Breaking the e/sec soft-cap

[cptkickercutleg]

So I've recently started building a large ship with my younger brother, and what quickly became apparent was that with great mass comes greater energy consumption, particularly with the shield nerfs and need for bigger weapons. Within two super-efficient 41,41,41 block generators, we were up to 1.5M regen, but adding another only got me to 1.8M, and that's one hell of a fall-off for mass/regen trade off.
So after searching around for a bit, I gave up for the day, had a few shots and slept on it, and that's when I had a brainwave.

So am I the first person to break the soft cap or am I behind the times? Do you want me to make it public, or alternatively, do you want to post your theory on how to do it?

 

[Krazykat]

one way, for especially large ships, is to have multiple docked ships dedicated to having around 1 mil power regen and a bunch of powersupply beams connected to a logic timer shooting power into mothership

 

[Valiant70]

You're way behind the times. Actually, added power drops off rapidly after 1m e/sec, and has been that way as long as I can remember. Krazykat is quite right. You can use logic to fire the powersupply beams continuously.

 

[Krazykat]

soft-cap means it can be broken, but the efficiency of power blocks is horribly reduced after 1mil

 

[cptkickercutleg]

DingDingDingDing!
We've got a winner here, I've 72(~) 11/11/8 arrays providing me with an extra 2M or so, and yeah, there goes my "I'm a genius!" moment I suppose.
While it's not the first time I've hit the cap, it is the first time it's hit me so hard, as I've never built a 2km ship before.

 

[Krazykat]

It's tough, just think outside the box but remember why the box is there in the first place. If you plan your ship well enough then you'll be fine

 

[Lecic]

I feel that docked generators are cheaty. I mean, the old system was power drain on the mothership to take power from docked generators, and that was fixed.

On my ships that are large enough to the point that going over the soft cap become detrimental, I use massive power tank systems instead of making sure everything I do is instantly regenerated.

 

[Krazykat]

Is it an exploit if we are given all the tools to do this without any real hassle? What use did you have for powersupply beams anyway? What else would you do with logic besides flashy lights and fancy doors?

 

[Lecic]

Is it an exploit if we are given all the tools to do this without any real hassle? What use did you have for powersupply beams anyway? What else would you do with logic besides flashy lights and fancy doors?

Well, someone used it to make an escape pod/torpedo launcher, so that's something. I know Tomino_sama has a firework launcher he built using logic, which also works as an automated swarm missile dispenser.

If schema has started fixing it, and the soft cap exists, clearly we weren't meant to use cheaty things like docked generators to bypass it.

 

[BDLS]

It would be nice if someone from Schine would chime in on this issue, whether its going to stay or not. Building a ship around docked generators then having them broken the next update would create a mass rustling in the jimmies.

 

[Questmark]

Trick I learned is that after building a generator to the 1mil cap the the best way to continue is to just place large blocks of power generators. It seems like after 1.5mil or so structure or x,y,z does really matter the power blocks add the same value per block whether in a generator or a 10x10 block. Just got my first ship past 20 mil regen .

 

[Comr4de]

It would be nice if someone from Schine would chime in on this issue, whether its going to stay or not. Building a ship around docked generators then having them broken the next update would create a mass rustling in the jimmies.

so much this

 

[PizzaPress]

It would be nice if someone from Schine would chime in on this issue, whether its going to stay or not. Building a ship around docked generators then having them broken the next update would create a mass rustling in the jimmies.

I feel it's probably an unintentional(imbalanced) feature, not an exploit. Power-gen is kind of a ship size cap, I would rather see speed be lowered, perhaps even max speed and FTL. Thus, larger ships can be more easily intercepted, and are slower to respond to threats.

The power-supply will likely be removed by proxy when the docked turrets damaging mothership(beam weapons) problem is fixed. At this point, Schema can either code in an exception for powersupply/powerdrain beams, rustling the jimmies of the people who fly fighters. Or, he can let it be, destroying the docked generators, thus rustling the jimmies of capital ship owners. This is somewhat a no-win scenario.

Right now 1 player = 1 pilot = 1 ship. AI could mean 1 player = ∞ pilots = (blocks used/blocks per ship) ships. Then it's gigantism of fleets, not of ships(if we keep the system of diminishing returns, fleets of smaller ships would crush bigger ones easily block for block). Then(could be a few updates ahead, could be beta) a good economy would make you have to do something to get those blocks.

 

[Valiant70]

Right now 1 player = 1 pilot = 1 ship. AI could mean 1 player = ∞ pilots = (blocks used/blocks per ship) ships. Then it's gigantism of fleets, not of ships(if we keep the system of diminishing returns, fleets of smaller ships would crush bigger ones easily block for block). Then(could be a few updates ahead, could be beta) a good economy would make you have to do something to get those blocks.

Heh... Right now I'm planning a droid swarm experiment along those lines.

 

[PizzaPress]

Heh... Right now I'm planning a droid swarm experiment along those lines.

I don't know how well it'll work, I haven't even tried ship AI since I heard it's very dumb. Also, right now, the inaccurate AI will only be useful against a capital ship(although that's the only thing anyone flies in anyway). Waiting for better AI...

 

[JRL101]

Can anyone link me a schematic for a dock-able reactor? or information on the logic setup and what is needs to be worth while? No-one seems to have pictures/video on this thing. All i know is i need a clock. power supply beams, and power.
I dont even mind if its a 1mil reactor. just need to know how it works.

 

[BoerToon]

Within two super-efficient 41,41,41 block generators, we were up to 1.5M regen, but adding another only got me to 1.8M, and that's one hell of a fall-off for mass/regen trade off.

That is not really efficient, my 31x31x31 generates just above 2 mil e / s

Can anyone link me a schematic for a dock-able reactor? or information on the logic setup and what is needs to be worth while?

Use 2 beams and drive them one after the other with a 2.5sec clock, you should be able to get around 1.8mil e/s to your mothership

 

[Proxima_Centauri]

The current power soft cap is right around 2 mil

Not sure when it changed, but it was around 1 mil a long time ago

 

[DrTarDIS]

up to ~2.4 million e/sec: T/Z/X reactors are awesome. After 2.4 you can use Injectors as you found out.

alternatively, you can build the ship with "huge power" in mind from the start, and checkerboard a whole mess of SINGLE BLOCK REACTORS in with shield cap/regen or basic hull as "filler" between them. This is the most efficient "brute force" power from ~2.4 mil/sec up to `infinity

 

[Raisinbat]

Fixing docked reactors wont fix self-powered turrets or other docked weapons, docked shields, docked armor etc.

Power system is completely borked