Individual chambers/effects toggleable by hotbar and logic.

[Coyote27]

This is a smallish suggestion and should not be that difficult to implement, but it'd really add so much to the game as it is right now. We need a way to toggle individual chambers and the effects thereof, firstly on the hotbar - so we can swap between different defensive effects, toggle jam and cloak individually, and many other things besides. Second, being able to link chambers to logic blocks would be an additional huge step in usefulness, so we could have automatic systems that would scan every minute, let's say, or a wireless control linked to the jump chamber so we could order drones to all jump at once or inhibit jumping... the possibilities would be very interesting.

 

[Star-Boy]

I imagine they will add features similar to what you want when they add crew to the game.

 

[Coyote27]

I imagine they will add features similar to what you want when they add crew to the game.

Maybe, but that's far too long to wait. This functionality needs to be there now, it should have been there on 2.0 release.

 

[YamiHikari]

This is a smallish suggestion and should not be that difficult to implement, but it'd really add so much to the game as it is right now. We need a way to toggle individual chambers and the effects thereof, firstly on the hotbar - so we can swap between different defensive effects, toggle jam and cloak individually, and many other things besides. Second, being able to link chambers to logic blocks would be an additional huge step in usefulness, so we could have automatic systems that would scan every minute, let's say, or a wireless control linked to the jump chamber so we could order drones to all jump at once or inhibit jumping... the possibilities would be very interesting.

So you're saying to use logic to remotely configure chambers? I REALLY don't like the idea of that. In terms of practicality it entirely defeats the purpose of chambers, which are intended to make the player choose between effects, not switch through them as they please. You also have to consider how difficult getting that to work would be. In terms of logicality, it's a complete mess. You have to consider the changes to chamber capacity, the effects that occur when going over capacity, not to mention your idea to apply instant effects to your reactor (which also nerfs the purpose and advantage of multiple reactors). I can't even imagine what the code would look like. I see where you're coming from with your idea, but I can't see it working.

 

[Coyote27]

So you're saying to use logic to remotely configure chambers? I REALLY don't like the idea of that. In terms of practicality it entirely defeats the purpose of chambers, which are intended to make the player choose between effects, not switch through them as they please. .

I think you misunderstand what I meant, maybe I wasn't exactly clear. I meant being able to switch individual effects of chambers on and off by logic/hotbar, instead of having, as it is now, one combined stealth effect, one combined jump effect, so on and so forth, in the hotbar and totally inoperable by logic. I'm not talking about changing which chambers are connected to the reactor, just which ones are currently ON and being activated.

Here's an example. You have a ship with a scanner, a stealth chamber with jamming and cloaking, and a jump inhibitor. With me so far? Okay. Now as it currently is, you can operate the inhibitor, the full cloak system as one unit, and the scanner, all through the hotbar and only the hotbar, but that's it. With what I propose, you could do things differently - toggle the jamming on and off without the cloaking (or vice versa),... or use logic to run the scanner on a repeating clock, and have wireless modules that tell the ship to jam or cloak or jump or scan or use the inhibitor while you are in a different ship.
This functionality is basically what we had available through fleet commands and logic back in Power 1.0, it's just an improvement on that ability rather than the removal of it that we have now. At the moment we have no way to activate systems on a ship without being in it, and we can't activate one part of the system without the rest of it.

 

[Nosajimiki]

So you're saying to use logic to remotely configure chambers? I REALLY don't like the idea of that. In terms of practicality it entirely defeats the purpose of chambers, which are intended to make the player choose between effects, not switch through them as they please. You also have to consider how difficult getting that to work would be. In terms of logicality, it's a complete mess. You have to consider the changes to chamber capacity, the effects that occur when going over capacity, not to mention your idea to apply instant effects to your reactor (which also nerfs the purpose and advantage of multiple reactors). I can't even imagine what the code would look like. I see where you're coming from with your idea, but I can't see it working.

This can still be implemented with the same cool down as multiple reactors or manually re-allocating them, but this would be a huge QoL improvement for things like jumping near an enemy base and swapping from jump chambers to combat chambers before moving in without a bunch of ugly menu interactions.

Logic to hotswap a set of chambers without needing to totally change to another reactor means you could for example with a press of a button turn off your jump drive chambers and turn on your sensor chambers. You'd still have to wait for it to recharge, but that way you are not needing to waste tons of mass using 2 reactors or have to hit 30 keys across several menus to reallocate a bunch of chambers on the same reactor everytime you go into battle. Also, certain things like the Mass chambers would be WAY better if they could interact with logic so that you could do things like turn gravity on when you are docked to you base, but turn it off when you undock so that you aren't being dragged into it and crashing your server with massive collision checks.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

So you're saying to use logic to remotely configure chambers? I REALLY don't like the idea of that. In terms of practicality it entirely defeats the purpose of chambers, which are intended to make the player choose between effects, not switch through them as they please. You also have to consider how difficult getting that to work would be. In terms of logicality, it's a complete mess. You have to consider the changes to chamber capacity, the effects that occur when going over capacity, not to mention your idea to apply instant effects to your reactor (which also nerfs the purpose and advantage of multiple reactors). I can't even imagine what the code would look like. I see where you're coming from with your idea, but I can't see it working.

There would still be use for both auxiliary reactors and being able to turn chambers on and off at will. You could build an auxiliary reactor smaller than the main reactor and just big enough to specifically do what you need it to do. That way you don't have to invest a lot of resources into something you may not use all the time.

Being able to have control over chambers wouldn't make a ship OP either, it would still be bound to the RC limit which would now just be more of a soft cap than a hard one. Inactive chambers are dead weight in combat, would probably have a boot time and should still count for reactor HP therefore making your reactor a larger target. I've seen other suggestions where chambers that are "off" still will consume some power too so that could add more of a penalty if you think it's still too OP

 

[YamiHikari]

I think you misunderstand what I meant, maybe I wasn't exactly clear. I meant being able to switch individual effects of chambers on and off by logic/hotbar, instead of having, as it is now, one combined stealth effect, one combined jump effect, so on and so forth, in the hotbar and totally inoperable by logic. I'm not talking about changing which chambers are connected to the reactor, just which ones are currently ON and being activated.

Here's an example. You have a ship with a scanner, a stealth chamber with jamming and cloaking, and a jump inhibitor. With me so far? Okay. Now as it currently is, you can operate the inhibitor, the full cloak system as one unit, and the scanner, all through the hotbar and only the hotbar, but that's it. With what I propose, you could do things differently - toggle the jamming on and off without the cloaking (or vice versa),... or use logic to run the scanner on a repeating clock, and have wireless modules that tell the ship to jam or cloak or jump or scan or use the inhibitor while you are in a different ship.
This functionality is basically what we had available through fleet commands and logic back in Power 1.0, it's just an improvement on that ability rather than the removal of it that we have now. At the moment we have no way to activate systems on a ship without being in it, and we can't activate one part of the system without the rest of it.

That actually sounds much better and really cool (having remote-operated scouts in mind). The problem I do have is how exactly the logic would activate the chamber effects. There really isn't an easy way to go about it as far as I know. What you're suggesting is basically along the lines of power 1.0's logic activated weapons and drives. That is something I can back.

 

[Coyote27]

The problem I do have is how exactly the logic would activate the chamber effects. There really isn't an easy way to go about it as far as I know.

Link an activation module or other logic block to the chamber itself? That shouldn't be too difficult, I wouldn't think.

 

[YamiHikari]

Link an activation module or other logic block to the chamber itself? That shouldn't be too difficult, I wouldn't think.

Yeah, but would it be the whole clump of chamber blocks? I feel like that kind of thing would be a bit awkward.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Chambers don't have computers which make it kind of weird compared to what we are used to, but no reason it should be undoable. Technically, you could make it connect to a single block, and the signal would just have to detect which chamber that block is a part of much the way opening a door works.

 

[Arcaner]

Add-on: Linking an activation module/button/other to a conduit could be the way to go. No ambiguity there.

Furthermore, by placing an activation module/button next to a conduit, we could get to know when that specific chamber is ready. (Similar to rail entity detection )