Challenge: Smallest 1,000,000 power/s reactor.

[Nootau]

When cloaking only the ship does, not what is docked to it.

 

[Calbiri]

not automatically without drain beams.

You must manually fire drain beams at each docked ship

 

[Zaflis]

Doesn\'t that mean, that you can\'t be firing antimatter cannons same time you are regenerating? Turrets could use that ship power though, but has to be quite hefty turrets for 6m power.

 

[Brawndoolz]

Just to add my meager findings to this thread, I made a 23x23x23 cube based on Moph\'s design and managed to beat the 1,032,193.3 e/sec shown on the image by a little bit. I managed to get 1,039,875.9 e/sec (7682.6 e/sec more) by fiddling with the connections between the two halves. I haven\'t yet figured out how to upload my blueprint for anyone interested. :S If someone is super interested, let me know and if I can\'t find a way to upload it, I could make a diagram (shouldn\'t be toooo hard...).

I wonder what ThyLordRoot\'s reactor breeder program would yield for a 23x23x23 reactor? http://star-made.org/content/reactor-breeder-genetic-algorithm-reactor-design

I am having trouble finding more information on the forum about the \"compound\" reactors WiskeyEcho and Calibri mentioned. I would really like to learn more about how to properly build such a reactor. I will check out the livestream when I can, but is there a place/link where I could find more info?

Also, Calibri, I saw your Valhala on the Thunderdome twitch channel and it was amazing! Great work!

 

[Moph]

Ah well done, congrats! I\'d love to see how you approached the connections between the two halves. Thinking back to it now, I think there were some parts in there which were less then 9 blocks long, which might be better off as single blocks instead, was that something you tried?

 

[War Dog]

Turn rate is dictated by the ship\'s dimensions? I thought it was based purely on mass.

Firing the power beams manually might be inefficient, but what if someone else manned the controls of said reactor \"ship\"?

 

[Nootau]

Mass is the only thing that matters when turning speeds are in question. It has been tested.

 

[Moph]

With regards to the co-pilot using the power drain beams. Yes, nice idea, you could probably have something like that happening. It would be a hugely boring job though, so I can\'t imagine many people sitting there doing that for long. I suppose that would bring bots into the question.. in game AI bots to do it, or client bots (dodgy area)?

 

[Brawndoolz]

Thanks! Yeah, I think so. Here is what I did. Each half is made up of either L shaped tracks or T-shaped corner tracks, so I figured that I should try to connect each track in one half to a track in another such that the two together cover as much x+y+z dimensions as possible. I only did so with the tracks \"exposed\" on the surfaces facing the other half. So I went about finding where I could put single power blocks to connect the pairs. I don\'t know if I did it the best way possible. I didn\'t connect the two center T-shaped corner tracks together since doing so meant two other tracks couldn\'t be connected together (at least I couldn\'t figure it out right away and I haven\'t tried since). I hope this makes sense... I have included a link to a screenshot towards the end of the post that might make more sense.

After I connected the pairs of tracks, I put single blocks in between the two halves at places which would not touch or connect any other power blocks (connecting to other blocks either decreased the power output or increased the power output by less than 1 e/s). I think this added about 50 energy per block added this way.

Here is a screenshot of the reactor with one of the halves removed and the inter-half connections shown.

http://i.imgur.com/IvmIt0P.png

Here is a screenshot of the whole thing showing its power production!

http://i.imgur.com/qE2Tp8I.png

How did you do it? I couldn\'t figure out how to do it from your picture, so that\'s how I ended up doing my own way. Hehe. I am going to try to make \"compound\" reactors now with power beams and the like. I hope I can figure out some good setups.

 

[Moph]

Wow, very nice, well done! I\'ll have to read this a couple of times, I\'m not sure where the T shaped bit could go, but it looks as if we\'ve started it from the centre a bit differently too. I notice you have left a 1 block gap between the two interlocking 3D Ls at the centre? In my one they are actually touching, so effectively there\'s a centre 2x2x2 block which doesn\'t feel all that great (perhaps this can be improved upon), but it means instead of the 3D Ls only reaching 3 of the sides, it\'s turned into a large cross which reaches all 6 sides. I was a bit unsure about this at first, but I tried it with a different reactor challenge and it worked really well. It\'s better suited to reactor blocks of even dimensions though, like 22x22x22 or 24x24x24, so I had to shave a few edges off mine to meet the requirements of the challenge.
I think this is the difference where you were able to use T shapes, and I used (I\'m gonna call them) chopsticks. I\'m assuming that 1 block gap makes those T shapes fit in really well.

Good job!
Looking forward to seeing some of those compound reactors too. Sounds like that could be a load of fun too, but a huuuuge time sink considering the size of the ship needed to go with it.

 

[Keptick]

How does power generation work after the 1mil soft cap has been reached?

 

[Heillos]

FYI, the last post in this thread is 3 months old, I believe that\'s considered \'necroposting\' around here, as the thread is not stickied and has been quiet for so long.

Anyway, to answer your question, after hitting the (approximately) 1 million e/sec soft cap, power blocks, even in efficient configurations, start to become less and less effective, until each new block placed is worth only 25 e/sec each. Once you\'re certainly at the point where your new blocks are 25 e/sec, or perhaps before, depending on how finnicky you are, you have two options to increase your power regen: Solid lumps of power blocks, because efficient configurations are now useless, or set up some of Calbiri\'s docked reactors.

Moph\'s design in a 23^3 volume is essentially what I myself stumbled upon whilst building, and, for something created by a human alone, is about as good as it gets. With something such as the Reactor Breeder tool, though, I imagine that 1 million e/sec could be squished into a smaller volume, albeit in a way totally unintuitive to a human being.

 

[Inspired2150]

Nootau

This is false, When you cloak - all your turrets cloak with you, not sure about docked ships, but I assume they cloak as well.

 

[Lecic]

I think this post is still relevant. Plenty of people would benefit from this thread.

 

[MarkUS_5]

And now i need some help understanding...

I\'m right now building my 23^3 generator...
I haven\'t even finished a half of it(more like a third), but am currently at 431805 e/s.
was there some big changes in powergenerator mechanics i missed?

 

[Krosulhah]

Almost as dead as the jet in this painting infact.

 

[MarkUS_5]

know anything more about?