My suggestion about power

[HerrColonel]

I don't like the way the power is build on ships, generated, and used by the systems.

In building
I don't like the way we build generators, we usually use the full ship lenght and make horrible cross of blocks who fit in the hull not very well. My idea is: only one generator block is enough for your ship's power needs. If you build largers ships you may want another generator in other places for back-up. If you have something as heavy as a cruiser you may have a generator dedicated to the engine, for example.

"How should a single block do the job of the thousands blocks we put in our hulls and be balanced? Does it mean putting several ones on a small ship will make it incredibely overpowered?"
I think you don't want the piece of techology providing you power (like a nuclear generator) to be easely damagable. It should be as important as your core.
- Getting it shot could maybe cause an explosion, damaging heavily every block in a small range and not providing you power anymore until repaired (even if not totally smashed). You will put it in a secure dedicated room in big ships or behind your pilot's chair in a fighter.
- The power generator block mass will be greatly increased. This will make the builder want to use the less quantity possible. Heavier ships will need bigger engines or be very slow (little thrust ratio) or drain even largest amount of power to fire a bigger engine (bigger thrust -> regular thrust ratio) as increasing the number of thrusters should reduce the ISP. So you will try to reduce your needs if they don't fit in the amount of generators you planned, you don't deal with place-and-remove power tests anymore.
- In addition, no power generator block may be placed around an existing power generator block (one block between them at least)

"Yes but with your idea the power is in a single place and not all around the systems!"
- I think the systems need to be connected to the power generator in order to use its power.
- We should have some kind of power hub block that could be linked to a generator block. It would create a "wire" link between them just like the factories and some logic blocks.
In little ship like fighters, you can connect your systems directely on the generator and don't need the hubs.
- Power hub blocks can be linked together, too, so you can make the wires follow the path you want to not mess with your interior (but maybe improve it!).
- Turrets and systems on turrets will require no power system, but will drain energy from the generator and need to be linked by the turret docking port.
- I think engines should be linked to a computer just like weapons (maybe no linking needed as one computer could act on every thurster on the ship, the engine computer).
- The computer will allow the player to put the engines on or off (and can be linked to a logic activator). - The computer have to be linked to the power generator in order to use power.
- Same can be imaginate with shields (for power usage, too)

The power usage and display
The way power is generated and stored makes no sens to me. You either have a power generation larger of your needs that you don't need any storage OR your power requirements are too high and you get out of power while using your ship for thrusting and firing for example. And the display of power in the HUD is confusing.
I don't claim to have an idea to make it more realistic. But I think my suggestion can help to improve the gameplay.
Your power will be shown in your HUD as it is now.
- One power generator block could generate 10 units of power.
- When not used every unit display in blue.
Let's say every AMC power usage is 0.1 if you have two barrels of 5 the power usage of your both weapons will be 1.
- The power unit used by the weapons display in orange while you fire.
If you keep immobile and use no power you have ten power units and while you keep firing with theses you can see what are their power usage (the orange power unit) and what you have left (the nine blue units left) and when not firing the power usage goes down to 0 in a little curve. With this logic a single power generator-ship can have up to 5 barrels of 20 and fire it at the same time.
But a fonctionnal ship will never build so much weapons power requirements as it needs power for the other systems.
- Maybe we could keep the actual dev build mechanic that up the power needs of AMC arrays (compared with bigger barrels ones).
- The power unit used by your engines display in red when they consume power
- When the engines are on, they use some power (maybe like 0.5 when not thrusting) but the power requirement get up as soon as you use some thrust.
- The power unit used by your shields display in white when the are regenerating.
Maybe they will use some little power to maintain, too, like the engines. Shutting them down by the shield computer will increase the available power.
- When there is no free power unit left, a system will be shut down (or work as well as possible with the available power), leaving some free power for the most importants ones.
You can edit yourself the system's priority. Choosing to prioritize some systems over some other to change your ship behavior when not having enough power for everything.
- The power unit used will be displayed in the order of priority
From this point I cannot explain my idea anymore by text. Looks at my schemas.

I hope I succed to describe to you all my idea well enough
Tell me what you think of my power idea. Tell me whatever you think about or don't understand, I'll try to explain and defend my suggestion. I hope lots of you will like it =)

 

[ltmauve]

Nope:
First, making it so that a single block produces enough power to power anything up to a certain size is ridiculous. Right now, power scales with ship size, at incredibly small intervals. If you need a touch more power, you put in a few more xm3.4s. With this, if you need a bit more power, you need to put in another generator, and then you have tons of surplus power, which means that your ship is OP.
Second, having mass be a balancing factor won't work, since it is incredibly easy to get 500:1 thrust:mass ratio now on larger ships. Either it would be too light to matter, or too massive for anything too small.
Third, the hub system just adds another layer of complication to the system that won't actually affect the large ships that you seem to be targeting, since you would only need a few blocks in ships with 10,000+ blocks.

The current power system is an excellent base for the game.

As for the display/prioritization of power, that stuff's execellent

 

[HerrColonel]

Second, having mass be a balancing factor won't work, since it is incredibly easy to get 500:1 thrust:mass ratio now on larger ships. Either it would be too light to matter, or too massive for anything too small.

I think this is the most important point
Doing such high thrust ratio should not be possible or suck massive amount of powers, as the ISP for every thrusters is the same and implies the thruster's mass, IMO the resulting ISP should be lower as you add thrusters.
Doig a big unlogical power cross is the only way we actually have to sustain such a physic breaker engine. That's why I think it's OP

 

[Megacrafter127]

big unlogical power cross

IMO that makes perfect sense, depending on how the energy is actually won.
E.g. if the hyperflux coils(lore) in the current generators are used to recieve energy from some kind of radiation/wave, increasing their dimensions in the current way makes perfect sense.(you do increase the length and not the width of an antenna to recieve a clearer signal, don't you?)

 

[HerrColonel]

My goal could be to have this (left of my picture) over this (right of my picture).

Maybe I'm wrong with the point all the power should be provided by one-block generators, the group could be ajusted by adding more blocks on the side to be more scalable, and the power will not be multiplicative. Making them even more dangerous (explosion range) in big groups will make the builder want to have no more as needed (tiny enough amount to be putted in a room and provide the power needed), and prefer two well-separeted-and-small power rooms over one big energy core. They may have like 2x the HP of regular hull to avoid being annoyed by weapon effect like piercing (damaging every block in his way). But could be destroyed very quickly with a weapon effect like EMP (but needs direct fire on the block).
I want to avoid having power generator all under my hull and don't care much about having some power generator destroyed, shields are better for filling the space between interiors and hull.
Cause, honestly, this way to build power is really messy. Your cross are never long enough. you add lots of other more little crosses. When you take damage you have no real idea of what the damages are there is just a point you are annoyed not being able to do everything without getting out of power and there is nothing you can quickly manage to do to make your system survive like in "Faster than light".

PS: Minecrafter127, you have a point: this entierly depends of the way the power is generated in the admitted physics of the game. But I don't think these antennas/power receiver are the only option. I don't think this option particuliary help the design of our ships OR gives us an amazing gameplay. I had more fun when I was a noob at building ships and adding power in a big room. It was underpowered that's why I needed to extand my power core more and more and finally discover the cross setting, but I don't like the way we design ships with it.
To improve the strenght of the average signal recieved by the antenna, do you build smaller antennas in the space you have left in his width? For the power we do.

 

[Megacrafter127]

To improve the strenght of the average signal recieved by the antenna, do you build smaller antennas in the space you have left in his width?

In fact, yes one might do. I could explain more about how dipole-antennas work, but that'll just create a little wall of text only remotely related to the topic. If you want to hear the details I'm talking about, I can tell you in a pm(If others want to be in that pm, just ask via pm).

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

I'm for some kind of reactors, but they should scale in size, use, kind. Like, nuclear ones and reactors that use other kinds of ways to generate energy. But it shouldn't be one block. The energy core for a big ship should probably be like 10x10 and need a cooling system and such. Wires would be cool, too, so it can happen that you shoot through the enemy's weapon wire, cutting a weapon block off of its power, while their generator is actually still active and so on. That would mean you have to put more thought into big ships.

 

[HerrColonel]

In fact, yes one might do. I could explain more about how dipole-antennas work, but that'll just create a little wall of text only remotely related to the topic. If you want to hear the details I'm talking about, I can tell you in a pm(If others want to be in that pm, just ask via pm).

To be honest english is not my mother tongue. Even if the subject may interest me, don't write a wall of text just for this because i may not be able to understand it or to discuss about it. Unless you want to show your point on the subject, it's not necessary.

@Hanspeter
Yea different types of generators can be imagined. Maybe we can even keep the actual "xm3.4" with the same limitations I writed about. So we keep a "cross" setting in the power generation possibilities, but not as messy as now because you will want it to be safe in the core of your vessel.
I totally join you on the cooling needs of a generator, that's a nice way to make them more "real".
But I think you misunderstood my wire suggestion: the wire will only be links between power hubs like the links of factories are. Can't be shooted at directely, but the concerned blocks can be destroyed, otherway I think building wires will needs lots of cube (like redstone in minecraft) and can be a pain to repair (if you have only a few power hubs you know where to replace them). By the way I think the actual factory wires looks great.

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

Aah, okay. ^^ Also, different energy cores = different consequences in case they overheat or get shot. Some risky ones with high power outputs might explode if they overheat, others might simply stop producing power. Perhaps a cooling computer could be build that checks the heat of the generator and if it gets too hot it shuts it down to prevent the destruction of the ship due to a huge explosion? :D

 

[HerrColonel]

Yeah totally, that could be the job of some logic blocks (some special one should be added as you say for the heat checking and everything) to ensure a "risky" power generator never explode because of heat (on a sophisticated spacecraft).
The heat could start to increase when the power needs are at maximum? Give your ideas guys

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

That could work! So to take out an enemy ship's generator, it might be enough to simply destroy their cooling system. ^^

 

[ltmauve]

Maybe an alternate reactor system, which gets its bonus from being cube-ish? (mimimization of dimensions with maximization of mass)

Also, a radiator system that you link a reactor to a computer and this reactor is offline until you activate the computer. Each computer has a seperate maximum bonus for all the reactors attached to it. You would need to attach radiators to it to dissipate heat. Radiators are problematic though. Best system I could come up with for now: Radiators benefit from having the longest dimension be longer and the other dimensions be 1. Go off in the empty directions from a block on either end, and sum the space in each direction for a cooling factor. Going off into empty space multiplies the other dimensions by 2 instead of adding to the sum.

 

[HerrColonel]

Maybe an alternate reactor system, which gets its bonus from being cube-ish? (mimimization of dimensions with maximization of mass)

Also, a radiator system that you link a reactor to a computer and this reactor is offline until you activate the computer. Each computer has a seperate maximum bonus for all the reactors attached to it. You would need to attach radiators to it to dissipate heat. Radiators are problematic though. Best system I could come up with for now: Radiators benefit from having the longest dimension be longer and the other dimensions be 1. Go off in the empty directions from a block on either end, and sum the space in each direction for a cooling factor. Going off into empty space multiplies the other dimensions by 2 instead of adding to the sum.

It may be the best solution, like in Interstellar KSP. I think externals panels can be great in this game too.

 

[WarmasterRaptor]

We have weapons computer to set the weapons efficiency to our liking.
We will have a computer to orient the power of our thrusters, soon.

Why couldn't we have a power computer to set where we want our power?
We would have to split the power output to weapons, shields, thrusts, cloak and jamming, with the usual % setting.
During combat we could dedicate more power to the shields to boost their efficiency while reducing movement,
Or reorient everything for the thrusters to run away from a way to dangerous fight,
etc,

Why wouldn't we also have a shield for our shield generators?
We would have to choose the efficiency for shield strength (hp pool), shield regeneration rate, shield cooling (improve delay before regen rate, but never below a minimum threshold).

Just ideas I had for a while, but i guess those ideas were already suggested? XD

 

[ltmauve]

The thing about the weapons is that with the new system, output is based specifically on the blocks of the weapons. Sliders disappear.
That said, prioritazion of power is an excellent thing.
Maybe having some way of using the teritary effect blocks slaved to the shields to permanently adjust the parameters would be a solution?

 

[therimmer96]

I thought we all know how power works in starmade? Calbiri confirmed it ages ago!

 

[HerrColonel]

Anyway the only kind of control over power, shields, etc we have actually is just you build it as big and as much as you can.
Weapons should work differently with the updates to come but everything need to be rethinked some way. I'll really enjoy not being able to thrust in any direction anymore but build only one powerfull thruster to go straight and some more little on the side for directionnal thrust (and like bottom VTOL for landing). We're not concerned about moving a ship "nicely" ATM.
I'll really enjoy more a gameplay based on the things we know (solar panels, atomic reactor) over what we have now.

 

[Ithirahad]

Yeah, I've always wanted actual reactors rather than just the biggest possible lines of blocks that you can fit in your ship... IMO, systems shouldn't need to be large or ugly to be effective; they should just ahave a risk attached to them, such as being a powerful explosive (Like Star Trek's matter/antimatter warp cores), or a limitation, such as requiring fuel or sunlight.