Brainstorm This New Power Block

[Groovrider]

OK so I really like the idea of a reactor block.

How about this: The reactor block is a mr fusion sort of thing. it sits in the ship and it can run on anything, however, different things burn for different times.

Fuel: Any crystal. On a scale of rarity say rammet is the highest for burn time.

Dangers: The reactor is a miniature star and acts as such. Fueling the reactor with common materials generates heat. Fueling it with more rare materials means more heat. The more powerful the reaction the more shielding blocks (crystal armor?) are needed OR the more empty space it must be surrounded by (box). The mounting itself must be made of shielding for anything but the most basic fuel type or the blocks take damage. Breaching the casing while in operation causes a massive flood of photons in a spherical shape thats size is dictated by the reactor output.

Fueling: Draws from a ship inventory or docked inventory.

The kicker: Reactors don't provide power. They multiply your existing power. I see them being used in conjunction with our power blocks and I think this will allow players to tune their own engines based on the power curves and their needs. Do you make a bigger reactor and fewer power blocks or do you make multiple small reactors with large powerblock arrays...the possibilities. The rate of multiplication obviously subject to testing.

thanks for your time.

 

[Kaamio]

I wouldn't mind seeing alternate power reactors with fuel requirements and considerably higher power/block ratio. Volatility seems like a nice touch, of course once shields go down its often over, but in face to face or fleet combat and if point defence happens to work, it might actually be a meaningful weakness.

The whole volatility and power bonus scaling with group bonus is a bit iffy, small ships are gutted anyway if their reactor explodes and larger ships should be able to deal with it with few layers of advanced armor and a bit of space. I'm not entirely against but I'm not sure how to balance it around reasonable benefit versus meaningful downside.

The idea that they aren't affected by shield? Could work if it's possible in the engine, and even if shields happen to be up and further block damage can be avoided the ship still suffers significant power loss, so I think it's fine that way. Btw, I'd like to see higher shield damage on exposed system modules in general too.

In my vision this would lead into elite craft of smaller size and large ships having them as auxilary reactors while getting their main power from the old reactors. Fuel requirement should deter leaning on them too much in larger scale. The game should support at least the following:

-do not use the fuel reactors unless power drain is higher than fuelless regen
-display fuel consumption at full power
-display fuel consumption on hud real time
-easy refuel on station or carrier
-obviously server config for fuel consumption and power regen (and bonuses for grouping or whatnot)
-on default high enough fuel consumption that nobody sane tries to make a craft that uses only fuel reactors because fuel availability is trivial

 

[Stakhanov]

I like the concept , but these should both be linked to 2 blocks and take as much volume as possible to perform better than standard power blocks. Big rings of reactors that destroy a bigger ring when hit.

I prefer the concept of solar pannels however. Blocks on the outside of your ship that can't be protected by many layers of armor and modules , and are extra vulnerable to power drain beams.

 

[Agent_Bladelock]

Wow, I didn't expect such a big reaction to this dumb idea I had.

Thanks,
Agent_Bladelock

 

[Keptick]

On the initial subject. What if the reactors get a bonus when grouped together, except that EVERY reactor in a group explodes or poofs when a sinle block of that group is destroyed? That'd allow interesting designs with the ever so present risk VS reward aspect in mind. Play it safe and use single reactors or make big risky groups.

 

[TheKingOfSpace]

I'd like to seem them fueled, too.

 

[TheOmega]

When I said put extra reactors to the outside, I was assuming they would all explode in a group, and would completely cripple it. I like having passive trade offs, instead of fuel requirements.

 

[Winterhome]

How about this... A pair of reactor construction blocks, and a reactor heat mechanic.

Reactor block (*possibly* consumes fuel - generates heat, but also gains a bonus for every adjacent Fusion Reactor block)
Heat Sink block (transfers and stores heat from adjacent blocks, and loses heat for each side exposed to space)

Possibly a Reactor Computer block, akin to the Rail Speed Controller. Link up activators to determine what percentage of critical heat levels the computer block outputs a signal at, and the signal is outputted specifically to an adjacent logic block. Logic inputs on the Reactor Computer will immediately shut down *all* reactor blocks. The computer may also act as a toggle switch for your hotbar. This means you can make different designs of reactors with different amounts of power outputs and different heat thresholds.

When a Reactor block overheats, it explodes. If the reactor block is hit while it's turned on, it explodes. This explosion has *no* blast radius limit, and every point of energy generated per second by the total reactor group is turned into a single point of damage for explosion calc purposes.


Input on this, please :D

 

[TheOmega]

Nuuu not fuel, just drawbacks, like, idk, freaking deadly splosions or something.

 

[Kaamio]

Well if it consumes fuel, care should be taken that it won't become an inconvenience rather than an actual cost. Like turning on AI in turrets is currently. Or spawning turrets for your new design and they appear 400m away wrong side of the ship etc.

Imagine building a bunch of drones with those and not having a few clicks option to fuel all of them to certain amount.

That said, as long as using only the better ones is in most applications pure idiocy due to drawbacks, fuel isn't that necessary.

 

[Agent_Bladelock]

On the initial subject. What if the reactors get a bonus when grouped together, except that EVERY reactor in a group explodes or poofs when a sinle block of that group is destroyed? That'd allow interesting designs with the ever so present risk VS reward aspect in mind. Play it safe and use single reactors or make big risky groups.

Yeah, that's what I meant when I was writing it.

 

[alterintel]

what about a containment field, like how shields work.

The reactor will do structural damage to the ship unless there's a containment field in place. Once the containment field gets down to say 25%, you start suffering structural HP loss. And if it gets down to zero, then BAM! massive explosion. Might even be a good way to rig a self destruct.

So power generated by the reactor does damage to the containment field instead of the ship structure. just like weapons do damage to the shields instead of the ship hull. This is where containment field capacitors and rechargers come in.

Also Ion effect on weapons could cause damage to shields and containment fields.

 

[starhaiden]

more shields?
What if there was some sort of reactor that leaks power to other entities

 

[alterintel]

Ok, what about this:

A capsule reactor (mater to energy converter):
Fuel = any capsule will do (finally something to do with all of those mineral capsules)
every capsule processed inflicts x amount of damage to your ship (to be absorbed by shields or containment field)
every capsule produces x amount of energy to be stored in the power bank.
works just like a capsule refinery, but instead of producing capsules it uses them. so a 5 second cycle or so.

Could possibly create containment field capacitors, and recharges if you don't want the damage to go toward shields.

This could enable Ion effect or power drain beams to indirectly cause damage to ships

 

[jayman38]

Ok, what about this:

A capsule reactor (mater to energy converter):
Fuel = any capsule will do (finally something to do with all of those mineral capsules)
every capsule processed inflicts x amount of damage to your ship (to be absorbed by shields or containment field)
every capsule produces x amount of energy to be stored in the power bank.
works just like a capsule refinery, but instead of producing capsules it uses them. so a 5 second cycle or so.

Could possibly create containment field capacitors, and recharges if you don't want the damage to go toward shields.

This could enable Ion effect or power drain beams to indirectly cause damage to ships

Maybe have a tiered series of fuel capsules? I'm thinking of the end of Back to the Future 3, where Doc had three different "fuel logs", to be used in a specific sequence. So maybe you can get a boost at first tier, and then after some time, you can go up to the next tier of fuel. However, maybe if you try to use the fuel out of order or otherwise before the reactors are ready for it, it risks an explosion. (As happened with Doc's third fuel log, which looked like it had the effect of a bundle of dynamite sticks!)

 

[alterintel]

Ok, what about this:

A capsule reactor (mater to energy converter):
Fuel = any capsule will do (finally something to do with all of those mineral capsules)
every capsule processed inflicts x amount of damage to your ship (to be absorbed by shields or containment field)
every capsule produces x amount of energy to be stored in the power bank.
works just like a capsule refinery, but instead of producing capsules it uses them. so a 5 second cycle or so.

Could possibly create containment field capacitors, and recharges if you don't want the damage to go toward shields.

This could enable Ion effect or power drain beams to indirectly cause damage to ships

The cool thing about this idea, is that each type of capsule could have different effects.
Ore Capsules = Medium Power, Medium Damage to Ship Structure
Crystal Capsules = High Power, Medium Damage to Ship Structure
Mineral Capsules = Low Power, High Damage to Ship Structure

Rammet Capsule = Very High Power, Very Low Damage to Ship Structure
etc....

 

[TheOmega]

Enough with the fuel. Fuel is stupid when you over think it. If we had the normal reactors nerfed, added a reactor that costed fuel of ANY KIND, for the SAME AMOUNT OF POWER as what we currently have, and added one that has 1 HP, 0% armor, and explodes all connected blocks in the group, but produced 5 times as much power, with a different formula that wasn't dependent on boxdims, but just how many are connected, that would be perfect. Fuel people get their fuel, and people who are afraid of getting stuck won't get stuck, and people who want things to explode get explosions!

 

[Winterhome]

Enough with the fuel. Fuel is stupid when you over think it. If we had the normal reactors nerfed, added a reactor that costed fuel of ANY KIND, for the SAME AMOUNT OF POWER as what we currently have, and added one that has 1 HP, 0% armor, and explodes all connected blocks in the group, but produced 5 times as much power, with a different formula that wasn't dependent on boxdims, but just how many are connected, that would be perfect. Fuel people get their fuel, and people who are afraid of getting stuck won't get stuck, and people who want things to explode get explosions!

And everyone who wants their blocks to not be overcomplicated and for the game to stay well balanced gets screwed in the process.

No.

 

[TheOmega]

How is that complicated? 2 of the three work like the power does now, and the other is simpler.

 

[starhaiden]

More people would want fuel added into starmade in the future. Might as well redo the current power system and build it so fuel can work with it.