Heat/Cooling as an alternative to stabilizers and reactor HP

[Valiant70]

This inspired me to come up with an entirely new and rather interesting mechanic for reactors.

Rename stabilizers to heat sinks

Require 1 heat sink per reactor block.

What counts is the distance between heat-sink group to heat-sink group.
One heat-sink group may only contribute to X, Y or Z distance and it is additive (see below for details).

These heat-sinks could also be required for thruster blocks or other system blocks - dunno it's just a thought.

Finally, those heat-sinks need to be connected via conduits and be placed far enough away from the system they cool.
The xyz delta defines whether they belong to x, y or z, whatever the longest. EDIT: and + or - xyz

Optionally: Require x hull/armour blocks per system block.

I put this in bullet point format to make it quick and easy to read. It would be a heavy read in paragraph form.

• Replacement for stabilizer mechanic:
  • Reactors generate heat depending on how much power is produced.
  • Heat sinks allow you to soak up more heat before overheating, and also dissipate heat.
  • The farther heat sinks are from the reactor and each other, the faster they cool. Larger groups and close-together groups provide less cooling, but provide the same amount of capacity.
  • Heat sinks are connected by conduits so they can't be built as islands. Destroying conduits reduces cooling speed (but not heat capacity) of the connected group linearly with number of blocks destroyed. This is a tradeoff between efficiency and defense.
• Replacement for reactor HP - goes well with the above.
  • Reactor heat becomes an indication of how close to dying you are. You can overheat yourself, or be overheated by damage.
  • Destroying system blocks adds heat, and lots of it. As a result, alpha damage is strong against fast cooling. Sustained damage is strong against high heat capacity.
  • EDIT: Destroying reactor blocks adds a tremendous amount of heat. It's like a headshot in first person shooters.
  • Hull, armor, and system blocks add some additional capacity, but no cooling. (If you wanted to get complicated, maybe hull could provide cooling if connected via conduits. This wouldn't be very efficient as hull is usually one huge group. We can discuss balance implications.)
  • Ships become dead in the water when the reactor overheats. Random explosions occur during this time depending on how far over the limit heat is. Heat will increase if additional systems are destroyed, and decrease if the ship is shot with an astrotech or salvage beam (the latter just helps you get more salvage). If heat is brought down sufficiently, explosions will stop and the ship can be rebooted to restore control.

I may edit in further discussion down here.
[doublepost=1513192981,1513192924][/doublepost]Lecic , look! Mechanics that actually DO something and don't seem artificial!
[doublepost=1513193559][/doublepost]An additional idea, similar to this: The Merits of Small, Cuboid Exclusion zones around systems

Putting systems up against other groups of systems causes them to generate extra heat when they consume power. (You can put them against hull/deco without penalty.)

This is a quality-of-life improvement. It's easier to work on ships when you have a gap so you can see what goes where. This mechanic removes the functional disadvantage of such a gap and makes things easier on ship builders. In other words, this exists solely to make ships easier to work on.

 

[petlahk]

This inspired me to come up with an entirely new and rather interesting mechanic for reactors.


I put this in bullet point format to make it quick and easy to read. It would be a heavy read in paragraph form.

• Replacement for stabilizer mechanic:
  • Reactors generate heat depending on how much power is produced.
  • Heat sinks allow you to soak up more heat before overheating, and also dissipate heat.
  • The farther heat sinks are from the reactor and each other, the faster they cool. Larger groups and close-together groups are less efficient at cooling, but provide the same amount of capacity.
  • Heat sinks are connected by conduits so they can't be built as islands. Destroying conduits reduces cooling speed (but not heat capacity) of the connected group linearly with number of blocks destroyed. This is a tradeoff between efficiency and defense.
• Replacement for reactor HP - goes well with the above.
  • Reactor heat becomes an indication of how close to dying you are. You can overheat yourself, or be overheated by damage.
  • Destroying system blocks adds heat, and lots of it. As a result, alpha damage is strong against fast cooling. Sustained damage is strong against high heat capacity.
  • Hull, armor, and system blocks add some additional capacity, but no cooling. (If you wanted to get complicated, maybe hull could provide cooling if connected via conduits. This wouldn't be very efficient as hull is usually one huge group. We can discuss balance implications.)
  • Ships become dead in the water when the reactor overheats. Random explosions occur during this time depending on how far over the limit heat is. Heat will increase if additional systems are destroyed, and decrease if the ship is shot with an astrotech or salvage beam (the latter just helps you get more salvage). If heat is brought down sufficiently, explosions will stop and the ship can be rebooted to restore control.

I may edit in further discussion down here.
[doublepost=1513192981,1513192924][/doublepost]Lecic , look! Mechanics that actually DO something and don't seem artificial!

To be honest. I think this might turn out to be the best solution. The biggest struggle in convincing devs and people to implement is this knee-jerk reaction toward hating the idea of needing to connect things with conduits.

Lets look at what issues this proposal solves:

• Stabilizers being arbitrary and serving no interesting purpose.
• Making reactors more interesting.
• Allowing for more interesting and complex reactor design.
• The main issues surrounding the original developer heat mechanic.

Additionally this proposal:

• Actually gives credence to the term "overheat". It's always been kind of silly that a core could overheat without anything actually overheating.
• Re-purposes system HP to make more sense than just "system HP".
  
• Gives additional uses to armor and other systems than just being armor or additional systems.
• Makes overall ship design more interesting due to needing to plan out systems and conduits.
• Gives astrotech beams and support ships an actual purpose.

I feel like the post needs to clarify that the "efficiency" would be "heat efficiency" in the first mention of it.
Shortly before you posted this I had the idea of "what if armor served as heat-sinks?" and I'm happy to see that your idea is here. It was smart of you to mention that armor might give lower returns on heat capacity due to it's scale. Also, it could make for a nice reactor chamber effect. An effect that lets armor count toward heat capacity.

I think that if this were put into place in conjunction with your ideas for scaling exclusion zones (The Merits of Small, Cuboid Exclusion zones around systems) it would give the developers what they want, and the community what they want. Those wants being diminishing system packing, and making the reactor system more interesting in conjunction with removing stabilizers.

This proposal keeps the basic ideas of stabilizers while actually making them a different mechanic. With heat the stabilizers are noticeably separate from power generation. They don't affect generation so much as improve ship survivability. If it were insisted on by the developers then there could be a certain minimum requirement for heat dissipation and capacity based on reactor size. However, I think it should be more of a mechanic to be used in conjunction with the reactors than a requirement for reactors.

Thank you for your post Valiant. It's very well thought out and could conceivably be a mechanic of incentive rather than a forced mechanic.

 

[Valiant70]

I feel like the post needs to clarify that the "efficiency" would be "heat efficiency" in the first mention of it.

I've reworded that part accordingly.

knee-jerk reaction toward hating the idea of needing to connect things with conduits.

Some folks won't be crazy about it, but it does serve a very real balancing purpose. The ability to retain some function when the conduits are damaged serves both as a compromise and as a quality-of-life improvement.

It was smart of you to mention that armor might give lower returns on heat capacity due to it's scale.

I was referring to cooling, not capacity. That's only if someone can figure out how to balance hull/armor acting as a heat sink. Armor would provide a decent amount of heat capacity either way.

If it were insisted on by the developers then there could be a certain minimum requirement for heat dissipation and capacity based on reactor size. However, I think it should be more of a mechanic to be used in conjunction with the reactors than a requirement for reactors.

I really don't think that's necessary. If you have no cooling capacity, your shields' power drain will cause you to overheat after a short while. Doing ANYTHING besides sit there will make it happen faster. You need a certain amount of cooling to operate. I think most ships will be designed to out-cool their own reactor by at least a little bit so that you can't overheat without taking damage.

I think that if this were put into place in conjunction with your ideas for scaling exclusion zones (The Merits of Small, Cuboid Exclusion zones around systems) it would give the developers what they want, and the community what they want. Those wants being diminishing system packing, and making the reactor system more interesting in conjunction with removing stabilizers.

That would be a more complicated way to accomplish this:

Putting systems up against other groups of systems causes them to generate extra heat when they consume power. (You can put them against hull/deco without penalty.)

This is a quality-of-life improvement. It's easier to work on ships when you have a gap so you can see what goes where. This mechanic removes the functional disadvantage of such a gap and makes things easier on ship builders. In other words, this exists solely to make ships easier to work on.

Simple has its own merits, but the exclusion box helps to equalize different shapes while preventing extreme ones, so I'm not sure which is better.

Additional thoughts:

This heat system gives ship design a higher "skill cap" than it would otherwise have, which is good. It brings back part of the puzzle aspect that the old power system had. On the other hand, it's not horribly difficult to make something that works pretty well. It's just hard to make it perfectly optimal, or make it have exactly the characteristics you want. It's also set up in such a way that it's a challenge I would enjoy taking on, not something that's just going to be a pain.

This system will tend to give ships with interior the ability to sustain more damage before overheating. This helps to balance minmaxing versus interior, just like the old structure HP system did. That's still not perfect, but it helps.

This suggestion covers both of the main problems that aesthetic building had in the past:

• Projecting structures tended to be more weight than they were worth. - Now they offer opportunities for cooling.
• Interior added too much weight in power 2.0 - Now the weight comes with durability like in power 1.0. In fact the added durability may be even more valuable since it allows you to continue operating longer without committing heat suicide.

 

[petlahk]

I was referring to cooling, not capacity. That's only if someone can figure out how to balance hull/armor acting as a heat sink. Armor would provide a decent amount of heat capacity either way.

Whoops. My bad. Should I make an edit? I still agree with it though.

If you have no cooling capacity, your shields' power drain will cause you to overheat after a short while. Doing ANYTHING besides sit there will make it happen faster. You need a certain amount of cooling to operate.

Just to double-check, and clarify for other folks. Cooling-efficiency is how quickly heat is transferred out of the reactor into the capacity. Capacity is how much total heat from systems that can be stored. And, if Cooling-efficiency is low enough then it bites into reactor efficiency? Or does reactor efficiency only drop if there is nowhere for the heat to go anymore?

Also, are you saying that shields would drop because the reactor can't power them, or because they, themselves aren't dissipating enough heat?

That would be a more complicated way to accomplish this:

That was really dumb of me. I missed it in first reading.

Interior added too much weight in power 2.0 - Now the weight comes with durability like in power 1.0. In fact the added durability may be even more valuable since it allows you to continue operating longer without committing heat suicide.

Especially if hull/armor contributes to cooling efficiency. Smart.

 

[Nosajimiki]

LOVE IT!!! now this is what we've been looking for, or what I have anyway. It's complex, unrestrictive, and answers the long dog-eared question about how to make armor more relevant. You could actually drop exclusion zones BTW with this idea because it rewards, bigger, more open hulls intrinsically. Ie: a stuffed hull would have less room to stretch out your heatsinks and less room for armor to soak heat. I also like that it blends the critical element of getting reactor sniped from power 2.0 without undervaluing attrition damage of missile nuking.

Forcing conduits to your heat sinks is also a good way to prevent ppl from just floating a giant ring of spaghetti heatsinks out into space since you could just waffle gun the connections away.

Only thing I'd like to add is that heat sinks should have an optimal size and spacing where either end of extremes (millions of one block sinks in a sphere around your ship or two really big ones really far apart) would be sub-optimal.

 

[Valiant70]

Just to double-check, and clarify for other folks. Cooling-efficiency is how quickly heat is transferred out of the reactor into the capacity. Capacity is how much total heat from systems that can be stored. And, if Cooling-efficiency is low enough then it bites into reactor efficiency? Or does reactor efficiency only drop if there is nowhere for the heat to go anymore?

Nope, all wrong. Heat transfers to heat sinks instantly. Cooling efficiency is how fast heat sinks get rid of the heat they absorb from the reactor. If they can’t get rid of it, they “fill up” and the system overheats.

 

[petlahk]

Only thing I'd like to add is that heat sinks should have an optimal size and spacing where either end of extremes (millions of one block sinks in a sphere around your ship or two really big ones really far apart) would be sub-optimal.

The former issue of single blocks is sort of counteracted by needing the conduits to link to them. You'd have to have a conduit between each single block, at which point you'd be better off just making it a group. Maybe it could be made into an integrity thing, but in a way I'm not sure that integrity should apply to the sinks. A) Because the sinks just store energy and don't actually serve a different system purpose. And B) because heat-sinks are a thing that actually should be spread out in strands.

As for the second issue, I'm not sure that it is an issue. Having two big heat-sinks would be a design choice. They would be easy to hit once found (large) and the conduits would also need to be spread out more. If it does for some reason turn out to be an issue it could be diminished through having conduit heat-efficiency decrease at extreme distances.
[doublepost=1513198719,1513198614][/doublepost]

Nope, all wrong. Heat transfers to heat sinks instantly. Cooling efficiency is how fast heat sinks get rid of the heat they absorb from the reactor. If they can’t get rid of it, they “fill up” and the system overheats.

Alright. That makes sense.

 

[Skwidz]

Best idea for the power system! I hope the devs do this. Instead of getting rid of all the heat why not use it? The conduits could take excess heat out of the reactor, pump it into turbines which generate extra energy from it, and then the rest of the excess heat is pumped into a radiator setup. Also maybe the turbines could be reconfigured to generate more energy for a specific system and therefore provide a bonus to that system. That would pretty much replace chambers which don't make much sense in real life (yes, I know it's not), unless they are chambers containing booster computer stuff using particles from the reactor. Maybe they could be alternatives to each other with the turbines being readily craftable, cheap, and inefficient and the chambers being obtained as mentioned before but far better and a little more expensive than turbines?

 

[Valiant70]

Additional idea that ties into this: Heat-based stealth and detection. You're easier to detect the more heat you're venting. Design chambers around this idea. I could do a writeup of a brainstorm when I'm not so busy.

 

[Non]

First off: I like this idea a lot more than I thought I would going into it.

Generally this has the same issue as stabilizers in that distances and efficiencies will need a lot of testing to find reasonable values.

As a result, alpha damage is strong against fast cooling. Sustained damage is strong against high heat capacity.

Not quite bud, in the same way that more shield regen is the best way to shield tank, faster cooling will be the best way to survive damage in general.

What I want in a new power system is the ability to have multiple active reactors on my ship so that I don't have to place my reactor in a super predictable place to be efficient. This is a lot better than current dev build power in that regard, but still not what I would like. I generally see no reason why I am only allowed one active reactor on a ship other than to support the chamber system, especially if there are no explicit efficiency gains like in the current power system with soft cap. Would you be willing to pair this with Zoolimar's idea of having chambers be based on the relevant system size rather than reactor size? (for the purpose of removing the need for chambers being connected to reactors)

Good suggestion, but don't antagonize Lecic.
[doublepost=1513210124,1513209992][/doublepost]

Destroying reactor blocks adds a tremendous amount of heat. It's like a headshot in first person shooters.

If done incorrectly, this gets dangerously close to coring.

 

[Lecic]

This could work well.

I think allowing armor to work as a heat sink is essential, as armor tanks will be taking more block damage than a shield tank will. Thus, they NEED the extra heat capacity and dissipation that some armor would give them.

I see some risk of spaghetti but as long as the numbers are balanced right I don't think it would be encouraged, and proximity explosive weapons would make short work of super long conduits.

As for ship HP, I think I would much prefer we stick with the current SHP system rather than an RHP or Heat HP (HHP) system. I think RHP is effectively "new coring" and HHP doesn't sit right with me. Heat causes damage, it isn't THE damage. Heat should be a separate bar that fills up from the things you've listed (and stars) and causes random star damage type explosions when it's maxed out. The more over heated you are the stronger these explosions are.

 

[Valiant70]

I think RHP is effectively "new coring"

Yep.

Heat should be a separate bar that fills up from the things you've listed (and stars) and causes random star damage type explosions when it's maxed out.

Then you've got to keep track of two things that can kill you. Your health, and another bar that wrecks your health if it fills. I'd prefer to have just one.

Additionally, if we use a somewhat Mass Effect-inspired stealth/detection system, this would play into it. The better you're stealthed, the more heat you have to soak up to avoid venting it. When you leave stealth, you're in a precarious position where taking just a few hits (or one big one) to your systems will overheat your reactor. If you don't neutralize your enemy with that first alpha volley, you will find yourself in a very bad situation.

This helps to balance out a possible meta of "de-stealth and ALPHA THEM TO BITS!" without making ambushes impossible (by making stealth not good enough) or pointless (by preventing stealth ships from carrying meaningful firepower). It turns the "assassin" tactic into a high-risk, high-reward scenario as it should be.
[doublepost=1513215747,1513215286][/doublepost]Add to this that stealth ships will have to be purpose-built with large amounts of heat capacity in order to stay stealthed very long and accomplish anything while stealthed. More heat sinks; more weight; more thrusters. More thrusters means more power used when you fire them, and more heat generated, which reduces your viable stealth time. To make matters worse, your shields constantly drain power to maintain, so you have to minimize them to maximize stealth time.

I predict that stealth ships would generally be slow armor tanks, possibly with one or two really big weapons if they're meant for ambush.

 

[Lecic]

Then you've got to keep track of two things that can kill you. Your health, and another bar that wrecks your health if it fills. I'd prefer to have just one.

Mostly I dislike using heat as the sole HP system because it doesn't directly correlate to block damage to the actual ship. All the stuff you listed about stealth being extremely dangerous because you can get overheated easily still applies to using a SHP system, it's just instead of instant death you start taking heavy, potentially lethal damage.

 

[Dire Venom]

Mostly I dislike using heat as the sole HP system because it doesn't directly correlate to block damage to the actual ship. All the stuff you listed about stealth being extremely dangerous because you can get overheated easily still applies to using a SHP system, it's just instead of instant death you start taking heavy, potentially lethal damage.

I agree with this. As it is a key component of your ship I think it is vital to has it easily accesable by the player.
I mean we no longer have power capcity, so we can replace that bar with it :P Just have a simple numerical display for power. A bar that never moves does nothing for the player.

That being said I would love to see more ways to add info to our hud, e.g where the heat is coming from and what systems are taking up the most power at any given time without having to look through menus.

 

[Valiant70]

Mostly I dislike using heat as the sole HP system because it doesn't directly correlate to block damage to the actual ship. All the stuff you listed about stealth being extremely dangerous because you can get overheated easily still applies to using a SHP system, it's just instead of instant death you start taking heavy, potentially lethal damage.

Quite honestly, I'd rather SHP be applied to each system individually. Destroy enough of it, and that subsystem goes offline until the ship is rebooted. That way, overheating a ship and blowing it up isn't the only way to end a battle. This also brings the possibility of expanding the information warfare system to reveal systems other than the reactor.

 

[GnomeKing]

interesting ideas - but lets stop talking about 'heat', rather proximity-rules (or similar).

Heat is lost energy - future power systems for space travel will not generate much 'lost-heat' that is not 'used' in some way :/ - thrust for example ... 'heat' implies an awful lot, where-as 'proximity' allows a variety of interpretations...

 

[Dire Venom]

interesting ideas - but lets stop talking about 'heat', rather proximity-rules (or similar).

Heat is lost energy - future power systems for space travel will not generate much 'lost-heat' that is not 'used' in some way :/ - thrust for example ... 'heat' implies an awful lot, where-as 'proximity' allows a variety of interpretations...

But mah role playing man, you gotta let me dissapaite my heat :,(
Simply call it a different type of radition or whatever.

 

[Lecic]

Quite honestly, I'd rather SHP be applied to each system individually. Destroy enough of it, and that subsystem goes offline until the ship is rebooted. That way, overheating a ship and blowing it up isn't the only way to end a battle. This also brings the possibility of expanding the information warfare system to reveal systems other than the reactor.

I don't see why we couldn't have a combination system where the ship has a total SHP pool but individual systems also have their personal SHP. This could be expanded further with the SHP bar on your ship giving you a breakdown of how much of your SHP comes from where and giving you the individual SHP system levels you have left. I'll throw together an example picture this afternoon if you're interested.

 

[Nosajimiki]

First off: I like this idea a lot more than I thought I would going into it.

Generally this has the same issue as stabilizers in that distances and efficiencies will need a lot of testing to find reasonable values.


Not quite bud, in the same way that more shield regen is the best way to shield tank, faster cooling will be the best way to survive damage in general.

What I want in a new power system is the ability to have multiple active reactors on my ship so that I don't have to place my reactor in a super predictable place to be efficient. This is a lot better than current dev build power in that regard, but still not what I would like. I generally see no reason why I am only allowed one active reactor on a ship other than to support the chamber system, especially if there are no explicit efficiency gains like in the current power system with soft cap. Would you be willing to pair this with Zoolimar's idea of having chambers be based on the relevant system size rather than reactor size? (for the purpose of removing the need for chambers being connected to reactors)

Good suggestion, but don't antagonize Lecic.
[doublepost=1513210124,1513209992][/doublepost]
If done incorrectly, this gets dangerously close to coring.

I believe your shield analogy is dead on, but that Vallant has it right here about the effect it would have. Shield tanks go two ways. With high cap and low regen (like a Vaygr Despoiler) you are far more resistant to getting alphaed to death because the point is to zero your target out. Regen tanks (like a Magictech ManoWar) can continuously counter DoT weapons much better, but can be one-shot more easily.

As for tieing heat to stealth, I would recommend instead making stealth devices cause heat directly rather than retaining it. While this is scientifically backwards, it would make stealth ships more of lightweight sneaky things instead of over bloated armor blocks which I think would feel more natural and balanced for gameplay.

 

[Non]

high cap and low regen (like a Vaygr Despoiler)

If you insist you are correct I will believe you, as you probably have more experience fighting them than me, but I've tested guns on despoiler, a capacity tank doesn't survive like that, though I've never actually looked at the stats.

Either way, I really want someone to acknowledge my point about multiple reactors.