Modular reactors still viable?

[Lancake]

Power supply blocks are not perfectly efficient. It's about 3/4 of each power point supplied.

When you build the modules to the appropriate dimensions and generation power, it can reach up to 4x the power generation of a power cube on the latest build. You use a damage pulse slave in an alternating pulse.

Yes i know that, my reactors are 6000 blocks each with more than half of them being power supply beams, they were made before the latest release were beams got overhauled but their output seems roughly the same.

So "That's horribly inefficient. If you build the reactors correctly, the only downside is possible server lag." just means power supply beams are horribly inefficient?

I really want to see on of your efficient reactors so I can see what you mean, I really think 6000 blocks for a reactor that provides 950K/S is really efficient but I guess I'm totally wrong?

 

[Malacodor]

Here's the current stats on the vanilla power supply beams:
2.5 second burst time and 2.5 second cooldown time, with 5 ticks per burst.
Each tick uses 50 power to give your target 40 power.
That makes each burst give 200 energy and cost 250 energy. That's 40 energy transfered per second. Per module.

If that's true it's impossible to be twice as efficient (or better) as power reactors with their 25 e/s without bonus. 20 000 powersupply blocks consume 1 000 000 e/s and supply 800 000 e/s whereas 20 000 power reactors produce 500 000 e/s without bonus. That's an upper limit of modular reactors being 1.6 times more efficient, power reactors and capacitors reduce that factor even further.

Yes i know that, my reactors are 6000 blocks each with more than half of them being power supply beams, they were made before the latest release were beams got overhauled but their output seems roughly the same.

Really? 3000 blocks shouldn't be able to transfer more than 120 000 e/s.

 

[MrFURB]

If that's true it's impossible to be twice as efficient (or better) as power reactors with their 25 e/s without bonus. 20 000 powersupply blocks consume 1 000 000 e/s and supply 800 000 e/s whereas 20 000 power reactors produce 500 000 e/s without bonus. That's an upper limit of modular reactors being 1.6 times more efficient, power reactors and capacitors reduce that factor even further.

You're right that the waste energy and extra mass from the transfer beams goes a long way towards reducing the effectiveness of docked reactors. They still add power in a way that is more vulnerable and complex yet slightly more effective than straight up reactors. Some people will rather not use the time and energy to have these reactors be nothing but a big target to be taken out first thing. Others like the bonus regen better.
The Necalith battlecruiser design I'm finishing up uses 4 docked reactors giving it another 2.5 mil regen. That specific ship works well with the reactors due to one of it's primary armaments being an energy-hogging super-weapon and the extra regen just barely allows it to fire again once the cooldown has ended.
I suppose it's dependent on the role and design of the ship.

 

[Mered4]

My reactors

Yes i know that, my reactors are 6000 blocks each with more than half of them being power supply beams, they were made before the latest release were beams got overhauled but their output seems roughly the same.

So "That's horribly inefficient. If you build the reactors correctly, the only downside is possible server lag." just means power supply beams are horribly inefficient?

I really want to see on of your efficient reactors so I can see what you mean, I really think 6000 blocks for a reactor that provides 950K/S is really efficient but I guess I'm totally wrong?

for my reactors, they are 71L x 9 H x 19 W

They produce 760k power, draining 930k, with 1555 power supply blocks and 1600 damage pulse blocks. The result is a 25% increase over a block of power. This is just enough to keep the ship power stable in a combat situation. My faction's engineer has managed a 400% improvement rate but he has yet to show me his design.

In fact, that 760k is actually a pulse. Thus, it really is averaged to 330k, which is better than the ~250k power produced by that same volume of power blocks.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I had a small reactor that I attached to my scout so I could charge the jump drive, it's useless now. The idea being the reactor could be jettisoned for landing or if more maneuverability was required while still giving the rather small ship the ability to have a fast charge jump drive. I tried several new configs and none seemed to be able to give me a significant boost in power output while charging the drive.

 

[Crashmaster]

My reactors

for my reactors, they are 71L x 9 H x 19 W

They produce 760k power, draining 930k, with 1555 power supply blocks and 1600 damage pulse blocks. The result is a 25% increase over a block of power. This is just enough to keep the ship power stable in a combat situation. My faction's engineer has managed a 400% improvement rate but he has yet to show me his design.

In fact, that 760k is actually a pulse. Thus, it really is averaged to 330k, which is better than the ~250k power produced by that same volume of power blocks.

I think you might need to double-check the actual output. Since power supply beam with damage pulse slave has a three second tick your supplied power should average to more like 250k e/sec which scales in line with the hard figures I'm getting from testing on unpowered capacitor block cubes (last post last page) using a reactor module with similar power stats and transfer system block counts - approximately 4 mil power transferred during 15 second on-time = 267k e/sec.

The worst part is that since the power supply beam x damage pulse system is drawing 930k e/sec the entire time it is active (which should be close to the output of your reactor module I'd imagine) whenever the tick comes to supply the 760k one second pulse (it drains this on top of the constant 930k e/sec that powers the beam >:v ) the docked module is overloaded and just draws the 760k from the main ship and recycles it right back into it.

I think the system is broken to or at least to near uselessness.

 

[Mered4]

I think you might need to double-check the actual output. Since power supply beam with damage pulse slave has a three second tick your supplied power should average to more like 250k e/sec which scales in line with the hard figures I'm getting from testing on unpowered capacitor block cubes (last post last page) using a reactor module with similar power stats and transfer system block counts - approximately 4 mil power transferred during 15 second on-time = 267k e/sec.

The worst part is that since the power supply beam x damage pulse system is drawing 930k e/sec the entire time it is active (which should be close to the output of your reactor module I'd imagine) whenever the tick comes to supply the 760k one second pulse (it drains this on top of the constant 930k e/sec that powers the beam >:v ) the docked module is overloaded and just draws the 760k from the main ship and recycles it right back into it.

I think the system is broken to or at least to near uselessness.

Double check? I spent an hour manually tweaking the output. The pulse is on for 15 sec, off for 15 sec. If you have two arrays, its a constant stream. Or if you have two modules altrrnating.

What you think is irrelevant. I have math and real numbers that I've tested extensively. My 30k mass ship has tons more firepower than yours because of these modules.

 

[Malacodor]

What you think is irrelevant. I have math and real numbers that I've tested extensively. My 30k mass ship has tons more firepower than yours because of these modules.

You're not the only one with math and real numbers.

 

[Crashmaster]

Mmm, well I didn't intend to sound rude or condescending I was more hoping you would double check due to the fact our numbers disagree despite our reactor and supply systems being apparently similar. I had just been though several hours of refitting and testing two days ago and given the way things can change in this game was looking for some confirmed feedback on measured values that may agree with what I think is true or may validate further time spent on experimentation on my end to get this system to at least half-work again.

Lol no contest right now. My 170k mass ship with 16 x 1 mil e/sec reactors has almost no firepower. It's main cannon used to draw 15 mil e/sec and even though the weapons ratio change/ change-back brought that down to about 5 - 6 mil e/sec my inability to re-fit it's failing reactors means it can hardly get out of it's own way. It was pretty good for a while though.

 

[Malacodor]

I had just been though several hours of refitting and testing two days ago and given the way things can change in this game was looking for some confirmed feedback on measured values that may agree with what I think is true or may validate further time spent on experimentation on my end to get this system to at least half-work again.

Same here.

 

[Mered4]

Mmm, well I didn't intend to sound rude or condescending I was more hoping you would double check due to the fact our numbers disagree despite our reactor and supply systems being apparently similar. I had just been though several hours of refitting and testing two days ago and given the way things can change in this game was looking for some confirmed feedback on measured values that may agree with what I think is true or may validate further time spent on experimentation on my end to get this system to at least half-work again.

Lol no contest right now. My 170k mass ship with 16 x 1 mil e/sec reactors has almost no firepower. It's main cannon used to draw 15 mil e/sec and even though the weapons ratio change/ change-back brought that down to about 5 - 6 mil e/sec my inability to re-fit it's failing reactors means it can hardly get out of it's own way. It was pretty good for a while though.

*facepalm*

I don't need to double check -I've built TWO of these reactors in the past four days as we were discussing this. They all have better ratios. Use Damage Pulse Modules. MANUALLY TEST THE NUMBERS, do not use the weapons menu.

 

[Danzarlo]

*facepalm*

I don't need to double check -I've built TWO of these reactors in the past four days as we were discussing this. They all have better ratios. Use Damage Pulse Modules. MANUALLY TEST THE NUMBERS, do not use the weapons menu.

Wow dude just wow.... you ever heard of a thing called being polite?

 

[Malacodor]

Use Damage Pulse Modules. MANUALLY TEST THE NUMBERS, do not use the weapons menu.

1 powersupply beam block plus 1 damage pulse module transfer 2400 energy in one burst to an empty core. With 30s CD that's the same 40 e/s per block.

 

[Mered4]

1 powersupply beam block plus 1 damage pulse module transfer 2400 energy in one burst to an empty core. With 30s CD that's the same 40 e/s per block.

Is there a reason no one believes the math and evidence I've presented?

Do I need to start posting pictures/videos?

 

[Snk]

What has become of Star Made's community? Why can't people just get along?

 

[Crashmaster]

Is there a reason no one believes the math and evidence I've presented?

Do I need to start posting pictures/videos?

Yes, the reason is that we cannot reproduce your results using what we understand to be similar tests. Without understanding what we are doing differently to arrive at different conclusions we fail to achieve consensus. Similar to scientific theory, peer-proofing of something is expected to deliver the same results. Also a real defensive attitude harms a person's believability a bit (but no offense I hope).

Now I don't feel entitled to full disclosure of what you do as engineering PVP ships is competitive and do appreciate the information you have given so far. I am just torn between what I see in my tests, your conviction in the results of your tests, my ease of believing that I'm doing something wrong and some faint hope that I can work it out.

Anyways, for me just under 1700 power supply beams slaved with just under 1700 damage pulse supply 4 mil power to an unpowered capacitor cube during the 15 second on-time.

4 000 000 / (30 seconds cycle x 3400 supply system blocks) = 39.2 e/sec per supply system block (given that my numbers are rounded a bit)

I'm still curious if anyone else finds that the energy supplied to the target is drained from the reactor on top of the energy required to just keep the beam active - this seems like the most broken part if it is true. When my un-docked reactor is supplying power (and has a large added capacitor block for testing) the power usage shows approximately 180% of the nominal power consumption for a half-second once every three seconds while operating as well the power graph drops at the same time eventually leading to outage recovery.

 

[Mered4]

Yes, the reason is that we cannot reproduce your results using what we understand to be similar tests. Without understanding what we are doing differently to arrive at different conclusions we fail to achieve consensus. Similar to scientific theory, peer-proofing of something is expected to deliver the same results. Also a real defensive attitude harms a person's believability a bit (but no offense I hope).

Now I don't feel entitled to full disclosure of what you do as engineering PVP ships is competitive and do appreciate the information you have given so far. I am just torn between what I see in my tests, your conviction in the results of your tests, my ease of believing that I'm doing something wrong and some faint hope that I can work it out.

Anyways, for me just under 1700 power supply beams slaved with just under 1700 damage pulse supply 4 mil power to an unpowered capacitor cube during the 15 second on-time.

4 000 000 / (30 seconds cycle x 3400 supply system blocks) = 39.2 e/sec per supply system block (given that my numbers are rounded a bit)

I'm still curious if anyone else finds that the energy supplied to the target is drained from the reactor on top of the energy required to just keep the beam active - this seems like the most broken part if it is true. When my un-docked reactor is supplying power (and has a large added capacitor block for testing) the power usage shows approximately 180% of the nominal power consumption for a half-second once every three seconds while operating as well the power graph drops at the same time eventually leading to outage recovery.

It's the lag and the game compensating for it. It misses a tick, then does two because the previous one lagged. I use a balanced amount of power caps to manage it.[DOUBLEPOST=1417833202,1417832989][/DOUBLEPOST]Here, have some candy:

I wouldn't attempt to extract the design of this thing from this end pic. The innards are a mite bit different than the crust.

 

[Malacodor]

Is there a reason no one believes the math and evidence I've presented?

Good question, why don't you believe the math and evidence presented to you?

 

[Mered4]

Good question, why don't you believe the math and evidence presented to you?

Simple - my math makes something work that others claim shouldn't.

 

[Malacodor]

Simple - my math makes something work that others claim shouldn't.

Wrong. My modular reactor does work, it just works differently.