Introduction thread!

[MrGrey1]

checkerboard is obsolete, reactors are just one big blob of reactor-blocks and one blob of stabilizers.

I disagree. The reactor is now two blocks for one unit of power. One reactor and one stabilizer. Lose either and you lose a unit of power.
If you have all your reactors in one block and all your stabilizers in another, a single hit to either unit...
say there are 100 blocks destroyed by a hit, if they're all stabilizers you lose 100 units of power even though you didn't lose any reactors.
On the other hand, if you have a checker board grid pattern of reactors and stabilizers, take 100 blocks damage, you lose 50 blocks of stabilizers and 50 blocks of reactors, you only lose 50 units of power.

Simply put if you take a hit to your reactor you want that damage dispersed as evenly as possible between reactor and stabilizer blocks, you want an equal amount of stabilizers and reactors to get taken out. Putting them in large separate blocks is not the way to achieve this.

Calculate the size of you reactor from
Volume = 1/18 weapon + 1/9 re-charge + 1/9 caps + 2/9 thrust + 1/6 for each of reactor/stab/chamber

Fill the volume of (stabilizers + reactors) ie 2/6th of your total hull volume with stabilizers, then use the replace tool to checkerboard in reactors over the stabilizers in a grid that leaves two block segments of stabilizers.... see screenshot.


This reactor works out 50/50 very easily, needs a little tweaking at the end. IMO this is the most resilient reactor possible in the current system. It's also super easy to build once you get the hang of it.

EDIT: woops, just noticed a couple the layers in screenshot are 2x3, they should all be 2x2 if you want to get an approximate 50:50 balance by the time you're done.

 

[Crashmaster]

Are Docked Power Reactors still a no-no due to their potential to crash the server upon detaching due to block destruction?

Of interest though is that there is no longer the main reason docked reactors should not be a thing: If a docked entities' dock or docker gets destroyed the docked entity becomes some sort of non-entity that no longer functions but also remains where it was in relation to the main entity.
I'm not real solid on the details but at least it stays true to the history of solutions causing problems: If you are in survival and accidentally remove the dock say for a turret you are working on - it is gone, it starts overheating but you cannot interact with it anymore.