as if they were always on.

Oh, yeah, definitely. This is only something that works with ships that have enough power generation to move without auxiliaries.

 

[Nickizzy]

There are 10 year olds who play chess, many quite adeptly,

He means 10 by skill, not by age. The vast majority of game confusion comes from clueless adults, not preteens, simply because the preteens have grown up playing minecraft or whatever. I've shown some of my less game savy friends games and they're waaaaaaaaay more clueless than just about any teen or even pre-teenagers that I've seen(there aren't that many, but that means the ones that do are the ones that are into it).

As for having aux as boosters, it's a good idea to get around alpha damage. You need separate weapon systems so you don't go over you power cap, but you can send a trio of shoots off in a much more manageable timeframe.

 

[GRHayes]

After some quick and sloppy testing, a few quick facts for those who haven't done their own:

(1) The new power blocks stack bonuses the same as capacitors, not reactors, so group them all together up to the soft cap, not in line patterns.

(2) There is a soft cap, it seems to be 289 power per block, and it is achieved somewhere in the range of 7200 blocks in a single group. The power will still increase from here, but the power per block ratio will slowly decline as their numbers increase. This cap is per group, so multiple groups will work fine and surpass the soft cap.

(3) The new power blocks add a button to your hotbar that you can activate/deactivate

(4) The new power blocks do not seem to work with logic, but I only tested it with an activator block so far. Sigh.

(5) The new power blocks act as a capacitor which slowly charges when off or quickly charges when turned on and will discharge its full load into your system in about 8 seconds. If the amount being transferred is larger than the amount the ship needs or has capacity for, you lose the excess.

(6) After transferring its full load to the ship, the new power blocks will continue to provide power regeneration as long as they're kept active.

(7) 7200 power blocks will provide about 1.25m per sec and an initial dump of around 8.8 million. Not exactly the model of power generating efficiency.

(8) The new power blocks do not remember their last state, so if you leave them on when you log off, they will be off when you log back in.

There is some poor labeling or explanation as to what the actual values mean.
The off rate is the actual power produced continuously. Yes, it will produce that much power even in the on state.
The on power isn't how much power is produced at all it would be better labeled as discharge rate. The rate at which it will discharge the capacitance.

I don't consider these even a near reasonable replacement for docked power.
Docked power is all about gaining continuous power not intermittent power. It is about having a constantly large power system.

There is also another misconception. Docked power does not always require a beam to transfer power. Docked power can transfer power up stream with no beam at all.
Build a primary ship with its own power system. Then dock a power supply to that frame. Then connect whatever you want to supply power to to the docked power system.

While docked power systems are target-able they are also capable of producing massively larger amounts of power. Which means they can provide greater shielding power, carry more armor. You can also provide greater protection to the docked area.

Aux Power systems do no produce enough power to adequately shield and protect themselves let alone provide thrust for their added mass.
Not just that they create an added risk and are harder to protect.
To get the max efficiency out of them you have to create a massive target. The larger the groups the larger the explosions and ship structure damage can be. The larger the groups the larger the space and armor needed to prevent explosion cutting to other areas. I know that because I built compartmentalized groups and tested it and watched the explosion blow through from group to group with various armor and sized groups and so on.

It isn't like you can use their power to boost the shields or anything. Any power not used when it is discharging or captured is simply lost.
So to effectively use an aux system you have to have enough normal caps to catch that power.

With 7200 blocks of the aux you can get around 245,000 continual power generation. You will have to leave it in the on state to make use of it all the time. In the off state it does not reach the external systems. You can however charge the capacitance of the aux in the off state then dump that back into the primary system.

Docked power system. Upstream use.
899 reactors 999 caps 1 core 1 dock 1 rail. produces 1,494,000 e/sec. that is 785 per block continuous power.


Docked power system
pros:
Can be chained, can provide continuous power unlimited
Can provide enough power to shield and protect itself
Is considered a separate entity from primary ship
Easy to replace
negs:
Can come undocked while in combat

Aux power system
Pros:
Provides some aux power greater intermittent and much smaller continuous
Negs:
Must be large group size to make use of producing large target area.
Volatile explosively destructive, must be isolated from not only itself but other parts of ship. A rather small amount of damage can result in massive damage to ship structure causing loss of ship.
Does not produce enough power to provide shielding / protection for itself with thrust. (In other words it can provide an adequate amount of power to protect-self and whatever protection is used to protect it provide power to move that protection.)
It also isn't good as a power boost to use weapons because it requires manual turning on and off. maybe if multiple weapons could be linked to it for added power that would help.
It will never be useful for continued weapons fire.
Even as an auxiliary system the charge rate is far to slow.


(Personal opinion because of the volatile nature of these I couldn't justify putting it in a ship if that charge rate was raised to 2000 per block.
Maybe, if the combat shield recharge rate was raised to 100% and the primary charge rate of shielding was doubled to provide adequate protection.) Right now the auxiliary power system reminds me of ammo storage or boiler systems that could destroy their own ship.

Simple conclusion at the end of testing. I can find no valid reason to ever use the auxiliary power system on a ship having weighed the pros and cons under the current values being used.

An auxiliary power system of this nature is not a continuous power system thus should never even have been considered for replacing the docked power system which are entirely about continuous power. It has never been an issue of wanting a short term boost in power.
[doublepost=1474039962,1474039103][/doublepost]Can you imagine what it would take with the aux system to replace the following docked power supply. Remember these produce continuous power. I have a ship I am building with 5 of these in it. Plus the primary hull has its own power system.
In truth I could dock the 5 together and come off the last one and get a combined amount of power. There are no beams used in this power transfer system at all.

 

[Panpiper]

When I last played the game, I had spent a considerable amount of time and effort building a battleship sized planet eater (pictured a few posts above), that was more than capable of defending itself versus anything short of a titan. It was designed to, among other things, also be reasonably pleasant to fly with very good acceleration for it's size. I then flew it around for a week, eating planets and asteroids to accumulate enough minerals to build a proper titan. That's when I left to play another game, then the cargo update came out and I lost all the minerals.

From what GRHayes is saying:

The off rate is the actual power produced continuously. Yes, it will produce that much power even in the on state.
The on power isn't how much power is produced at all it would be better labeled as discharge rate. The rate at which it will discharge the capacitance.

It appears then that it will be effectively impossible for me to go into that planet eater of mine and replace the 40 docked power systems with some configuration of these new aux generators, and then still fly my ship. If the 'on' state actually generated continuously the listed power, I could indeed do so. But if that listed rate is indeed simply the discharge rate, not the continuous generation rate, then these aux generators are VASTLY inferior to docked power systems.

My sub-titan planet eater absolutely requires the power generated by those 40 docked power systems in order to operate. It literally will not be able to fly if it can only gets that power flow for eight seconds, and then has to wait immobile, for the aux system to fill back up.

From what I then gather, Titans, or ships anywhere even close to that scale, are for all intents now out of the game. Docked reactors are out of the game and aux generators are next to useless to replace their function. The largest ships that will be even remotely practical will be a tenth that scale and they will be slugboats at just 50K mass for lack of power. Realistically 10K mass ships will be the largest anyone will actually fly.

So not only have I lost the materials for a titan, not only have I lost even the theoretical capacity to rekindle that ambition, even the ship I've already got is now a useless, unflyable hulk good only for cannibalization to build a fleet of much smaller ships.

Have I got it right?