My Stupid Power Mechanics Thesis

[nightrune]

Power generation vs power capacity is not an emergent choice in starmade, because generation is much more powerful than storage. You can't boost storage without making one hit kill ships the norm.

I'm still not sure a one hit kill ship can exist very well right now with SHP and AHP. Are you afraid of massive alpha beams/cannons with the huge storage? If you boosted capacity and equally boosted power draw for weapons this would help get the pacing you want but its so interconnected with the rest of the game. I'm still not sure connecting capacity to your weapons would really help.

Are you attempting to get something more akin to the way FTL does power?

Auxilliary should be removed because it's redundant complexity. It does the exact same thing power reactors do, it just replaces them after you hit the cap. They don't allow any new interactions or ship variations. It even adds a second power bar that shouldn't need to be there.

Power Aux does lack a real useful choice I can agree on that, but I don't think it needs removed. Increasing its risk/reward would be better to me. Something better choice of turning it on or off would be good. I've like the suggestions where you can slow down/stop the explosions if you turn it off, but with a timeout.

Heat is just a sugestion for how to limit power generation so it doesn't become a blob like shields. Blobs are depthless so boring. Not every part of ship design needs to be complex but power determines so much about how a ship operates, it needs the depth.

Agreed on blobs, but I'm not convinced heat really adds depth to the design choices. The reason I like the power bonus right now is it does force you to think and really put power everywhere.

Is this any better?

Sooooooooo much better.

 

[Raisinbat]

I'm still not sure a one hit kill ship can exist very well right now with SHP and AHP. Are you afraid of massive alpha beams/cannons with the huge storage? If you boosted capacity and equally boosted power draw for weapons this would help get the pacing you want but its so interconnected with the rest of the game. I'm still not sure connecting capacity to your weapons would really help.

Are you attempting to get something more akin to the way FTL does power?

Kind of, yes. It needs to be smoother since you need to navigate while controlling it. If you raise power draw from weapons AND capacity to match it's mechanically identical to just lowering power generation.

The fix i'm suggesting isn't just power capacity for weapons; they also need to require a constant power draw while active, even when the weapon is fully charged, then it needs a way to toggle weapons active/inactive... It's all way too interconnected which is why i'd wish schine would start sorting it out instead of adding more features on top of it.

Power Aux does lack a real useful choice I can agree on that, but I don't think it needs removed. Increasing its risk/reward would be better to me. Something better choice of turning it on or off would be good. I've like the suggestions where you can slow down/stop the explosions if you turn it off, but with a timeout.

But none of that fixes the docked reactor issue. There's a black and white ballance issue at work; either auxilliary outputs more power than reactors before the power cap, in which case it will be astoundingly overpowered, but remove docked reactors. If it doesn't do this docked reactors will remain the norm.

This requires a lot more ballancing, and if the changes to auxilliary are so massive that it doesn't resemble itself anymore, why keep it?

Agreed on blobs, but I'm not convinced heat really adds depth to the design choices. The reason I like the power bonus right now is it does force you to think and really put power everywhere.

But it's extremely exploitable through turrets, docked hulls or just many smaller ships. Keeping entities in the sweet spot for power allows ships many times more powerful than single entity ships. These ships result in much worse performance for the game, and make ships a lot more complicated (right word!) for the wrong reasons.

Vent placement would be important for ships, as well as heat management for optimized combat ships. Keeping power the same regardless of reactor placement, but requiring lines to keep heat from escalating out of control pretty much leaves reactor designs the same; heat is simply necessary (or a replacement system) to stop blobs. If we got tools to control flow of power/shield/heat across entities we could make docked heat sinks that you pile the heat in and eject, kind of like mass effect 2's clip system except less silly.

Sooooooooo much better.

What on earth is the difference here, because i can't tell maybe i need more glasses...

 

[jayman38]

I think with NPC crew, we might be on the verge of a whole new way to control ships. I'm thinking of a three-way control mechanic for each system on the ship, all needing -someone- to control it.

Example elements of every single item on a hotbar:
Power Charge - Using available power generation (itself a detailed management game type.)
Power Store - How much is needed per use, vs. sustained use, vs. reserve (with options of per-system storage vs. ship-wide storage)
Power Usage - Changing Power Usage to alter isolated, single-use power vs. long-term, sustained use (real time switch between single-massive and rapid-fire)
Waste Charge - How much builds up during charging or idling or active usage? (Different types: Heat, bio waste, CO2 pressure, etc.)
Waste Store - How much can we take before... (Power Charge Loss, Power Store failure, Complete system failure, Complete system detonation)

This may sound complex for a single player to use, but it is what we see in popular media like TV and movies, and can be delegated to NPC crew member groups with detailed sub-commands.

 

[Malacodor]

I would agree only to reducing the power-drain of thrusters when not accelerating or maneuvering. We now have Newtonian physics so why am I paying a power-cost to...drift in space. Here is great opportunity to reward daring pilots who turn off inertial dampening. I say pay power for acceleration, pay for maneuvering, pay for inertial dampening and DRIFT FOR FREE.

That's how it actually works, just release the WASD keys.

 

[Lukwan]

That's how it actually works, just release the WASD keys.

So...this reduces power consumption of thrusters to zero when you are coasting?

 

[NeonSturm]

• Minimum time batteries: combat: powering weapon salvos
  
• Medium time batteries:
  1. prolonged-combat
     
     • supporting reactors compensating power demand spikes
     • powering heat-vents if own/enemy weapons produce heat.
  2. takeoff
     
     • increasing thrust when you need to takeoff from a planet
     • increasing emergency break rate
     • flattening the power spikes from jump drives and movement changes.
• Maximum time batteries:
  • fuel for carrier-based craft
    
  • powering factories or warpgate-outposts

 

[nightrune]

So...this reduces power consumption of thrusters to zero when you are coasting?

Yes, if you do not direction then you use no thrust. We have newtonian physics now. It can be turned off though.

 

[Lukwan]

Good to know. (Probably should have confirmed that myself.)

Then the only change I would recommend is to introduce a minor power cost to thrusters when inertial dampening is left active. That function uses power too in my book.