New Power DEV Thread

[Snowtiger256]

Yea, since the new system uses Reactor HP, and not systems HP like the old one did, oddities like this are bound to happen. In this case, the game probably thinks that the Isanth has a new reactor setup with a HP of 0 so any damage to the ship kicks the core into overheat. It used to be the other way, when the system wasn't yet implemented properly, because the game would think that the ships had a systems HP of infinite, and as a consequence cores would never overheat, even though you destroyed every other block in the ship.

 

[MChain]

Yeah, I guess if the ship has no new reactor/chamber blocks that may happen...

The fun fact is the ship HAD both reactor and chamber blocks

The only idea I have is that core hitting caused some structureHP check, and since we lack sHP now, the game thought they are zero...

 

[Capt Black001]

I'm not sure if I like the changes in the distance between power reactors and stabilizers. I had to retrofit all my ships in order to regain 100% stability.

Doing some math, if you were to build a ship that required 100 power blocks, this will give it 10000 power regen in total. so 100 (power Blocks) = 100 m distance + 5 meters from stabilizers.

If I were to make a ship with 1,000,000 power,
10,000 (power blocks) = 10km distance + 5 m That's a very long ship (spaghetti).

The only way around this distance problem is to place the stabilizers within the required distance and add a lot more. But your ship will still be 8 to 9 K long.

I thought these new changes were supposed to make this game more balanced. Instead, you are forcing us to create ships that are larger than our sector size, which will also produce a lot of lag due to block counts.

 

[Top 4ce]

I'm not sure if I like the changes in the distance between power reactors and stabilizers. I had to retrofit all my ships in order to regain 100% stability.

Doing some math, if you were to build a ship that required 100 power blocks, this will give it 10000 power regen in total. so 100 (power Blocks) = 100 m distance + 5 meters from stabilizers.

If I were to make a ship with 1,000,000 power,
10,000 (power blocks) = 10km distance + 5 m That's a very long ship (spaghetti).

The only way around this distance problem is to place the stabilizers within the required distance and add a lot more. But your ship will still be 8 to 9 K long.

I thought these new changes were supposed to make this game more balanced. Instead, you are forcing us to create ships that are larger than our sector size, which will also produce a lot of lag due to block counts.

Let me understand this better, you need 1m of space for stabilizers for every power block, or are you making your reactor a large line?

 

[Snowtiger256]

Last time I tried a 1mill reactor in the dev build the "required stable distance" (as in 100% stabilization, with all stabilizers at 100%) was about 420m in all. Though you can put stabilizers far closer than that, they just won't be as effective, and you need a lot more of them for 100% stabilization.

 

[kikaha]

At the same time at one cristal composite themanufacture price of a stabilizer block its notthat expensive

 

[Jojomo]

I'm not sure if I like the changes in the distance between power reactors and stabilizers. I had to retrofit all my ships in order to regain 100% stability.

Doing some math, if you were to build a ship that required 100 power blocks, this will give it 10000 power regen in total. so 100 (power Blocks) = 100 m distance + 5 meters from stabilizers.

If I were to make a ship with 1,000,000 power,
10,000 (power blocks) = 10km distance + 5 m That's a very long ship (spaghetti).

The only way around this distance problem is to place the stabilizers within the required distance and add a lot more. But your ship will still be 8 to 9 K long.

I thought these new changes were supposed to make this game more balanced. Instead, you are forcing us to create ships that are larger than our sector size, which will also produce a lot of lag due to block counts.

This isn't correct, stabiliser distances aren't calculated like that (you can test it yourself with a 100 block reactor)
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Last time I tried a 1mill reactor in the dev build the "required stable distance" (as in 100% stabilization, with all stabilizers at 100%) was about 420m in all. Though you can put stabilizers far closer than that, they just won't be as effective, and you need a lot more of them for 100% stabilization.

1 million e/s or 1 million blocks?

 

[Snowtiger256]

1mill e/s, not blocks

 

[Zekester81]

200.148v hate the new distance requirements between stabilizers and reactors. Even worse than before.

Went from this 200.137:


to this 200.148:


reactor placement for reference:


I wasn't even getting full stabilization previously, but a lot closer. Distance requirements perhaps need to just go. Keep in mind that this isnt even a pvp ship, just a crappy RP ship with full interior. The only thing being acomplished is that ships are being forced to get longer and longer, and this is plain dumb. Yeah, I missed the builds in between, and losing enthusiasm for the power update every time I check into new builds.

 

[Snowtiger256]

It's even worse for people wanting to make compact ships, I had to scrap my main salvager refits completely, because running a suitable reactor for powering all the stuff would have required at least a 2mill e/s reactor (counting not only the salvage array, but missiles and cannons as well), and it would have required a hull in far in excess of 500m long. In the old system, it's a fairly compact ship, with everything fitting into a ship not much longer than 150m.

I could have made it shorter by arranging the stabilizers closer to the reactor and adding more of them, but that also creates a problem that's totally contrary to what the Devs wanted to do with this update, namely filling even more of my available hull space with blocks. Also, the ship would still be far bigger than it was in the old system, just because there needs to be a gap between the reactor and the stabilizers (which I'm not sure I even need, because the design of the salvager is such that it doesn't require much internal volume, the ship is built around the array and other systems built into the array).

If the power per block figures would be adjusted upwards and perhaps a logarithmic power curve was added, we could have reactors smaller than before with the same output, thus reducing the distance between reactors and stabilizers, because of reduced block count.

But no, instead of fixing gigantism and allowing for more interior hull space in general because of "smaller systems", this system actually encourages gigantism and adds more interior hull space due to that.

 

[Jojomo]

It's even worse for people wanting to make compact ships, I had to scrap my main salvager refits completely, because running a suitable reactor for powering all the stuff would have required at least a 2mill e/s reactor (counting not only the salvage array, but missiles and cannons as well), and it would have required a hull in far in excess of 500m long. In the old system, it's a fairly compact ship, with everything fitting into a ship not much longer than 150m.

Is this taking into account the reduced power requirements in power 2.0?
I mean if you needed 2 million e/s before you wouldn't need as much in power 2.0....

 

[Snowtiger256]

Is this taking into account the reduced power requirements in power 2.0?
I mean if you needed 2 million e/s before you wouldn't need as much in power 2.0....

What reduced power requirements? Salvager power requirements were actually way LOWER in the old system (because power consumption for salvagers wasn't implemented properly) and they fixed that while adjusting them for the new system. In this particular case I ended up with an array that has 150k of idle power consumption in addition to to the already staggering 700-800k power draw when running...

This point is moot though, since my plans for actually refitting the ship were scrapped. I liked that ship alot and would have liked to have it refit, but getting it to work in the new system is really hard, due to the requirements of the new system...

 

[Capt Black001]

I stand corrected, I did some further looking into, I believe I'm seeing Class Ship Sizes here, take a look for your self



This one shows stats for a 1000 Power block count giving it 10,000 power.


And finally the Stats for a 1,000,000 power regen

as of DEV 148

 

[Jojomo]

What reduced power requirements? Salvager power requirements were actually way LOWER in the old system (because power consumption for salvagers wasn't implemented properly) and they fixed that while adjusting them for the new system. In this particular case I ended up with an array that has 150k of idle power consumption in addition to to the already staggering 700-800k power draw when running...

What about the power draw of everything else though? Salvage power draw went up because it was fixed.
I suppose my point is that comparing 2 million e/s in the different power systems isn't comparing like with like because power consumptions have also changed, and, because of the salvage power draw fix, comparing salvage ships isn't comparing like with like either.

 

[Snowtiger256]

Then how do you suppose we do refits, because the numbers aren't comparable anyway? Why do we even bother comparing the numbers if there is nothing to be compared?

I don't enjoy spawning two ships and basically gutting one of them, just to get a reference point on what I need to do, because the ships will not be comparable in size and in mass, due to the requirements of the new system, anyway. I don't even have an empty shell of this particlar ship because the hull was built around the salvage array and other systems, and not the other way around. I'd need to pull all of the guts out and basically rebuild them in order to refit the ship properly. This is exactly what I was afraid I'd need to do to refit the ship, and it does look like I was right.

Simply put, even if I did have all the necessary references, it would be too much effort and time wasted on a ship that may not be viable to run in the new system.

I may sound a bit edgy and frustrated, and I'm sorry about that, but trying to come up with a way to get this particular build refit and repeatedly failing at it does that to me. That's the way I cope with stress.

 

[Jojomo]

Then how do you suppose we do refits, because the numbers aren't comparable anyway? Why do we even bother comparing the numbers if there is nothing to be compared?

I don't think refitting the same same systems into the same hull is going to be possible in most cases where the hull was packed full (with enough power to run them). Things have changed a lot all the way down to the foundations.
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200.148v hate the new distance requirements between stabilizers and reactors. Even worse than before.

We'd all like our ships to be:

1. producing heaps of power
2. and low mass
3. and no larger than we want them to be.

It's a design triangle, you've probably seen examples in real life: pick two, because you can't have all three.
I really, really like that we have to make tough compromises like this in design (just like real life design).
[doublepost=1509622406][/doublepost]

Last time I tried a 1mill reactor in the dev build the "required stable distance" (as in 100% stabilization, with all stabilizers at 100%) was about 420m in all. Though you can put stabilizers far closer than that, they just won't be as effective, and you need a lot more of them for 100% stabilization.

It's almost certainly a bad idea to go for 100% efficiency (all stabilisers at 100% efficiency). For example (these following numbers are rough guides only) if you reduce your stabiliser efficiency to 85% (still with the same total power output) you can reduce your ship length by around 10%.

So for a small increase in stabiliser mass (only a tiny increase in total ship mass) you get a decrease of 10% ship length. And if that doesn't already sound like a good deal, the decrease in ship length will almost certainly mean a total mass reduction that outweighs the stabiliser mass increase.

And you don't have to stop at the numbers I used, you can push it a lot harder than that.

The only thing that really should happen to the mechanics is that stabilisers shouldn't ever drop down to 0% effectiveness when too close, they should have a small but useful minimum - say some point between 5% and 20%...

 

[Snowtiger256]

10% of 400-500m is still only 40-50m, so it's not that much closer, is it?

But still, if I push the limits way closer than that (say close enough to start the stabilizers at 5% efficiency), the amount of stabilizers rivals major systems in the build (I tested this with a 1mill e/s reactor, and had to add like 88k of stabilizers in order to attain 100% stability on the reactor, the only system in the build at a comparable blockcount was the salvage array coming in at approximately 52k blocks). The further out you go from the reactor, the better, because it lowers the amount of stabilizers an incrases their efficiency, but it might not work for small or compact builds that actually do need a lot of power to start with.

So it becomes a struggle, you need to decide what power you need to run the ship, you need to decide what the dimensions need to be, and you need to decide where to put your stabilizers just to get the most out of the reactor setup, and you may still end up with a ship that is broken and not what you wanted.

Why do I get the feeling that the devs wanted to simplify the power system, but ended up making it even more of a hassle to build stuff because of all the restrictions. Furthermore, this system favors hull-first builds, because its easier to build power into an empty hull as you already have set dimensions to work with. It's harder to build systems first, because then you need to figure out how to fit the hull around the systems you've built, in order to make a ship out of a clump of systems.

 

[Jojomo]

10% of 400-500m is still only 40-50m, so it's not that much closer, is it?

"Only" 50m? If you had to add 50m would you describe it with "only"?
Closer to what?
It's a very significant drop.

But still, if I push the limits way closer than that (say close enough to start the stabilizers at 5% efficiency), the amount of stabilizers rivals major systems in the build (I tested this with a 1mill e/s reactor, and had to add like 88k of stabilizers in order to attain 100% stability on the reactor, the only system in the build at a comparable blockcount was the salvage array coming in at approximately 52k blocks).

I was thinking more like 50%, possibly as low as 20% if you really wanted to avoid length.

The further out you go from the reactor, the better, because it lowers the amount of stabilizers an incrases their efficiency, but it might not work for small or compact builds that actually do need a lot of power to start with.

You don't actually care about stabiliser efficiency. You care about power output, length, and mass. Using 100% stabiliser efficiency isn't (usually) the way to get the best values.

So it becomes a struggle, you need to decide what power you need to run the ship, you need to decide what the dimensions need to be, and you need to decide where to put your stabilizers just to get the most out of the reactor setup, and you may still end up with a ship that is broken and not what you wanted.

Yes it's a struggle, and you need to make hard decisions. And from my perceptive that struggle and those tough decisions are good. They're why design is interesting, and why it's hard to get close to perfect, and why a good design is so rewarding.

Why do I get the feeling that the devs wanted to simplify the power system, but ended up making it even more of a hassle to build stuff because of all the restrictions. Furthermore, this system favors hull-first builds, because its easier to build power into an empty hull because you already have set dimensions to work with. It's harder to build systems first, because then you need to figure out how to fit the hull around the systems you've built, in order to make a ship out of a clump of systems.

I find it easier to build the power system first, then other systems, and hull last.

 

[Valck]

200.148v hate the new distance requirements between stabilizers and reactors. Even worse than before.

even worse for people wanting to make compact ships

Keep in mind that this isnt even a pvp ship

Keep in mind that these are still dev builds, with them experimenting with balancing values, among other things. Those numbers have been varying a lot between individual 0.200 builds, and I'm fairly certain the current values (as of .148/.149) aren't final in any way.
My current design has been perfectly happy with ~15m stabilizer distance for most of the time, now suddenly it expects a hundred metres - for a 500 mass, 50m ship ;)

 

[Snowtiger256]

I understand that they are dev builds, and I understand that the values might not be final, but at the moment, they are what we have to work with, and that's what counts. When the numbers change, I'm happy to tinker with my test builds to adjust for the differences, it's just that I grow bored of tinkering, and get frustrated because they don't always work like they're supposed to.