New Power DEV Thread

[StormWing0]

beeez do you get a warning message telling you that you can't place things less than 100% when prevented from placing? If so there's a checkbox on it to turn it off. If not than it's a bug to report.

 

[RB101]

I’ll be honest with the new power systems I’d like the ability to prioritise which weapons I would like to recharge fastest or be allowed to cap the energy consumption/draw of others

Say;

100% for my main AMC array
50% for my missle systems
5% for my alpha damage missle array.

 

[beeez]

beeez do you get a warning message telling you that you can't place things less than 100% when prevented from placing? If so there's a checkbox on it to turn it off. If not than it's a bug to report.

Yeahhh, just came back to say i figured this out. I had assumed that ignoring the dialog didn't change the way it worked, so leaving the dialog on would remind me in case i forgot, so i wouldn't freak out if the game didn't let me place a block. All better now, though just now i loaded back in after an update and my reactor isn't registering as present. Gonna try pulling and re-placing some blocks to see if it will remember it's present

 

[Jojomo]

Do your settings save between loads? I always have to toggle fullscreen off then back on to get full screen mode. Every time i start up. Changed keyboard settings are also forgotten between instances opening the app.

Are you playing via Steam? I gotta narrow down what's causing this issue for me, or maybe i should look around for a bugs/support subforum. I was willing to tolerate them when i figured they were just bugs that would be ironed out in the long run, but if i don't have to suffer these inconveniences, i'm suddenly eager to be rid of them.

Playing via steam. Full screen isn't saving, but keyboard settings save fine.

 

[beeez]

Well. I forgot about the chambers thing and logged out after modding a ship to test out mining bonuses. This is what i get any time i log on after leaving a ship with active chambers (i think the blocks are fine as long as they're unassigned) or if i try to load a saved blueprint of the same.

In the latter case, the game just won't load it. In the former, it seems to delete the ship from the server. I log in and get a notification that the ship i logged out on is no longer there, so i'm just dumped out into space.

 

[Ghent96]

...I pay attention to fonts but not 30 pages of problems with an unpopular patch...

Really? THIS brings a dev to the thread to reply?

*fuming*
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I do. Why should we allow a ship's weapons to be completely self sufficient just because they're docked instead of built in?

Turrets should be treated as an extension of the main ship, not as a drone glued onto the side of it.

Ideally, yes, but Schine has already gone down the road if entity spam turrets and treating a turret as a separate "ship" now for well ...the entire effing life of the game, and only made it worse with rails. This, HOWEVER, is NOT really relevant to the current power-overhaul-or-not discussion.
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...there's a problem with a reactor system if a mostly-hollow circular ship with a tiny relative-sized reactor far in back can barely fit in sufficient stabilization in stuff that protrudes from the front. If I packed this thing with full systems instead of a cozy interior, the reactor would not be sufficient at all...


The old system had power scale exponentially, it just meant you wanted a big ship (but of course there was an asymptote, so you wanted a ship that was at the limit).
I don't think having scaling like that plus multi-reactor would be beneficial for what they're trying to do, which is to get players to not pack ships full of systems. Really, I think that at the end of the day, the only way it'll ever be non-optimal to in some way pack in systems is to make packed-in systems a combat weakness.

Not a big fan of the stabilizer system. It on the surface should be encouraging ship-building similar to what I'm doing of having ships be oversized for their reactor so that there's a reason to put in stuff like interiors, but a ship like a Millennium Falcon replica isn't really meant to be combat viable and if I had chosen something with a rounder shape, I'd be up a creek without a paddle for power. Plus, you can just have a big stick on the front of your ship with the stabilizers in and that will always be better.

...and... You've discovered what many of us have been shouting to Schine for months now: this attempted power overhaul limits ship design in an unfair, unaesthetic, dictatorial way. The new reactors are BAD. The stabilizers are BAD. The chambers are BAD.

As for interiors, there are plenty of ways to incentivize them, but players should not be forced to have them. Schine isn't listening to us. If they want us to use crew, then they need to freaking work on AI and out crew in BEFORE they go trying to force interiors on us. Not related to power, however.

The "old" power was great, in its scalability, ease of understanding and building, it's cap and balance features. All Schine had to do was balance the power equation out more, power the soft cap, change systems power use & scale & soft cap those.... And you know what? We'd mostly be flying around in ships 100-200m long ships instead of people spending months making titans. We didn't NEED new power.

Why? People THINK they have to make big ships to survive now, because that's what Schine has created... And no one likes it. The dogfight is all but dead, except for those few of us practitioners that make mass limits and locked sectors and schedule duels.

 

[kulbolen]

If I packed this thing with full systems instead of a cozy interior, the reactor would not be sufficient at all.

this is exactly what they intended.

Universal power storage shouldn’t come back in my opinion, as it allows you to mostly mitigate all the downsides of ridiculous alpha damage. Specialised power storage however may be acceptable and only being allowed one speciality per ship, much like chambers, would preserve game balance.

All i seem to see in this forum are kids wanting to build massively op ships without regard for game balance, strategy or other players fun...

no, no

 

[Snowtiger256]

Dev 0.200.175 is bugged.

Getting an error message either when loading into an existing world or spawning a ship in a new world:

Please fix ASAP...

 

[beeez]

Ideally, yes, but Schine has already gone down the road if entity spam turrets and treating a turret as a separate "ship" now for well ...the entire effing life of the game, and only made it worse with rails. This, HOWEVER, is NOT really relevant to the current power-overhaul-or-not discussion.

It's relevant in that internal power is taxed now even if a power-independent entity is docked to another.

In other words, docked entities are now wholly dependent on the upstream power supply, so docking a large entity to a ship doesn't allow any kind of bypassing energy caps thanks to the one-reactor-per-dock-chain rule.

Though this has unintended side effects. When i dock my medium sized miner to a smallish station (larger than the miner, but uses a smaller power supply), now the station's systems are giving me "not enough power" errors, even though the ship is inactive. I can fix it by altering power priority, but then i worry that someday it'll end up sticking me in a bad position if having factories higher than lasers someday causes a problem.

Suggestion:
Treating AI modules like ship cores may help untangling some stuff. As we now have station and ship entities, maybe we could add a turret entity and perhaps even a drone entity. Each one gets its own core (station doesn't have one, but it's the main user of the build block, so maybe that could be a station core?) and the rules for the entity are determined by the core used to start it up. For example:

Turret core - specialized to hold weapons, no need for propulsion/navigation, stationary except for swivel action
Station core - stationary, can't dock/can only be docked to, doesn't use internal power to supply docked ships/drones, can hold factories
Ship core - feeds power to docked turrets but not drones, requires human pilot
Drone core - fleet AI, self-navigation/docking/undocking, combat like default faction ship AI

Under the hood i think all of this is pretty much in place already. It would just be a matter of separating out which entities are allowed to do which actions, and limiting appropriately. I don't think there's anything wrong with the docked turret system, since the needed mobility of a turret pretty much requires a docking point unless they wanted to overhaul game mechanics.

You've discovered what many of us have been shouting to Schine for months now: this attempted power overhaul limits ship design in an unfair, unaesthetic, dictatorial way. The new reactors are BAD. The stabilizers are BAD. The chambers are BAD.

As for interiors, there are plenty of ways to incentivize them, but players should not be forced to have them. Schine isn't listening to us. If they want us to use crew, then they need to freaking work on AI and out crew in BEFORE they go trying to force interiors on us. Not related to power, however.

Shouting at them isn't really productive. Your argument concerning fixed power calculations applies equally to the new system as the old one. Presumably, they're throwing out the old system because somebody has a vision for a better one. Instead of fighting them on it, we should help steer the new system to be as user-friendly as possible. They can tweak sizes and distances as they go to make the reactor/stabilizer balance make sense for most people.

I also like the concept of the reactor chambers, and i'd like to see them developed further. It's a way to add customizability in a limited way, so that one ship can't do everything. Maybe they could alter how much reactor space each thing costs so that some upgrades are very expensive while others are able to be collected en masse. I dunno, but i think the chambers (if they work: i still can't load ships with allocated chambers) are a nice feature of the new system.

I agree with you on interiors. I realize that some people build for aesthetics, but i'm not one of them. It's not even that realistic to expect a lot of open space inside a ship. A very large ship will have open paths for crew/maintenance purposes, but these needn't be spacious. Any craft i can think of that's meant to be operated by a single pilot is usually some minimally-sized cockpit with the majority of the working volume spent on systems (computers, propulsion, life support, etc).

More crew means more open space, but no large open spaces are used in a vessel unless it's a transport of some kind. Cargo ships, cruise liners, commercial aircraft, public transit buses/trains, etc. We just happen to live in a world where most craft people see (even personal automobiles) are meant to transport cargo, whether that be groceries, passengers, etc. I think that if we were more utilitarian as a society, and especially if we lived in space, such open volumes would be far less favored compared to streamlined silhouettes and minimal cockpits.

Hopefully the power system eventually shakes out so that small, system-dense ships are viable.

 

[NeonSturm]

I again ended up craming all systems in that 1m layer below and above the deck of a fighter. It's 7m tall, 11m wide and 21 long.
There is a certain minimum size if you want USD docks, a teleporter, a bridge with all computers and no visible systems.

The power isn'T the problem now, altough the last stable dev is missing information about some branches of chambers.
I don't think all branches are needed and have no clue how jammers, cloakers or inhibitors work right now.

I just noticed that a level-1 reactor can't support a level-2 chamber independent of setup. Hopefully it's fixed in teh later jet unstable dev builds which crash on loading the universe for me.

 

[Kelpaz]

I've been procrastinating about making this post about this but here it is.

The new power work alright in some cases like some "fighters", Larger ships however causes many headaches.
Either the reactor will be in front or back, even thinking about a center reactor is a no go unless you have a few kilometers to spare around it.
Docks not being self powered creates power instability, making it harder to know how much power the ship needs.
After testing a large flagship refit (420K) I got a ship where almost half the power goes to weapon upkeep, can't have the docks firing along with main arrays or while reloading missiles, but hey got those sweet new chamber effects right?

I tried being as patient as possible just waiting for this new system to develop, but so far there are plenty of issues.
Among things the two most important stand out to me

Stabilizer distance is too extreme.
Not being able to self power turrets and docked weapons creates power instability.

If self powered docks is not going to exist in the new system I'll have to use a custom config which I don't like to rely on.
If I make a modular station it will have massive power problems if the center isn't some ungodly powerful reactor.

If stability distance isn't' changed I'll have to make my new ships very long so I can have a reactor in the middle.

Tl;dr Stabilizer distance is too extreme and forces design decisions, turrets not being self powered creates power stability problems.

 

[NeonSturm]

Tl;dr Stabilizer distance is too extreme and forces design decisions, turrets not being self powered creates power stability problems.

Self-powered turrets could have a different reactor. Docked armor will have ion-effect - do I need to say something else to convince it was a bad idea?.

Perhaps docked reactors could count as extension of the main reactor if they have the same type, but then there are stabilizer issues (even longer distances needed).

However you can make a ship with some "escorts" (as long as break-off is disabled) using the same ship core for both to get something which isn't a spagetti-ship.

 

[Kelpaz]

Self-powered turrets could have a different reactor. Docked armor will have ion-effect - do I need to say something else to convince it was a bad idea?.

Perhaps docked reactors could count as extension of the main reactor if they have the same type, but then there are stabilizer issues (even longer distances needed).

However you can make a ship with some "escorts" (as long as break-off is disabled) using the same ship core for both to get something which isn't a spagetti-ship.

Since I build ships that work in fleets and AI is not able to use effects I stopped relying on them since they took too much space, so only a few specialized smaller craft ever use them.

Since Ion effect isn't a chamber choice for the new power system I don't get your lecturing about ion effect and docked things.

Allowing a basic reactor for powering a turrets is all I want but the stabilizer distance would still be a problem.

 

[GnomeKing]

massive power problems

While I am not fan of power 2.0, i think it is useful to bear some things in mind when testing:

1) actual power consumption of weapons etc may be subject to change, and relative power delivery vs shields and blocks will not be as it is now. There is not a 1-for-1 swap with the rest of the systems in 2.0

2)the goals of 2.0 seem to be about (initially imo at least) reducing the primacy of power-gen in ship builds and spreading the balancing of power-consumption across multiple systems which have to be balanced to avoid power-failure.
'100%' efficient is not now maximized application of XYZ rules to maximized number of reactor blocks, but a 'Goldilocks' dilemma of having reactor and stabilizer just big enough.
Additionally reactors will have to be protected differently as the reactor will be basis of global ship-hp (or similar), again creating a problematic equivalence with total-role of the power system in a whole ship under 1.0.

[ Chambers are slightly secondary issue imo - similar chambers could buff many potential power systems, and the buff-system is explicitly intended to be an easy way to introduce future functions and modifications to the game ]

I think that Dev Goal is basically to a) specialize ships more, b) make less gap between 'newbie' XYZ and 'veteran' XYZ reactors, c) simplify statistics and behaviors of fleet and NPC factions (eg removal of capacity), d) make building the power system itself more intuitive and fun.

Of those goals a) and b) seem functional - i am not sure about c) - But d) is a bit of a failure in my view.

Given that effect of systems (eg theoretical 'real' delivery of damage against a ship in full systems 2.0) and consequently the 'power consumption/supported block count' could change a lot, I would love to hear opinions of building with 2.0 reactors and stabilizers itself.


For me power 2.0 as a whole (ex.chambers) is too flat, 1-dimensional, and rather boring - it feels arbitrary and comes across as simple, rather than intuitive.

(feels like other flavors may have been tastier :/ )

 

[Zoolimar]

Given that effect of systems (eg theoretical 'real' delivery of damage against a ship in full systems 2.0) and consequently the 'power consumption/supported block count' could change a lot, I would love to hear opinions of building with 2.0 reactors and stabilizers itself.

You could ask Veilith. He checked some spaghetti ships in power 2.0 and was pretty "pleased" with the results - they kicked ass even more than they do now. At least he said something to this extent in chat.

As the only limitation on reactor is the fact that it must be built in a single group you could build it like a cubic grid and not care even if you lose a block here or there. Same goes for stabilisers.

Currently the unknown variable is how devs will do the new weapon system and how the damage will be delivered. This part could screw over the spread out ships.

 

[NeonSturm]

If they want cubic reactors, they could give bonus depending on adjacent blocks.

6 blocks = placed in middle and 110%
5 blocks = face of the reactor cube and 100%
4 blocks = edge and 90%
3 blocks = corner and 80%
2 blocks = line block and 70%
1 blocks = line end block and only 60%​

 

[beeez]

Dunno if it's just me, but opening my star map immediately crashes the latest build. (v0.200.193)

Just came upon a sector full of stationary npc ships. It was creeping me out, so i admin despawned them and the game crashed again.
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If they want cubic reactors, they could give bonus depending on adjacent blocks

They don't "want cubic reactors," and in fact one of the purposes of the new power system is that the reactor doesn't have to be a particular shape, as is the case with the old system

 

[GnomeKing]

I have considered something like this as well, combined with other overlapping rules... - conceptually working towards a semi-procedural algorithmic system:

I

6 blocks = placed in middle and 110%
5 blocks = face of the reactor cube and 100%
4 blocks = edge and 90%
3 blocks = corner and 80%
2 blocks = line block and 70%
1 blocks = line end block and only 60%​

 

[kikaha]

have no clue how jammers, cloakers or inhibitors work right now.

So true, me neither.

 

[Hugoba]

Is there any threat to report bugs in dev build?

Dev .193:
- Direction of block in advanced tools appears strange, block is all black and it is not possible see what direction it points. Also when you click on arrow to rotate block and this place acidentally points at your ship you will place blocks.
- When U point at rotation arrow in advanced tools "help" message appears and cover your view to block. Is there any shortcut to rotate block without touching arrows?
- Still don't know how to access to more advanced chamber effects (which needs some ability applied before), I could only level up and down chamber effects. Is there any possibility to choose more effects in the same chamber?
- Shield capacitators does not need any power to upkeep? What will prevent me from filling all my empty hull with capacitators?
- SCAN message (and actually every message) covers the power values in flight.