New Power and viable shapes

[GnomeKing]

How does the new system promote creative shaping?

.. not just allow it - otherwise the stick-like dumbbell (horizontal or vertical) is the obvious route.

there is no need to build a full hull as many have pointed out - although Jojomo is also correct about mass saving of a full hull vs mass increase of more stabilizers for a complete ship skin.

but there is no requirement for either complete ship-skin or for ship section to be even connected....

Those that choose to build with full-skin connected hulls will still be disadvantaged compared to those who don't (assuming an optimized build)- and variety will not increase, because there is really just a single 'meta-shape' - is 'boredom' and personal choice enough to prevent more interesting, even 'RP' builds being wiped by 'death-dumb-bells' ? apparently it was not enough to stop 'spagatti', judging from views expressed in this forum...

 

[Kelpaz]

Current dev builds seemed to break the power requirements:

The "meta fighter" and the "Space banana" are ships I made to point out how broken the current systems are and now they draw too much power.

It seems like the current builds are on a head on collision to make everything draw too much power, not to mention new wonky shield mechanics.

Naturally I've made a custom config were stabilizers didn't matter and I could once again make normal looking ships, which shows how juiceless they are.

All the stabilizers do is to force ships to have awkward shapes with inadequate weapons, and coring 2.0.

 

[Koloss_Meshuggah]

I just got a taste of what everyone's complaining about. I've been trying out the dev build and thought I'd bring a few of my blueprints over to work on.

As it turns out, I can't even get this dinky ass corvette to be %100 stable:

Spoiler

As you can see here, both the stabilizer and reactor are almost as far apart as they can be. Moving the reactor barely makes any difference.

Spoiler

The only systems in the ship are a small shield setup and the beam weapons on the sides. Flying and firing the beams almost max out the power, and the beams barely do any damage, 75 I think it was. Maybe I'm an idiot but I honestly don't see how I can get higher stability, or even fit more systems in than whats in there now.

 

[Kelpaz]

I wish they would have kept the old power and just added the chambers to it, but since they put so much effort into breaking all systems including shields I am trying to find ways on how it could work, and one of those things should be either complete removal of stabilizers or requiring them only if the reactor is monstrously huge (but without kilometer distance requirement)

For the weird shield mechanics they brought in I've got an excellent idea on how to simplify it so it's not a convoluted mess of shield spheres but still has separate shield facings.
I'll consider posting my shield idea in the suggestions tomorrow as I need sleep now and procrastinated to long.

 

[beeez]

I definitely wish there was more graduated scaling on stabilizer distance, maybe so smaller ships get more leeway before ramping up the requirements. I mostly build small craft and they're either coming out so tiny they don't need any stabilizers, or stabilizers are taking up a significant amount of space inside (and/or they're requiring bizarre build shapes to get to a small stabilizer footprint).

I think the new power system basically comes down to a shield nerf. Between the retooled shield mechanics and the more limiting reactor rules, shields are going to suffer much lower capacity on a lot of ships

 

[Qweesdy]

I definitely wish there was more graduated scaling on stabilizer distance, maybe so smaller ships get more leeway before ramping up the requirements. I mostly build small craft and they're either coming out so tiny they don't need any stabilizers, or stabilizers are taking up a significant amount of space inside (and/or they're requiring bizarre build shapes to get to a small stabilizer footprint).

I'm still struggling to find a way to make it work. My current attempt is a pair of 10 million e/sec reactors at the back of the ship with stabilisers at the "15% efficiency" distance at the front of the ship, because I got sick of having a huge gaping cavity that can't be filled (and ended up with a slightly smaller huge gaping cavity that can't be filled). The next reactor size up (level 37?) doubles the number of reactor blocks (it jumps from 99999 reactor blocks to 199999 blocks) and would probably require stabilisers at the "5% efficiency" distance - it's so hideous that I'm ashamed to admit that I'm seriously considering it.

I think the new power system basically comes down to a shield nerf. Between the retooled shield mechanics and the more limiting reactor rules, shields are going to suffer much lower capacity on a lot of ships

Isn't it a shield nerf and a weapon nerf; which is effectively the same as an armour boost?

I don't know anymore (I'm also struggling to get shields to work - took multiple attempts to get the bubbles nice, but then couldn't put enough capacitors in each bubble without having them "stolen" by an adjacent larger bubble).

 

[NeonSturm]

I built a pyramid with 9* 10x10x10 chunks of thrusters and it was 100m wide on the bottom, 50 height.

I hulled it and then put 2 layers force-field wedges on top of it.
I even added a reactor defence with full potential.

Then shot it once with my little 13x7x30m ship and it had a big hole in it.
I admit, a pyramid isn't the optimal shape, but neither the worst imaginable.

And all the time I had only 0.8 thrust/mass and huge FTL-charge costs I couldn't even afford without stalling.

 

[NTIMESc]

Has anyone, found any non-exploity way of designing a reactor that doesnt end up as swiss cheese or my aunts cooking?

The old power system required building long beams throughout the ship, which I always found intrusive to ship design and nonsensical.
I'm content to simply build smaller reactors that fit in the given ship design, and use less system modules in the interim while waiting for the weapon update. It's no use trying to apply the new power system to an old weapon/shield design. The two aren't compatible, nor are they supposed to be.

Can someone post a comparision table on new power and damage values of weapons/shields everything?

According to the blockBehaviorConfig.xml the damage per hit of weapons systems has been doubled, presumably as a quick fix. The SalvageBeam does 5x more damage, and I have found it to work quite well, only needing groups of 20 to be extremely effective.
Power consumption does not appear to have changed, although there are new values for resting/charging. They all seem to have the same value of resting=3.0, charging=15.0, but there is no comment as to what they mean.

No, as of now, the reactor system is completely broken

As of now, it is one part of a complex, unfinished system. It remains to be seen if it will still be broken after the weapon update.

All the stabilizers do is to force ships to have awkward shapes with inadequate weapons, and coring 2.0

Awkward shapes are likely from oversized reactors in an effort to power systems that are probably 3 times larger than needed. Stablizers have nothing to do with inadequate weapons. Weapons compatible with the new power system haven't even been implemented. I find that "Coring" a reactor (assuming that's what you mean) is preferable to obliterating half of the ship before is "overheats".

 

[The Judge]

As of now, it is one part of a complex, unfinished system. It remains to be seen if it will still be broken after the weapon update.

No, quite literally at the state its in, the power update is flawed because it restricts the creative freedom of RP builders and destroys the balance of PvP. Even if new changes are implemented, your ships will still look like retarded dumbells if the system stays the same.

 

[beeez]

I'm still struggling to find a way to make it work. My current attempt is a pair of 10 million e/sec reactors at the back of the ship with stabilisers at the "15% efficiency" distance at the front of the ship

See NTIMESc's post. You probably don't need as much energy as you needed before to do the same stuff, and anyway, only one reactor is supported per entity. Having two 10M reactors is 10M energy regen, not 20M. Not sure if that impacts the stabilizer distance, but it might.

Isn't it a shield nerf and a weapon nerf; which is effectively the same as an armour boost?

It's not really a weapon nerf since weapons have had their damage increased per block, but even that's not exactly final since there's a weapon overhaul coming as well.

I find that "Coring" a reactor (assuming that's what you mean) is preferable to obliterating half of the ship before is "overheats".

Makes sense to me too, but this way is going to kill my old startup method - which was to hang around the starting shop until some trading vessels wrecked into it, then to steal them and disassemble the wreckage when they started overheating.

No, quite literally at the state its in, the power update is flawed because it restricts the creative freedom of RP builders and destroys the balance of PvP. Even if new changes are implemented, your ships will still look like spaget dumbells if the system stays the same.

You say that like it's any different from the old system. The old system was arguably even more restrictive because of its implicit requirement that the reactor match the largest dimensions of the ship.

I think the frustration is coming from people not knowing how to build now. I used to start with a wire frame of reactor blocks in the rough size-shape i wanted my ship to be, and then i'd flesh out from there. Now i start with a shell, put in a reactor, stuff in a lot of stabilizers, set up systems/chambers, go back to adjust the size of the reactor, cram in some more stabilizers, try to fit in shields, increase reactor size, then realize that i can't put any more stabilizers without hanging them outside the ship, so i scrap the design and start over.

It's really not any more frustrating than trying to learn the old power system. I think people have just forgotten what that was like because it's been so long they're comfortable building with it now. Eventually that's how the new power system will be.

 

[Qweesdy]

See NTIMESc's post. You probably don't need as much energy as you needed before to do the same stuff, and anyway, only one reactor is supported per entity. Having two 10M reactors is 10M energy regen, not 20M. Not sure if that impacts the stabilizer distance, but it might.

It doesn't effect stabilizer distance (or number of blocks per chamber or anything else); it just gives you a whole new set of "chamber bonuses" to choose from.

Note that I'm looking at this from a very different perspective than most people. I have a hull with a certain shape and volume, and my goal is to fill that volume in whatever way is the most useful. This is what I'm struggling with - avoiding wasted space.

For some history...

a) When I first started I made my reactor as big as I could while still having stabilisers at the "100% efficiency" distance; and tried to fill my ship with useful system blocks and failed because everything took too much power, leaving the ship with a massive gaping cavity of pointless idiocy.

b) Then I decided I could avoid some wasted space by having 4 reactors and "ship modes"; and increased the size of the reactors so that stabilisers were at the "50% efficiency" distance; and tried to fill my ship with useful system blocks and failed because everything took too much power, leaving the ship with a massive gaping cavity of pointless idiocy.

c) Then I decided I could avoid some wasted space by keeping the 4 reactors/"ship modes" and increasing the size of the reactors so that stabilisers were at the "25% efficiency" distance; and tried to fill my ship with useful system blocks and failed because everything took too much power, leaving the ship with a massive gaping cavity of pointless idiocy.

d) Then I decided I could avoid some wasted space by having 2 reactors/"ship modes" and increasing the size of the reactors so that stabilisers were at the "15% efficiency" distance; and tried to fill my ship with useful system blocks and failed because everything took too much power, leaving the ship with a massive gaping cavity of pointless idiocy. This is the "10 million e/sec" ship I mentioned in the post you replied to.

e) Since then, I decided I could avoid some wasted space by keeping the 2 reactors/"ship modes" and doubling the size of the reactors (to 20 million e/sec). This put stabilisers at the "7.5% efficiency" distance. I haven't filled in the other systems yet (I tried adding a "beam:cannon:ion" weapon and found that it consumed no power at all and took a break), but I suspect that I'm still going to have a massive gaping cavity of pointless idiocy.

I used to fill my interior with lots of blocks for shields (but now the power consumption is too high for that); and lots of blocks for jump drive and scanner (but they're both gone now); and lots of blocks for power capacitors (also gone now); and lots of blocks for auxiliary power (also gone now) and lots of blocks for effects (also gone now). The only systems left is thrusters and weapons, and both of them are limited by available power too.

Of course I also have passages and medical rooms and an internal park (with trees, etc) and crew cabins and enough cargo space to hold several entire freaking planets. These hardly made a noticeable dent in the massive gaping cavity of pointless idiocy. It's like throwing random trash into a black hole hoping to fill the black hole - the black hole never seems to get any smaller regardless of what I try to throw in it.

It's not really a weapon nerf since weapons have had their damage increased per block, but even that's not exactly final since there's a weapon overhaul coming as well.

From my perspective, more damage per block just makes it harder to fill the massive gaping cavity of pointless idiocy, and does nothing to solve the "power consumption is too high" problem that prevents everything from being used to fill that massive gaping cavity.

 

[The Judge]

You say that like it's any different from the old system. The old system was arguably even more restrictive because of its implicit requirement that the reactor match the largest dimensions of the ship.

You do realize the new power system requires your ship to be really fucking long for any kind of decent preformance?
If you were to look at the new system objectively, it is far more restricting for ship shapes than the old system, especially for those who want an effective combat ship.

 

[beeez]

Qweesdy i'm unable to tell from your wording whether you were placing stabilizers at x% efficiency or if you were adjusting reactor size until your stabilization was at x%.

There is a huge difference.

Reactor blocks give a certain amount of potential energy. You reach that potential at 100% stabilization. Maybe there are other side effects to low stabilization other than reduced power output? I dunno yet, and i'm not sure it's been tested out fully by the community because of how new it is. If you continue adding reactor blocks (or removing stabilizer blocks) and can see your stabilization reducing, you will also see your power regen reducing.

In other words, if your reactor is exactly 100% stable and you add more reactor blocks, you will actually get less power out of your reactor. Not sure if this is what you're experiencing, but it sounds like it may be, as you seemed to be getting less and less as you added to the reactor.

I also haven't heard anything about multiple reactors giving extra chamber options. Is it any different with two reactors than it would be if you just laid separate conduit lines to more chambers?

You do realize the new power system requires your ship to be really fucking long for any kind of decent preformance?

Not so. Here's an octahedral station i made in creative, just messing around on the dev builds over the last few months. Reactor in the middle and stabilizers in chunks as far away from the reactor as i could manage. I believe it's 200k power and about 100m in each direction out from the center (200m across on the long dimensions).

Is it strange that i have six chunks of stabilizers, each about the size of my reactor? Sure is, but it takes more stabilizers if you're not going to put them all at 100% efficiency 15km away

 

[Zoolimar]

Is it strange that i have six chunks of stabilizers, each about the size of my reactor? Sure is, but it takes more stabilizers if you're not going to put them all at 100% efficiency 15km away

For 200k power you need 2k reactor blocks and will have a stab distance of 100% at around 236 meters.

So a ship with such dimension will have a reactor-stabiliser group that weights 3.5 times less than what you have on this pyramid for the same energy generation. Considering that filling even a tube ship fully at current energy generation is pretty hard (you'll get around 30% of empty space most of the time) your pyramid will be mostly empty.

 

[beeez]

For 200k power you need 2k reactor blocks and will have a stab distance of 100% at around 236 meters.

So a ship with such dimension will have a reactor-stabiliser group that weights 3.5 times less than what you have on this pyramid for the same energy generation. Considering that filling even a tube ship fully at current energy generation is pretty hard (you'll get around 30% of empty space most of the time) your pyramid will be mostly empty.

If i want to put my reactor at one vertex and put stabilizers at the other end, yes, i could do this same shape with a much smaller stabilizer footprint. However, that makes my reactor much more vulnerable and my stabilizer bundle much less robust. Since there is bound to be a lot of empty space anyway (not all that much, since most of my stations have lots of storage for factories) there's no harm in placing more stabilizers than needed.

I think that as ship designs mature under the new system, we'll see a lot of stabilizer overloading to compensate for losses expected in battle. This will also allow a reactor to move to a somewhat less extreme and more protected location.

Really, i don't know why everybody is crying so hard. Because they won't be able to instantly build 100% effective ships on day one? There will be a process to figuring out design on the new power system. It's not the end of the world, and imo it's not a downgrade from the old system (though i'm not convinced it's an upgrade either)

 

[Zoolimar]

If i want to put my reactor at one vertex and put stabilizers at the other end, yes, i could do this same shape with a much smaller stabilizer footprint. However, that makes my reactor much more vulnerable and my stabilizer bundle much less robust. Since there is bound to be a lot of empty space anyway (not all that much, since most of my stations have lots of storage for factories) there's no harm in placing more stabilizers than needed.

Or I could build 3 times more powerful reactor for the same mass. It may work on the stations that don't need to move, but on ships it's just not a good choice to raise your mass so much.

Really, i don't know why everybody is crying so hard. Because they won't be able to instantly build 100% effective ships on day one? There will be a process to figuring out design on the new power system. It's not the end of the world, and imo it's not a downgrade from the old system (though i'm not convinced it's an upgrade either)

Here is the design. Just remove armor and add the turrets on sticks around it. Or without sticks, just floating. Against a ship that wastes the mass on a lot of additional stabilisers, like your station, it will have that much larger reactor group and more weapons, shields and other systems.

 

[beeez]

It'll also be an unwieldy shape. The new shield rules make it harder to protect ships with extreme dimensions effectively. You can't protect the whole thing without making one giant shield generator, which is going to eat a lot of your power. Or you can break it up into several smaller ones, but then sustained fire in one area becomes more dangerous.

Honestly i'm not interested in pvp in this game, so optimized pvp design is not my concern. I just want something that does the things i need it to do, without being a giant pain in the ass to control. Spaghetti is great for proof of concept and all, but who honestly wants to use such a thing?

 

[NeonSturm]

I'll build a station with a sun on top of it.
The sun obviously carries the reactors.

But for ships, it would be nice if not everything had to be a stick.

 

[Qweesdy]

Qweesdy i'm unable to tell from your wording whether you were placing stabilizers at x% efficiency or if you were adjusting reactor size until your stabilization was at x%.

There is a huge difference.

The ship's shape and volume remained the same, and the reactors were always at the back and the stabilisers were always at the front (as far apart as possible). I started by adjusting the size of the reactor so that the stabilisers where at 100% and there wasn't anywhere near enough power to allow the massive gaping cavity of idiocy to be filled with useful blocks. Then I increased reactor size (and number of reactors) and stabiliser size without shifting them (because they were as far apart as the hull allowed already), causing "worse stabiliser efficiency" each time, in an attempt to reduce the size of the massive gaping cavity of idiocy in the middle, until I reached "a pair of 20 million e/sec reactors, with stabilisers at the 7.5% efficiency distance" (where I still don't know if I'll be able to get rid of the massive gaping cavity of idiocy).

Reactor blocks give a certain amount of potential energy. You reach that potential at 100% stabilization. Maybe there are other side effects to low stabilization other than reduced power output?

At the "50% efficiency" distance you need twice as many stabilisers as reactor blocks to get "100% stable reactor". At the "25% efficiency" distance you need four times as many stabilisers as reactor blocks to get "100% stable reactor".

At the "7.5% efficiency" distance you need about 13.333 times as many stabilisers as reactor blocks to get "100% stable reactor". This means (for my current attempt) there's exactly 199999 blocks in each reactor at the back of the ship, then about 300 blocks of gaping cavity of idiocy in the middle of the ship, then about 26666666 blocks of stabilisers at the front of the ship. In this case; that gaping cavity of idiocy is actually about 300 * 300 * 250, or about 22.5 million blocks of volume. Cargo, passages and rooms take up about 2% of that; and shields, thrusters and weapons (which are all limited in size by their power requirements) will probably take up another 15%.

This leaves me with about 18.6 million blocks that can't be filled with anything.*

* To be fair, I could fill the insanely huge gaping hole with hull blocks; and that would increase my already extremely massive armour HP pool, so that's one "almost not useless" option I guess.

I dunno yet, and i'm not sure it's been tested out fully by the community because of how new it is. If you continue adding reactor blocks (or removing stabilizer blocks) and can see your stabilization reducing, you will also see your power regen reducing.

If your reactor isn't at 100% efficiency (because you don't have enough stabiliser blocks) then there's no point having as many reactor blocks as you do - the excess reactor blocks do nothing more than increase the number of blocks needed for chambers and increase mass; and the excess reactor blocks could/should be replaced with something (e.g. hull blocks) to reduce the ship's mass (and reduce power needed for jump drive, etc).

I also haven't heard anything about multiple reactors giving extra chamber options. Is it any different with two reactors than it would be if you just laid separate conduit lines to more chambers?

For multiple reactors; see: Reactors and "Ship Modes"

With 2 reactors you end up with 2 pre-configured "ship modes", and can switch reactors with a click of a button. In theory you could have one reactor with more conduits and more chambers, but then you'll spend ten minutes manually enabling/disabling/reconfiguring chambers instead of just clicking one button.

Is it strange that i have six chunks of stabilizers, each about the size of my reactor? Sure is, but it takes more stabilizers if you're not going to put them all at 100% efficiency 15km away

It's incredibly stupid. You'd need a lot less stabilisers if the reactor was in one corner and the stabilisers were in the opposite corner (or, if reactor and stabiliser/s were further apart); which translates to "more power for same mass" or "less mass for same power" or "more efficient".

 

[Zoolimar]

It'll also be an unwieldy shape. The new shield rules make it harder to protect ships with extreme dimensions effectively. You can't protect the whole thing without making one giant shield generator, which is going to eat a lot of your power. Or you can break it up into several smaller ones, but then sustained fire in one area becomes more dangerous.

Not that much more unwieldy than the pyramid with the same power generation and weights much less.

I'll need to check it, but I think it is possible to just make two docked shields on a stick. Then I'll mount this stick in the middle of the ship so that one shield covers the front and other the back. In case my opponent tries to concentrate on one of them I will be able to swap them by rotating the stick.