It is Time to Retire the Power Regen Cap (Read Before Commenting)

    Mered4

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    Yes, and I think it's very flawed.


    Well then you just don't put that many thrusters on your ship then! The thrusters or the power requirements aren't the problem here, it's that your perspective of how they should be is extremely unrealistic. They are acting exactly as they're supposed to. Not being able to reach those high speeds is the penalty that such large ships should naturally face. And, you can still just use a jump drive.
    Your titan isn't supposed to move like a freaking racecar.


    They're not a necessity at all; on the contrary you are trying to get them to perform a ridiculously unrealistic task for such a massive ship. 1:1 thrust is a ridiculous thing to expect from such a massive vessel. It will and should naturally move slower than smaller vessels, that helps distinguish it and balance out the ridiculous amounts of firepower such exponentially-larger vessels have than the smaller ships around them. The drain from weapons is exponential in terms of power, because that's the size limiter for them, as the weapons scale in damage linearly by block. Ships that massive have to have drawbacks. This is where the drawbacks ought to come from. They are just too OP otherwise.


    Ships that massive have to have drawbacks. This is where the drawbacks ought to logically come from. They are just too OP otherwise. Yes, this is outer space, but it is also a voxel sandbox video game, and certain things are going to need to be different from real space physics to provide balanced gameplay. Titans should not and are not intended to move like fighters, nor frigates. Yes, they should also turn and accelerate slower. Also it's totally cool how you completely dismissed my recommendation of using push modules to help the acceleration.
    Very few large ships in this game have a significantly smaller thrust than 1:1, at least from what I've seen. And it isn't because there isn't an obvious pointer that says HEYYY YOU SHOULDN'T DO THAT.

    It's because everyone who followed that suggestion got their ships trashed by the guy who could run in circles around them with a Titan.

    Point is, people will make huge ships with large power requirements that behave like bloated versions of their younger cousins. They'll do this because the power generators give them the tools to do so.

    Personally, I don't understand large vessels over ~300k or so mass - they really push the limits of the game's system design and, tbh, are next to useless against a well-made fleet. It's like a floating block of free resources.
     
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    Very few large ships in this game have a significantly smaller thrust than 1:1, at least from what I've seen. And it isn't because there isn't an obvious pointer that says HEYYY YOU SHOULDN'T DO THAT.
    Because losing all power the instant you try to hit top speed on your giant rocket engine isn't enough of an obvious pointer?

    It's because everyone who followed that suggestion got their ships trashed by the guy who could run in circles around them with a Titan.
    I don't think this is the reason they lost. I've been in countless battles with titans myself and the most common reason I and others have lost against those titans is not because they can move fast, but because the game has so much trouble processing all that's going on, with those massive ships slowing down the game (as you pointed out later in your post, which i will bring up below), that the people in those smaller ships find themselves lagging out, freezing up or crashing.

    Point is, people will make huge ships with large power requirements that behave like bloated versions of their younger cousins. They'll do this because the power generators give them the tools to do so.
    Yes, and this is also their critical weakness: A few good missile hits to the titan, and those reactors are dead. Once that happens, it's game over for the titan. That's what balances out having those power generators; their lack of durability is the tradeoff the pilot makes in exchange for the additional power.

    Personally, I don't understand large vessels over ~300k or so mass - they really push the limits of the game's system design and, tbh, are next to useless against a well-made fleet. It's like a floating block of free resources.
    Exactly, the game can barely ever handle them, and their massive size already gives them a huge advantage in that they can literally just lag out their opponents. My faction has fought much larger ships and taken them out simply by a war of pure numbers, because we overwhelmed the titan and took out all its turrets, but we did occur heavy losses of our own, and in fact, during one particular such battle, my game froze to where I was unable to fight, and my ship was destroyed.

    In the end, we destroyed the titan, but at the great cost of most of our own fleet. This is a perfect example of why soloing in titans as a one-man army is not something the game is going to condone, but that at the same time titans are very powerful, and that's exactly how it should be.


    Another question I have for OP is, why are you trying to achieve such ridiculously high thruster speeds with such a massive ship in the first place? If you're trying to traverse long distances, why not use a jump drive (that's what they're there for). Aren't you aware how game-breakingly dangerous it is to fly such huge ships so fast anyway? Flying such massive objects at high speeds has a large potential to cause massive performance problems.


    Also, forgot to address this:
    I don't think you realize how devastating to a server a ship with internal docking modules can be. It is anything BUT exciting and interesting and stuff. MFleet might even BAN their use if the problem gets any worse, tbh.
    I don't know what you're doing with those internal docking reactors, but unless you're deliberately severing the docking enhancers so the modules auto-undock and cause tons of physics lag, you should be totally fine. Even so, the game has gotten lots of enhancements for those kinds of collision issues; it should automatically noclip the reactor out of the ship after a certain point (if the bug fixes I have been keeping an eye on in the bug tracker worked).
    Still, the lag from such a physics hiccup is no worse than the inherent lag that comes with titans hovering nearby each other in titan-titan combat.
     
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    Mered4

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    Also, forgot to address this:
    I don't know what you're doing with those internal docking reactors, but unless you're deliberately severing the docking enhancers so the modules auto-undock and cause tons of physics lag, you should be totally fine. Even so, the game has gotten lots of enhancements for those kinds of collision issues; it should automatically noclip the reactor out of the ship after a certain point (if the bug fixes I have been keeping an eye on in the bug tracker worked).
    Still, the lag from such a physics hiccup is no worse than the inherent lag that comes with titans hovering nearby each other in titan-titan combat.
    Technically, you are correct. Reality tends to be different :)

    I've been careful so far with my power gen ships - none have died in a way that caused the reactors to undock and clip into the ship. For the Dream Runner, this is actually by design because of where I placed the reactors in relation to the core.

    However, it's only a matter of time before someone gets the right missile hit and causes 15 seconds of lag for the 40+people on the server. I know all the tricks to fixing the problem (comes from experience) but if someone ELSE is handling the ship without that experience, they (quite frankly) could easily crash the server.

    I have noticed that my reactors in single player tend to hit a *noclip* zone after a few seconds of clipping. Which would be great if it worked as reliably on a MP server.

    Probably has something to do with latency ;)
     
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    I have noticed that my reactors in single player tend to hit a *noclip* zone after a few seconds of clipping. Which would be great if it worked as reliably on a MP server.

    Probably has something to do with latency ;)
    Yeah, the clipping detection for MP still needs a lot of work. But, once corrected, it will definitely be a lifesaver.
     

    ResonKinetic

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    You need to:

    1. Calm Down
    2. Google "How to Internet"
    3. Turn off the electronic device and rethink why you are posting on the forum.

    It isn't a scientific journal. This man posted a meme that was quite well deserved imho.
    wow u r sure cool haha yeah i cant internet for the life of me lol

    relax ;-)

    Bro, that's ice cold. Maybe next time you could leave the guy alone? Escalation leads to nuclear war, and fast.
    Well nuclear war isn't that bad when your opponent's military is the equivalent of North Korea's.
     
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    Keptick

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    I thought that the exponential space friction problem had been fixed... Cause really, you should be able to reach max speed with 1:10 thrust/mass ratio. It just takes a lot longer (which is fine).
     

    Mered4

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    Modular reactors were nerfed to being almost useless.


    Just for info, 1% of the USA's nuclear arsenal is sufficient to cause a global nuclear winter.
    What are you talking about? Myself and my engineer have both made power generator modules that give more power than an equivalent volume of power blocks. Look in
    Modular reactors were nerfed to being almost useless.


    Just for info, 1% of the USA's nuclear arsenal is sufficient to cause a global nuclear winter.
    That first part isn't true :). I use them all them all the time, and the boost is still worth it.
     

    jorgekorke

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    Modular reactors were always useless. In heavy combat, if the server derps out it can simply undock and now you have half of the energy you planned to.
     
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    What are you talking about? Myself and my engineer have both made power generator modules that give more power than an equivalent volume of power blocks. Look in

    That first part isn't true :). I use them all them all the time, and the boost is still worth it.
    A reactor produces 25 e/s without bonus, a powersupply beam consumes 50 e/s and transfers 40 e/s (including cooldown). So with power reactors and capacitors added on top of that a modular reactor can't be significantly more efficient than just power reactors. Additionally, reactors are way cheaper than powersupply beams and don't come with the risk of breaking off and causing heavy lag due to massive collsions with the host ship.
     

    Mered4

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    A reactor produces 25 e/s without bonus, a powersupply beam consumes 50 e/s and transfers 40 e/s (including cooldown). So with power reactors and capacitors added on top of that a modular reactor can't be significantly more efficient than just power reactors. Additionally, reactors are way cheaper than powersupply beams and don't come with the risk of breaking off and causing heavy lag due to massive collsions with the host ship.
    I'm done. I've showed you how I did it, and you refuse to take my mathematical reasoning as fact. I've spent weeks researching this. I'm not talking out of my ass. If you come on the MFleet server tonight, I'll have my ship there for the lineup. You can take a look at the power cons/supply modules.
     
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    Modular reactors were nerfed to being almost useless.
    A reactor produces 25 e/s without bonus, a powersupply beam consumes 50 e/s and transfers 40 e/s (including cooldown). So with power reactors and capacitors added on top of that a modular reactor can't be significantly more efficient than just power reactors. Additionally, reactors are way cheaper than powersupply beams and don't come with the risk of breaking off and causing heavy lag due to massive collsions with the host ship.
    You have no idea what you're talking about, and clearly you've never actually used a proper docked reactor in-game on your ship, because it works astoundingly well, nothing like how you're describing it.
    For the record, I've been in firefights where I was using ships that had three docked 1-million regen reactors, and my ship sustained significant damage in the fight but none of the reactors undocked or were even scratched, thanks to shielding.

    [DOUBLEPOST=1417815078,1417814841][/DOUBLEPOST]
    Modular reactors were always useless. In heavy combat, if the server derps out it can simply undock and now you have half of the energy you planned to.
    You're completely wrong about them being useless. They have the potential to provide a large amount of additional power regen in a much smaller space than what you'd need to get that same regen by slapping down more power blocks on the ship. Their strength in that regard is balanced out by their weakness that you mentioned: they become useless in a firefight if they undock.

    Their vulnerability to damage and loss also presents a new fun engineering aspect of ships: Designing ships that can have replaceable batteries. My friends all have capital ships that use interior batteries that have no safe method to be replaced if damaged, except for the ship to be scrapped and rebought. Their batteries are kept in interior spaces on the ship that have no exit or entry points; they were inserted pre-made during the building process, and carried over as integrated in the finished blueprint.

    If they want to insert a new battery in an empty battery space on their ship, they have to drill a long hole through their ship so the battery's docking beam can reach the docking block. If the battery is damaged but isn't destroyed, they have no safe way to remove it, and are left with three options:
    1. Removing a large part of their ship's structure just to get it out
    2. Scrapping the entire ship and re-blueprinting it
    3. Risking lagging the entire server to death by trying to get it to physics-clip through the ship as soon as it is undocked

    Meanwhile, I am building a ship that makes for double-usage of its underside shuttlebay as the entrance for its internal batteries. That way, if they ever get damaged or stop working, I have a safe way to remove them without trying to get them to clip through the ship and lag myself to death.

    I thought that the exponential space friction problem had been fixed... Cause really, you should be able to reach max speed with 1:10 thrust/mass ratio. It just takes a lot longer (which is fine).
    Nope, it's a config value, and by default it's set to have some friction in space so that runaway ships and objects will eventually slow down.
     
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    I'm done. I've showed you how I did it, and you refuse to take my mathematical reasoning as fact. I've spent weeks researching this. I'm not talking out of my ass. If you come on the MFleet server tonight, I'll have my ship there for the lineup. You can take a look at the power cons/supply modules.
    Does this server use up-to-date vanilla config files?
     
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    Does this server use up-to-date vanilla config files?
    My server uses up-to-date Vanilla config files and the batteries work just fine.

    EDIT: I hate to say it, but it appears you are actually right. The recent updates that changed the functionality of beam ticks and how setups for support modules work has broken my batteries.
     
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    Mered4

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    My server uses up-to-date Vanilla config files and the batteries work just fine.

    EDIT: I hate to say it, but it appears you are actually right. The recent updates that changed the functionality of beam ticks and how setups for support modules work has broken my batteries.
    Not if you recalibrate them :D

    Does this server use up-to-date vanilla config files?
    My numbers are for my sandbox, which uses the vanilla config. The MFleet's config is not vanilla, but, afaik, doesn't change anything regarding power supply beams. Tomino_sama: Anything special I do not know about? or Dalmont. Any of you fine folk :D
     
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    Not if you recalibrate them :D
    Well I hope I can... My batteries use a repeating logic system, and now because of the way beams are, it doesn't fire the beam except for once out of all the possible shots in a burst, so it means it gives practically no power of what it would if someone was actively firing the powersupply beam on it while it was docked to a ship.
     

    Mered4

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    Well I hope I can... My batteries use a repeating logic system, and now because of the way beams are, it doesn't fire the beam except for once out of all the possible shots in a burst, so it means it gives practically no power of what it would if someone was actively firing the powersupply beam on it while it was docked to a ship.
    I use a half-second clock for mine. It works for some reason - my engineer friend couldn't get his to work for the full 15 second pulse either. Not sure as to why.
     
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    Not if you recalibrate them :D


    My numbers are for my sandbox, which uses the vanilla config. The MFleet's config is not vanilla, but, afaik, doesn't change anything regarding power supply beams. Tomino_sama: Anything special I do not know about? or Dalmont. Any of you fine folk :D
    The MF server runs the most vanilla values we can. We've even turned docking areas back on in recent days. Our weapon ranges are slightly longer, sectors slightly bigger, and server speed changes from time to time. But nothing on power as-such.

    Any major changes made to the MF server config are purely to test their impact on the game; and / or pulled from the latest development builds. :)
     
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    I use a half-second clock for mine. It works for some reason - my engineer friend couldn't get his to work for the full 15 second pulse either. Not sure as to why.
    Mine uses a single delay block too, but yet it doesn't work :(
     

    Crashmaster

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    I am also getting a single delay block clock to work for keeping the PSBxDP beam active for the full 15 seconds. A one second clock will also work for me but a 1.5 second or greater do mot maintain constant beam on-time.
    I would suggest if you haven't already; testing the module for possibly going into outage recovery due to lags/ insufficient capacitance which could be causing the beam to shut off despite being able to draw power from the main ship. I'm not really sure - just seen some weird operational characteristics from these modules. It seems like they draw both the consumption and the drain (supply) every three second tick on top of each other but it may just be lag too.

    I need to get back to the actual game and try to confirm some things I guess.