Read by Council More things should use power

[Employee763]

Lights, medical boxes, display modules, gravity, and logic, should all require power in the vanilla version of the game.

 

[kiraen]

Requiring power, even 1 for an individual light block is punishing, as they do not really contribute anything on the ship. It's not necessary and it would mean unlit ships are more efficient for simply looking less exciting. A better alternative is to have lights dim or die out when there is a power failure, something the Schine team has expressed interest in during multiple discussions.

 

[HolyCookie]

kiraen You beat me to it.... nice job

 

[jayman38]

I can get behind this as a game mod with some caveats:

1. Med cabinets should only use a bit of power when dispensing. Otherwise, they are passive storage. Ditto with storage blocks, but they also draw a bit of power when inventory is being deposited. (E.g. 1 e for every 1k inventory transfer, server-configurable)

2. Lights should only pull a bit of power when being turned on. This makes blinkers a power draw, but not punishingly so. Lights that stay on should flicker if power goes to zero, but otherwise should not draw.

3. Logic (with the assumption that display units will be integrated into logic in the future) should only draw a bit when a block changing state. This will mean that large logic builds will draw power, but not punishingly so.
Examples:
A hanger door that uses about 20 logic blocks will use about 20 e when it opens and 20 e when it closes. Not a terrible draw. A single reactor block can cover that cost, even above the 2M e/s soft limit.
An in-game 8-bit computer, with thousands of logic blocks (even assuming that many blocks are integrated into a single multi-logic block, a-la 2-D logic grid or something) will draw thousands of e, but not as much as, say, thrust or weapons or something.

It seems reasonable this way. Especially when you consider that power is our primary limiter and is used to effectively limit pretty much every other system in the game. Of course, at these low levels of power draw, maybe it's just simpler to leave the power draw at zero for these items, to keep from adding to the game's workload, even just this tiny bit.

 

[HolyCookie]

1. Med cabinets should only use a bit of power when dispensing. Otherwise, they are passive storage. Ditto with storage blocks, but they also draw a bit of power when inventory is being deposited. (E.g. 1 e for every 1k inventory transfer, server-configurable)

I could actually get behind that not that med cabinets are used a lot.

3. Logic (with the assumption that display units will be integrated into logic in the future) should only draw a bit when a block changing state. This will mean that large logic builds will draw power, but not punishingly so.

I don't really see the addition to having logic use power. Your core would generate enough power to sustain almost any circuit. So what would it change when adding logic power use? (Just asking to understand the concept)

please quote or tag me to get a faster response

 

[Employee763]

Having lights and other decoration blocks die during a power failure would be interesting. Things like logic and medical blocks should require power because they have a beneficial function.

 

[kiraen]

I would think lights, displays, and gravity would be under the same umbrella. An outage might cause them to fail, but they wouldn't draw power themselves.
I can see med boxes drawing power on use or resupply, but I'm not sure it would be enough to bother implementing.
Logic, on the other hand, is an edge case. I can see that going either way. Logic changes the performance of the ship, but if it costs to much it could hinder performance. Which might be the idea. I suppose this one is just a balance issue and could go either way. And would logic only draw power when on/true? Or always?

 

[6ngb]

Logic which drains power would be unrealistic. Currently power is used for flying around, FTL warping, planet-destroying, energy shielding and similar. A car weighing like 1000 kg needs like 50 000 W power to move at 30 m/s. While inside your pocket you have billions of logic gates consuming <1 W. If the scale is to be kept, a single logic gate would require effectively no power.

 

[Lecic]

No. The only thing I agree with is med cabinets, and even that would be a small drain.

 

[jayman38]

I could actually get behind that not that med cabinets are used a lot.

I don't really see the addition to having logic use power. Your core would generate enough power to sustain almost any circuit. So what would it change when adding logic power use? (Just asking to understand the concept)

please quote or tag me to get a faster response

At the small energy levels we are talking about, the power draw is insignificant compared to major power draws (thrust, weapons, shields, etc.), so making these minor systems draw power seems nit-picky to me, so that's why I recommend it be a mod, not in the vanilla game. Survival-mode-type stuff, to make survival mode just that much harder at the start.

 

[Edymnion]

Well, way I see it:

If lights and gravity and med cabinets take enough power that I need to account for them during design, then most people simply won't have lights and gravity and med cabinets on their stuff because they are effectively nothing but decoration anyway. You don't need hall lighting to fight, and you don't need gravity to get around.

If lights and gravity and med cabinets take so little power that you can still put hundreds of ceiling lights in everything without worrying about it, then whats the point? You've complicated the coding for the game for no real benefit.

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Alternate suggestion, create a logic block that can detect things like if your shields are up, if your ship is powered, etc, that you can use to then build effects around. Want your lights to go out when your power goes out? Great, have a Power Detection Block that goes negative when the power is down, and then slave all of your lights to it. Power on, lights on. Power off, lights off.