Power System Overhaul Proposal

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    Reactors are still blocks on a ship, and there are no plans to place any sort of item into the reactor. This may be okay for a single ship, but we expect players to be using fleets of ships with their friends. Replacing reactors or items will get tedious and is not worth the micromanagement.
    Well, we really need to have fuel-like mechanics to drive economy. Right now StarMade is just paradise where economy doesn't apply any pressure on player. Automated fleet mining makes it even easier.
    There is no any force to push player forwards, currently economy is used only to keep players from expanding too fast, but we also need to give them some motivation to interact with other players.

    Let's just make some way to insert fuel easily, without messing inside your ships storage. And make GUI indicator for fuel status.
     
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    Fine in the sense that RP players get what they want as usual and PVP dies. Good job.
    Liked you post m8 but the thing is pvpers/minmaxers will always find a way to play the system no matter how the system is designed they will find a way to come out on top it is in our nature.
    Carebears/Rpers will always complain about people investing more ressources in a game than them first have no life and second beat them.

    The result of a minmaxed ship with this new system we will encounter when the new system is in place and eventually the result will not look nice at all but shredding other designs. Eventually, in the worst case, if the devs really mess it up, even rp players will use this only viable design also for their ships, because it sadly has prooven to be but so effective. This would result in everyone running around in the same ships, killing creativity entirely. Even a fraction (messup) could be endless rows of reactor cores pasted next to each other, for their space and heat area was so much optimized, that this is the only viable way to build, at this time, the playerbase will shrink for there is no room left to master the game.

    Now! What i am really wondering is what the carebear/rpfaction is thinking they will put in their ships if open space would be provided. The argument of "finally there is space for interior" makes me wonder "you now have every space you want, if you really do not care about stats, how come i still don't have a place to piss on a 300m ship, and all i see are basically 3 types of rooms like bunks, bridges and medbays like there would not be cantinas, recreational areas, briefing rooms, cinemas, studios for art and video production, librarys, - if we become a spacefaring species we would want to take everything with us we have here on earth, at least we would try!" if people were really obsessed about interior design i wonder how it comes that the most beautyful of such designs i often meet on pvp capeable ships. oh wait maybe it is because these people also spent the most time thinking about the internal stuff, like in general thinking more about how to build their ships which results in just better ships. Back to no matter the system the same people will come out on top and the rest will still whine untill they git gud.

    I Fear we will not like the outcome of these changes in regards of resulting ships. maybe the thought of haveing a room around a core is pleasing for you now untill you notice that with that interior planned there is no way to fit the systems that way. and suddenly the systems enforce design decisions -we are not going to like that.

    Right now everyone would have the freedom to design as they wished and we already see the outcome. sorry to say it but most ships are plain boring inside.

    There would be real stuff to adress to bring this game forward why not focus on those matters?
    Yes i'd like to have reactors and having to cool them and having to make sure two of them are not too close to each other and having interior to actually maintain them. but if schine would want to encourage interior design they would add stuff like interaction to consoles to actually give us maintainable systems.
    As mentioned before there is no need for anything else on a ship than a core power thrust shield and guns. no interior necessary. how about you bring the crew update and add interactable elements we can adjust stuff with... how about we could set reactors to a maximum output value... And always keep in mind turrets and their implication on everything you are thinking of implementing.
     
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    Je dois dire que c'est une assez bonne idée ! Beaucoup plus RP !
    Mais s'il vous plait, ne tombez pas dans la généralité de tous ces jeux qui veulent faire "réaliste":

    N'instaurez pas un système de carburant ou de consommables..
    Vous allez tuer l'identité de StarMade !

    Ce qui m'inquiète aussi c'est que cela ne change trop le système de construction et que des vaisseaux ridicule, se retrouvent avec des capacités surdimensionnées pour leurs gabarit...

    A choisir, je resterai sur le système actuel pour le reste des blocs, et ne changerai que le système d'énergie...

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------


    I have to say this is a pretty good idea! Much more RP!
    But please do not fall into the generality of all these games that want to be "realistic":

    Do not install a fuel system or consumables.
    You will kill the identity of StarMade!

    What also worries me is that this does not change the construction system and that ridiculous ships, end up with overdimensioned capacities for their mass...

    To choose, I will remain on the current system for the rest of the blocks, and will change only the energy system ...
     
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    Do not install a fuel system or consumables.
    You will kill the identity of StarMade!

    What also worries me is that this does not change the construction system and that ridiculous ships, end up with overdimensioned capacities for their mass...
    And how exactly is this going to kill the identity of starmade?

    the latter is a matter of balancing and finetuning not a matter of concept since the output curves can be adjusted.
     
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    I love the idea of being able to build "small nuclear power plants" within our spacecraft ... but keep these points in mind ...

    Disadvantages that I see of the current energy generating system:

    - Player are forced to "fill" the interior of his constructions with large amounts of blocks for such purpose ( power generation, power storage, shields generation, shield storage ...)
    - Many times players sacrificed the energy capacity (for purpose builds ) by the rate of energy generation. ( small figthers for example ).
    - The current system is not based on "system design", is based on the number of blocks used for this purpose ( weapons for example ).

    Disadvantages that I see of the new energy generating system:

    - The player will be forced to strategically position their power generators, exposing them to being more easily located ( some PVP players love it, and other PVP players will hate this soon :mad:).
    - If the generator CORE creates a "heat boundry area", this will greatly limit those that can be placed inside the structure of the spacecraft.
    - If the size of the conduits needed to "transport" the energy is very large (especially for large spaceships), this forces players to position their systems very close to the power generator, which conflicts with the point two.


    These are my ideas of how its construction and implementation would be possible:

    - Instead of "generating a heat zone", the generator "needs heatsinks" connected to it; The heat sinks only help to increase the rate of heat dissipation ( if the heat generated can not be dissipated by reaching its limit, the generator could suffer a blackout, or a penalty of X time generating a % less of its total power)
    - The larger the "power-generating CORE", the greater the heat generated and the greater the power generated. This can have different ¿ shapes ?, some more efficient than others, instead of following as the current system, more cubes needed for greater generation.
    - The idea of having to use "conduits - cables" to transmit the energy is very good, but can be a great disadvantage (if the conduit is cut, it stops supplying energy to vital systems, this is a double - edged sword... care about this); Power amplifiers can be used both to maximize output power and to alleviate loss of power according to its length (this will help builders of large spacecraft / space stations).

    I know this is going to be a big change in the current game and in the way the players "should" design their ships; What I have type here are just ideas that do not change the concept of the new energy generation system, just a couple of ideas that will make the life of the player easier, and do not turn your experience into a headache. The HEAT BOUNDRY is a good idea, but a very bad idea for the ships design... the design of the constructions should not be limited by an area of effect, it must be limited by an effective design or not.
     

    Matt_Bradock

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    OK, so while I welcome the chnges to the power system, there are some very fundamental flaws that hurt the very realism you guys usually want to incorporate at some level. Heat management is wonderful, but it needs to be refined as well.
    Here's an alternative concept, maybe some part you'll find interesting enough to take another look at:

    When you look at a nuclear reactor, you'll usually notice it has a couple systems, namely:
    1. Reactor core (where the nuclear fission/fusion happens)
    2. Reactor shielding (to prevent the surroundings to become irradiated and contain heat as well)
    3. Reactor control (safety, power generation control etc. The control rods in a fission reactor, for example)
    4. Cooling system
    5. Power transfer (to get power from the reactor to the systems that use it)

    On that analogy, the following blocks should make a reactor:

    1. Reactor casing (armored blocks that shield the reactor from outside forces and shield the ship's other parts from the reactor's radiation and heat)
    Any side of the reactor fully shielded with these would pretty much block the heat influence of the reactor in that direction. They should have a pretty large mass, though. Reactor casings are dealt heat damage first upon reactor overheat.

    2. Reactor core (reaction chamber)
    The actual blocks where power and heat is generated. Upon taking a hit, they explode just like aux. power blocks do now, which further incentivises surrounding them with reactor casings even more. The heat influence area scales with the number of blocks in a group, having 1-2 cores will have a minimal heat/radiation emission.

    3. Reactor control (power distributor)
    Since Starmade won't use fission reactors, reactor control here acts more of a power distributor. It's a control block through which the crew can activate or shut down the reactor core groups on the ship, and divert power to systems connected to the reactor with power conduits. The interface could be similar to the current thrust config, as you could divert power to Shields, Propulsion, or Weapons.

    4. Cooling system
    There would be essentially 5 block types in this one:
    • Heat sink: stores heat generated by the reactor, but doesn't disperse it any faster. Adding heat sinks to a reactor by placing them adjacent to the reactor core block group, makes the ship take longer to reach 100% heat, but without any adjustment to dispersion rate, will also take longer to cool down.
      Their main advantage is, they don't need to be exposed and can be placed within the protective reactor casing shell.
    • Radiator: increases heat dispersion, but has to be exposed to space to be efficient.
      Covered up: 25% efficiency
      No other block type within 10 block distance on one side: 50% efficiency
      No other block type within 10 block distance on 2 sides: 75% efficiency
      No other block type within 10 block distance on 3 or more sides: 100% efficiency
      Other radiator blocks of the same group, as well as metal mesh or metal grill blocks, don't count. The heat dispersion bonus will only apply if the radiator group is connected to a reactor through heat conduits.
    • Heat conduit: Allows heat transfer from a reactor to the radiators exposed on the ship's hull. Place a heat inlet within 3 blocks of a reactor core group, the build a one block thick line leading from the reactor core to the radiator group and place a heat outlet within 3 blocks of the radiator group(s) to connect them. Breaking the line will cut the radiator group off from the reactor core group and lose its heat dispersion benefit.
    • Heat inlet: if placed within 3 blocks of a reactor core, allows the heat generated by that reactor core group to be transferred to heat outlets through heat conduits.
    • Heat outlet: if placed within 3 blocks of a radiator group, and connected to a heat inlet via heat conduits, adds the heat dispersion bonus of the radiator group(s) in its vicinity to the reactor's heat dispersion.
    5. Power conduits
    These blocks would transfer power from the reactor to the ship's other systems (shield, propulsion, weapons, factories, rail mass enhancers, docked entities etc.) Has the following 3 blocks:
    • Power inlet: has to be placed within 3 blocks of a reactor core block to be able to take power from the reactor. (allowing the reactors to be shielded with reactor casing)
    • Power outlet: powers all blocks and block groups within 3 blocks of it if connected to an active power inlet through a power conduit.
    • Power conduit: transfers power from a power inlet to one or more power outlets.
    Example of a basic layout:


    Explanation: A reactor core group (aux. power) with heat sinks (power capacitors) shielded by reactor casing (black adv. armor) in the middle. 2 radiator(yellow force field) groups on the outer hull are connected to it through heat inlets(red light), heat conduits(power drain modules) and heat outlets(shootout rail). Adding a reactor control block onto the ship would also allow to prioritize power (and heat) generation between systems, and shut down some of them if the reactor would go to overheat.
    2 power inlets(blue light) are transferring power to power outlets(pickup point) through power conduits(transporter modules) to power the weapons, scanner, jump drive and jump inhibitor on the front of the vessel and the shields and thrusters on the back. rail blocks would also have to be in the vicinity of a connected power outlet in order to allow transfer of the ship's power to docked entities.

    Note that if the ship above goes into combat, and any of the power conduit or inlet/outlet blocks are destroyed, all systems powered by them go offline until the power line is restored. This encourages co-operation as mid-flight block placing is a lot easier if you have a co-pilot (or mechanic) in a build block with you. Alternatively, redundancy is recommended (multiple power lines/outlets to secure power flow even if one gets hit) but be smart about it, conduits do add mass and system HP (affecting the damage penalties) but do not affect power efficiency by themselves at all. Too much of them will quickly become dead weight.

    I hope my post above presents at least some useful ideas, feel free to discuss below.
     
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    Hmmm...

    (This is synical taisong talking right now, so be ready)
    (also, it is really long)

    Honestly, I do not think we have to force an overhaul for power right now. The current system is not perfect, mind you, but it has been working for quite some time. Everyone is used to it. There is no real reason to force everyone to move on when that system is working.

    So, the power system has these problems right now.

    1. Forced design choices
    2. Lack of complexity
    3. Too many blocks involved (number, not types)
    4. Focused on regen

    Lets talk about these four, and see what other games resolve these by.

    1. Forced design choices
    Our power system right now favors cube ships, which is able to make intricate patterns of power to use as much dimensions as possible. So, cube ships will win over exotic shaped ships when compared. This hinders the exotic designed ships somewhat, and has been a nuisance when building ships. It also restricts interior, because having a complicated interior makes it harder to path a reactor.
    This is a problem the reactor system had for a long time. It has never been resolved. Why? Because any system with an optimal shape would always hinder design choices to some degree. As we make things complex, there is always a shape which just does not go along with the system. This is inevitable, and we have to cope with it.

    2. Lack of complexity
    As I said in 1. Forced design choices, making a complex system will always hinder design choices. Think of a chair for an example. As a chair, you must be able to sit on it. So, any exotic design that people cannot sit is not a chair, it is just a piece of junk.
    If we add even more specific shapes into power systems, we will surely hinder design choices. If we make the power to scale on its block amount only, then the lack of complexity will be unbearable. It is a dilemma without any true solution.

    3. Too many blocks involved (number, not types)
    Is it that big of a problem? I mean, this problem will only happen to massive ships which uses auxillary power. These massive ships are super time-consuming to fill up with systems. It is a chore to do. Although, you must use every space possible to be viable, and people wants to make viable ships. Adding a new block would only be a temporary solution. Even if you force the ships to have more open space, people will always try to have more power/shield/thrust onto a ship. It will not take long for people to find the optimum and use them as a template.

    4. Focused on regen
    Yes. This I agree. But, people wants to fight without having to take cooldowns. That is why regen is favored over capacity. It is what people's mind tells them to do, and we have no power over their minds.

    This game is a voxel based game, and it is adapting a power regen system no other voxel has done before (I think). I do not think the ongoing system is perfect, but I think it is one of the best we have in this genre.

    p.s. Optimist Taisong talking here. I will talk tomorrow. Expect me!
     
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    After finally working through this threat i want to share my opinions and ideas. To clarify my position first and show you guys where i come from, i am building ships primarily for design but do not discard military viability completely. I have absolutely no insight into high tier competitve gameplay in StarMade.

    First on to the military aspect, which primarily concerns PvP. The military power of a fleet is a product of the following values:
    1. Individual ships strength
    2. Ship Interaction
    3. Fleet composition
    4. Personnel skill and experience
    5. Morale
    6. Position
    7. Intelligence
    8. Supply
    9. Commander skill and experience

    Factors 4. and 5. are not yet included but will most likely be.
    So which of these factors are even affected by the proposed change? The answer is 1. and 7..

    The simple concept of varying outputs depending on construction details guarantees the existence of "optimal" builds, as long as there is a single specific goal in mind. For example, there exists a "perfect" way to build a ship with optimized dps versus shields. This is true in the old as well as in the proposed system. So while there might be a change in how the ships are built in competitive, the better builders will still build the better ships, especially since the proposed system does the SAME thing in a different way, it does not affect how weapons and shields interact etc. So while the way ships will be built will change most likely it will not hurt strategic diversity.
    I get the feeling that most of the so called "PvP players" in this thread focus to much on the engineering aspect of PvP and have either never fought at all or just discard the strategic complexity of a game like Starmade for their personal agenda (which is most likely the reluctance to refurbish all of their ships).

    Yes this change would force the players to rethink the way the design ships but, like some people in this threat do, claim it would kill PvP or StarMade completely behave extremely childish and lack the basic understanding what PvP in a fleet based game even means (play any rts or star trek online if you need the space).

    ---
    Now let the PvP aside and think about what this change would do to the game in total.

    How about this for an idea? All systems groups slowly degrade in effectiveness and need NPCs to access them to maintain them. NPCs also need bunks, food, recreation, and medical services. This forces a need for interior, and that interior actually has a purpose, instead of "I guess I can fill this empty space my reactor requires me to have with NPC rooms." This will also have the added effect of spreading the interior out through the whole ship, instead of just being centralized in the empty space around reactors! Awesome. You can all have you functional reactor core rooms, AND you'll get functional weapon maintenance hallways, engine repair rooms, shield generator engineering rooms, all that stuff.
    This is a very important post and while i do not agree with what Lecic said earlier in this thread i think this is the most important answer i have read in here so far. Because it focusses not on what the system might break, but more on what it will enable. We knew crew and quarters are coming and maintenance may very well be one of the most important factors of crew. And it fusions Design and efficency in an unexpected way, morale. If i were a mechanic in space i guess i would be quite unmotivated to do my job if i am cramped in a 9x3 room with 99 other people, have bad food and most likely even frequent boarding jobs where i have to risk my life. Not exactly the job i dreamed of when i joined the federation :/

    This is a chance to expand the strategic diversity and the roleplaying possibilities of Starmade.

    Now a few points about the system i would change:
    1. As an engineer this really disturbed me. The reactor creates heat in an area around itself and the systems do not? If humans will ever travel between the stars we need highly efficient reactors, not glorified potato batteries. The reactor should create heat within itself at most, which should be contained via coolants making a heating outside the reactor an EMERGENCY induced by badly maintained or damaged cooling systems. Every block and player in the vicinity should be harmed! Meanwhile the systems should create heat on use, especially weapons and most importantly thrusters. Basically switch up the interaction of these.

    2. Heatboxes planned as this are kind of a problem design wise. The problems kind of remind me of the very old docking boundary boxes which enforced cubic areas within the ship. Moreover as mentioned before the constant checks in combat if the ships dimension changes and the recalculation of heat boxes will most likely kill any server. My suggestion would be to split the heat into two systems:
    A: Heat, to be dissipated via surface into Air! (not into space) or to be actively cooled. Smaller ships could store heat in dissipator surfaces and every now ant then cool them down by flying through air or being stationed in a hangar. This requires an atmosphere system, which sooner or later will be needed to be implemented anyways for the sake of crew.
    B: (Electromagnetic) Interference. This would be a nice "excuse" to make other systems (not reactors) in the immediate proximity perform worse. It may perform like the original heatbox system, but the area should be absolute, not depending on the ships dimensions or position but only on system size and form. Since reactors perform less efficient the further they are from systems due to conduits this should strike a balance, or more importantly the possibility to balance through numbers, between dense systems or spaced.

    The heat system i proposed here includes a maximum heat capacity for each block, which could nicely be used in the weapon system btw.

    Please give me feedback about this and most importantly inform me of loopholes how the system could be abused so i can think of some way to fix it.

    - JaxElite

    P.S. Dear Shine, if you think radical changes are necessary do not shy away from annoying the community, this is alpha stage, which means the core isn't finished. If you think it is necessary to move forward with the game do it, the good part of the community will accept it and a few years later they will thank you for that! And those who don't accept it and leave will be superseded by those who come here for the great game you guys made!
     
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    Why not restrict the heat mechanic to the reactor and keep the power stats AS they are but generated by the Kind and size oft the generator.

    One would still have the heat aspect and the whole reactor RP aspect which i Like, but would keep energy as the basis which males More sense than the heat thing
     
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    OK, I have had a few more thoughts.

    Some people have mentioned game killing updates which I can understand, but in some ways, this consultation could "kill" the game for some people as they don't want to build anything new until the update hits. If this is actually a work in progress that is due to hit in a week then that is one thing, if it is something that is simply "on paper" then we could be weeks and weeks away from an update.

    Much of what I have read plus many of the fascinating concept builds and diagrams tend to be leaning towards larger ships. A small 1:1 scale fighter like a Viper from BSG needs a certain level of artistic licence and potentially exposed system blocks in order for sufficient power to be generated. I have been using the mk3 Viper by Randomo as the basis of a number of small scout ships for some time. The latest incarnation included a simple scanner but I needed to squeeze in about 5.5k power in order for it to even charge! This meant some very careful rewiring of the power system so as to retain the overall shape and size. Being able to reduce the number of blocks needed to maintain the same output would be great!

    So, if a 50k power system with about 5.5k e/sec currently needs about 10 power reactors for example, I'd like to think that the same setup could be achieved with about a 50% reduction in blocks? The "heatsinks" could on the Viper example above be mounted almost as an aesthetic block on the external part of the ship. A "power core" with two "reactor" modules and job done. C-V the core to the heatsinks and I'd be happy to call it good to go.

    If you use the "replace" tool to change the
    Current power system blocks into this "interior packing" material and then design a new power core to replace the stupid lines of power we now have then it could be a relatively easy transition.

    It SHOULD be possible to be able to accommodate both the RP and the PvP players quite simply. RP players will have more space in their builds for interiors and the PvP players will have specific target points to attack/defend on their ships.
     
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    This is a proposal; we're looking for feedback on this system so that we can develop the best power system with assistance from the community. We realise that we may have overlooked some aspects of gameplay, this is why we're sharing our idea. Let's work together to create something great. Posts that aren't contributing to the discussion here will be removed, let's keep it clean. - DukeofRealms

    Introduction

    The power system was a point of contention for as long as StarMade existed, and there was never a real consensus on a specific solution. We went through every possible way to rebalance the current system, but each of them would create a problem elsewhere. We realized that we would have to redo a big portion of that later and waste even more time on things we can resolve right now.

    Instead of trying to keep a broken system alive, we decided to make a cut and redesign it from the ground up. This solution would be drastic and would require you to refit power in almost all of your ships. However, in the long run this would still be better as changes in the new system would require a lot less adaption from this point on. So instead of frustrating players with small changes that likely wouldn’t fix the problems to begin with and would require players to refit their ships every time, we decided that it’s better to do one big change to solve the core problems once and for all. It’s important that we get this right from the start which is why we’re asking you for more feedback.

    Since a news post is probably not the best place to discuss it, we moved it to here. We will be making more of these threads to keep you in touch.

    Please keep in mind that everything is subject to change if there is a valid reason to do so. We kindly ask that you keep the discussions civil. These threads will be heavily moderated to ensure the most productive discourse possible.

    The way we went about designing this new system is a relatively straightforward procedure:
    1. Identify the problems
    2. Find out what causes the problems
    3. Try to eliminate those causes with new mechanics

    Problems with the current power system

    According to our own experience and player experiences shared on the forums, we have identified the following problems.
    1. Forced design choices
    2. Lack of complexity
    3. Too many blocks involved (number, not types)
    4. Focused on regen
    Some of these overlap a bit though.

    Forced design choices

    StarMade has a great build system with endless options when it comes to decorating your structures or creating complex interiors, yet making a ship functional with all our systems can take a while and is usually a less creative process.

    It’s not only the power system that suffers from it, but every other functional system that follows its design principles. Currently, most ships have a non functional ‘skin’ and everything else is filled to the brim with systems.

    Filling your entire ship with systems is the most optimal way to make a ship. Making any interior or extra decoration creates weaknesses on your ship. It also favours one ship shape over another, in order to fill it with as many systems as possible; Doom cubes.

    More systems and power means a better ship, and there is no incentive or mechanic that would ever make a pretty ship with interior as good as one filled with systems.
    Lack of complexity

    Our current power system has only 3 different block types which would be fine if it mattered more in how you placed them. That’s not always the case and usually there’s little to do besides changing the amount of a certain block when necessary.

    This gets very tedious at larger scales. Fitting a bigger ship with power blocks is just a matter of finding the space for it. There doesn’t have to be any thought about placement and possible consequences. Additionally there is no way to customize your ship’s power systems.

    The current system makes power and systems purely a game of ratios, which doesn’t offer much complexity and increases the total number of blocks.
    Too many blocks involved

    As the system forces you to balance the amount of blocks placed on your ship between 3 power block types, you constantly end up removing one type to replace it with another unless you calculate the amount of blocks needed for each type. Even then you have to roughly know how many blocks your ship can fit.

    This is fine for ships where only a few hundred blocks are involved. You usually remember where you placed them and changing ratios isn’t a long process. Each system block matters a lot more in this case.

    It’s not fine when your ship size becomes larger. Most ships have more than 100,000 blocks and it’s impossible to know where you placed all your blocks down. Filling your ship with the correct amount of blocks per type is a tedious and long process. Not to mention that changing it afterwards is even more frustrating where you have to dig for specific block types and you end up with a complete system mess.

    Although additional build tools could alleviate some of these issues, it would never be completely resolved and any new system we add here would inherit this fundamental problem.

    The current system makes power and systems purely a game of ratios, which doesn’t offer much complexity and only gets worse with a higher total block count. Also, the volume to surface area does not scale favorably for balance, and there is no incentive not to fill up a ship with systems. The larger your ship, the more volume you usually have compared to your surface area.
    Focused on regen

    Currently you will always care more about power regen than capacity, mostly because it’s scaled that way. In almost every case, you want to equalize your power regen with your total consumption during combat. Your capacity would be increased to have a small reserve that equals this consumption so that you can use all your systems at once and regen the power within a few seconds.

    This results in a boring way of building ships since there’s little difference in power systems for any ship you create, it’s a simple equation and can result in a lot of frustration to achieve that goal.

    Not to mention that it’s hard to make the AI use this system when their capacity is always too low to work with.​


    Solution

    To get rid of the aforementioned problems, we need to turn the entire power system upside down. This will break most if not all current ships but to us, it’s a necessary step to continue on game mechanics without always having to find workarounds.

    As redoing the systems now will be easier, yet more complex, we hope you will find it a refreshing and fun building process. Additional build tools will speed up that process where you refurbish any of your ships.

    A short summation of what we’ll do:
    • Systems (weapons, thrust, power, etc) will take a considerably smaller amount of space on your ship. This could be ranging from 5% (large ships) to 50% (small ships) of your total block count. The way we will achieve this is described in the section below.
    • Due to systems being a lot smaller, there will be a lot more empty space the larger a ship gets. The player is free to leave it empty, or put in decoration and interior at a very low cost to mass.
    • We will also offer a block to serve as an “inner hull”, which will be a low mass, low HP block. You could use it to fill empty areas in your ship, or replace it with real interiors without making the ship weaker by doing that.
    • Normal hull (armor) will add enough mass so it would not be viable to fill your ships with it.
    • Making sure that most systems are usually clustered together and not spread out all over the ship in small amounts. This makes defending specific areas of your ship more important and could be incentive to add more inner armor to those locations.
    • As the amount of blocks involved is a lot less than before, we can add extra mechanics to the placement of system blocks. That will introduce complexity on a small scale since every block you place is equally important.
    • Provide context based information to the player and add “logical” mechanics to a ship to make it easier for players to get started. Also keeping the new system easy to use for small ships.
    • Change armor so that it scales accordingly for weaker and larger ships, without adding extra thickness to your ship.
    • Weapons will also be adjusted although that’s for another thread.

    Reactor design

    The new power system is of a modular design. Depending on your reactor size, you’ll have 1 or more components that influence the final result and define your ship’s capability:​

    • Reactor core:
    • Reactor chamber types:
      • Reactor rod system that requires built-in coolant
      • Heat shielding
      • Coolant Tanks
      • ...
    • Conduits to connect the chambers

    The reactor core (a relatively small cluster of blocks) defines it output. The bigger your reactor is, the more complex it will get. This means you will have to add and connect additional chambers to your reactor at certain points to keep it from producing additional heat. When considering new players, this ensures that building power for a very small ship is still easy. It’s complexity grows with ship size, so the learning curve for players will not get too steep.

    Heat

    We remove “power regen” and “power capacity” as we know them right now and replace it with only one value you would see on your screen: Heat, 0% to 100%

    Anything that previously used power, will now generate heat instead. Depending on your reactor size and how you build it, the heat you accumulate will be manageable...or it won’t be.

    If your reactor is too small for the systems you want to use, they generate more heat than usual:
    • Reactor has X output depending on reactor core (optimally built reactor)
    • Needs Y power depending on systems (weapons, thrust, etc)
      • Y - X = deviation
    • Heat generated is deviation + defaultMinOfSystem
    If your reactor is too big, you would not generate extra heat, but you would be wasting power and space due to the new “heat influence area” or “hear boundary” system we will talk about below.

    Heat generation will be available to the player in percent by value. We will also break down for the player, what they can do to improve their reactor.
    Cooldown

    Heat cooldown will be constant and independent of how big your reactor is. What changes is the speed in which a ship accumulates heat depending on how optimal their reactor is built. Accumulating too much heat will affect your systems, and if you keep pushing to the limit, systems would even shut down completely. We could introduce all sorts of ways to have Heat influence your ship, or even have Stars influence your Heat if that would be a nice addition.

    With this system, detach the system from large numbers since your Heat levels will always be between 0% and 100% and your heat dissipation will be a % per second.

    You are not limited to only one reactor core on your ship though, you can put down more of them but the heat generated by your systems would be increased per additional reactor. Putting additional reactors down will ensure that you have backups running if one or more reactors get damaged or destroyed during battle so it’s a nice balance between efficiency and sustainability that you can define.
    Heat Influence Area

    Each reactor core has their own “Heat” influence area or boundary box, which takes the shape of your ship’s dimension box and its size is determined by the reactor core block amount. If this Heat boundary box overlaps with any other system, or another reactor core, extra heat generation penalties are added. This forces you to think twice where to place your reactors and it limits the amount of blocks you can use in your reactors. Your weapons/thrusters/etc cannot be within those heat boxes or you will suffer a large efficiency loss.

    This does create a lot of empty space between your systems, space that can be filled up with something that isn’t systems like interior.

    The designer is of course free to chose if they want to have an interior. We will also offer a“Inner Hull” block which will be cheap, have low mass and no armor, with a few block hp to not directly expose your inner systems on a hull breach.

    Their collective mass would be negligible compared to what your systems and armor add to the ship and they would also not add enough protection to where it’s better to fill up a ship instead of having an interior.

    We will also have some extra build tools to help you out with filling/removing that particular block type.
    Other systems

    Shields could be their own “reactor” with its own chambers etc and we could do something similar to thrusters.

    They could also just be a few chambers that use a Power reactor.

    We’re not sure about that yet though, it doesn’t matter too much as long as those system’s block count is kept small. Both are limited by their Heat generation so we don’t need to do anything besides buffing their values per block and adjusting the heat generation to make them work for now.​

    Reactor mechanics
    The bigger your reactor gets, the more requirements it will get to keep heat generation to a minimum. This means that you could build a small fighter without having to worry about reactor placement at all. Also, building the iconic core + power + thrust stick will still be possible.

    When you build medium sized ships, not only will the heat influence area already affect the placement of your systems a little, but you will also get more heat generation in general. To keep this heat generation low, you can add an additional chamber to your reactor. And the more core blocks the reactor gets, the more chambers can be added to keep heat generation low.

    The Core and Chambers each have their own local heat area which is only relevant to the reactor design. The size of those areas will be its groups dimensions multiplied by a factor depending on balance. If this box overlaps with other local boxes, you get a rather big efficiency loss. This means each chamber will have to be independent.

    Core

    As this is the base component, its size defines the base statistics/output of your ship. Currently there’s only one block type for it right now so you just end up placing them together as a small group.

    A bigger reactor core group can be connected to other chambers in order to combat growing heat generation, add additional output or achieve a different effect. We haven’t fully decided on the specific types of chambers yet.
    Chamber

    A chamber is essentially an upgrade to your reactor. Each chamber will only be effective at a certain minimum size of reactor. It could combat heat generation, amplify output, redirect that output to another system (shields?) or just be a necessary component to be there or else a Reactor core wouldn’t do anything.
    To keep your reactor optimal, you’ll require more chambers the bigger your reactor core goes. The specifics aren’t fully set in stone of course.

    The base mechanics stay the same however, each chamber type has its own build restrictions and requirements in order to be valid.
    Example: A reactor chamber could be reactor rods, to maximize output for a mid-sized reactor core. It would generate heat, if water is touching them that heat would be less. They have to be in a single group or there would be penalties.

    The total heat versus the total amount of rod blocks determines its efficiency, stability, heat radius, throughput and more… It doesn’t matter too much what we do with this since we can easily change it between updates without messing people up.

    A chamber will orientate on the size of the reactor core. That’s easy to adjust if needed.

    Chamber shape and placement could also be an important factor to keep in mind. A “Thruster” chamber (if we’re going to use that) could be great for rotation when placed near your Center of Mass. And great for a particular thrust direction when placed the furthest away from your Center of Mass on that axis.
    Conduit

    The block you use to connect chambers with other chambers, or connecting them back to the reactor core is done by using Conduits. A single conduit block has a fixed throughput but the longer a line is, the more throughput loss you get.

    You would prefer to have these conduits as short as possible.​

    Kupu made some info graphics of this current system and how it might look like if implemented:
    • Example of a reactor


    • Below is an example of how it could look like in-game for a ship. Any not used space would either be inner hull or interior. You could also make interior within the heat boundary boxes since those only affect systems.



    • Keep in mind that the heat boundary box doesn’t go out of the ship dimension box. Putting your reactors on the edge of your ship will make the heat boundary box move till it’s not overlapping with the edges. It’s basically forcing the heat boundary box to be more inside of the ship than the reactor itself.
    Idea is great and it would be much better then current system HOWEVER:
    you are yet again deviating from adressing main problem in the game which is - there is absolutely nothign to do but building.And you are yet agains restarting features to more building.
    You need to start adding stuff to do other than building ships.
    Making building better doesnt add much if you dont have anything to use ships for.
    And reworking this system will take ALOT of your time.
     
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    Idea is great and it would be much better then current system HOWEVER:
    you are yet again deviating from adressing main problem in the game which is - there is absolutely nothign to do but building.And you are yet agains restarting features to more building.
    You need to start adding stuff to do other than building ships.
    Making building better doesnt add much if you dont have anything to use ships for.
    And reworking this system will take ALOT of your time.
    Don't forget this is alpha stage, meaning the basic framework is laid. And the power system is a core part of the gameplay, some features may be unable to be implemented until Shine knows they will not overhaul the system again. Referring to crew from my last post for example. While i understand that people are eager to try new things in StarMade you must accept that the more thought went into the basic features, the more possibilities will arise in the future. For example if they continue with this energy system and add more features depending on energy it will be close to impossible for them to add heat based gameplay (overheating, crew living conditions, friction) later on without breaking everything.
    Be patient :)
     
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    Something else I see coming out of this (good or bad) is a reduction in the amount to of blocks being used and bought from trading. This definitely has an impact on the 'economy' of starmade. Either things need to get much more rare or much more expensive and harder to make or fuck trade. If you redesign the game to require fewer blocks for energy/weapons/systems then what's the point of building big cargo ships to haul a lot of capacitators, generators, shields(?), etc. You're potentially taking away a part of the game you just spent time creating.
     
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    Something else I see coming out of this (good or bad) is a reduction in the amount to of blocks being used and bought from trading. This definitely has an impact on the 'economy' of starmade. Either things need to get much more rare or much more expensive and harder to make or fuck trade. If you redesign the game to require fewer blocks for energy/weapons/systems then what's the point of building big cargo ships to haul a lot of capacitators, generators, shields(?), etc. You're potentially taking away a part of the game you just spent time creating.
    While you are definetly right, this would be a simple issue of balancing some numbers, something inherently easier than programming new feature
     

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    So originally I wanted to wait a bit to respond to this post so I could gather my thoughts… It looks as though it may be too late, as it seems my post will now be buried in what appears to be page 25?! Wow.


    I like the idea of overhauling the power system. I’ve never been a fan of the power lines. I like the idea of grouping similar blocks to form an appearance of one large system vs a collection of tiny system blocks. It makes sense, and it gives the revamped AI something to target during battles. And I think this is the impetus for the welcome overhaul we find ourselves in now :D


    Is this the best way to get RP in our ships? Is this the best way to make building ships more manageable so that every little space in the ship doesn’t get crammed with blocks? I don’t know, but at least we’re trying.


    I love the idea of heat in our systems, it adds a dynamic that I think really fits into starmade and it would be a cool replacement for “cool down”. However, I don’t think that replacing the word “energy” with “heat” is the way do it. I like the idea of having both.


    But this got me to thinking. How do we get people to want to put crew on their ships and separate their systems with space? The closest analog that we have in real life to Starmade ships are Navy ships. Why do they have crew? If you think about it, the most expensive part of running a ship is maintaining the crew. Food, fresh water, plumbing, air filtration and temperature control, just to name a few. I was on a Ticonderoga class cruiser with a crew compliment of about 400 and it's only 170 meters long! Why so many crew in real life, especially when they are so fragile and expensive? Operations,Repair, & Maintenance. Almost all ship systems were accessible by a person for repair or maintenance( a pretty good way of putting spaces between those systems). So how can we incorporate this into grouping and space between ship systems.


    • all touching similar system blocks should get a bonus for grouping them together. The more sides touching the bigger the bonus.
    • A crew access block. This is a non-tangible block used to create “RP” space (Corridors, and Quarters). When crew is present and access blocks are touching system blocks, the system blocks will repair or replace themselves. The more crew access blocks touching the system blocks and the more crew you have the faster the repair. All crew access blocks should be touching each other to be functional. the crew access blocks basically all have to be touching to form ONE crew access system. (special note: when systems blocks are grouped together into "one system" an access block only has to touch one of the system blocks to allow access/repair to the whole system.)
    • The crew should be separated by enlisted and officers. Officers are hired individually and are directly controlled by the player to operate ship systems. Enlisted are recruited in mass to keep the ship in repair, and are more likely to die when under attack. While losing enlisted due to ship damage, the ship will be less able to repair itself until new enlisted personnel are hired.
    • Officers will man stations, offer bonuses to those stations, and get better at their jobs over time.
    • Depending on how often you have to hire new enlisted personnel to replace losses. Your ship can get "Elite Crew" status which will enable it to repair itself even faster.
    • Every enlisted and officer should have a “bunk”. This will determine the number of crew you can have aboard. Maybe allow enlisted to "Hot Bunk" which basically means you need 1 "bunk" for every 2 or 3 enlisted? Basically shift sleeping.
    Oh, I almost forgot… the power system:


    No to changing the word “energy” into “heat”

    Yes to adding heat and heat dissipation to systems. (I like the idea of using conduit blocks to channel power and heat to and from systems. A radiator / heat sink block might be nice as well.)

    But now we’re going to need more bits per block to store the extra info.

    Why do blocks need so many damn hit-points. Can’t we make a system where a block only has 4 hit points? (0=block destroyed, 1=Block no longer functional, 2=block damaged, only half functional, 3= block not damaged and fully functional) (allowing a destroyed block to have 0 hit-points makes it possible for crew to replace missing/destroyed blocks)

    Just my thoughts :^D
     
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    Trade is fucked already. The economy needs an overhaul in general. Buying and selling a large variety of blocks is a pain and specialization is nonexistant. I agree though that if you reduce the number of systems you make building ships somewhat easier, aside from crafting armor. Armor is already a pain to get the resources for so this new system would certainly further tip the system off balance.
     
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    My goodness. What a load of pointless rage.

    The PvPers are accusing the RPers of self-centered-ness, yet they are saying that RP is useless and should be thrown out....in favor of....PvP???
    Sorry. Got a bit unpleasant there. So, now, MORE OPINIONATED GARBAGE!!!! WEEEEEE!


    A good point was raised: CREW. Let's get the crew system FIRST. Then, after seeing how that changes RP/PvP dynamics, we can (Leaving it in the dev branch for a while) implement one, two, three, five flippin' million alternate solutions to our perceived problems and see what comes of them all. If nothing changes, well, then, guess nothing's broken (Or, rather, nothing's fixable with the ideas presented). That's what a dev-build branch in an ALPHA game is for, after all. Testing the mechanics you want to test.

    So let's do this in proper order. I disagree with heat boxes, but otherwise think that this new power mechanic has some great possibilities. So, once we get crew and force separation between spaces (Perhaps, anyway. This is my hope: That allowing more NPC access across your ship gives various benefits. This would allow a reason for adding space, effectively debuffing things as if they were in a silly "heatbox" of a reactor, but with an alternative other than "Well crap, here's my reactor. Can't put it anywhere else. Good-bye, systems space. Hello, useless new block!".) in some ways, we can decide if we need further changes to power, etc., to make interior "required". Which we should not, for several reasons.

    Most important of all these reasons; Playstyle:
    If you want to be a lone-gun wanderer in your super-high-tech EVE-like ship, well, good for you. Suffer a slight debuff for not running with any crew and thus requiring more space for computers and crap. Or perhaps face some other weakness, like crews being able to slowly repair damage to your ship. Or, even better, have NPC AI be much better than BOBBY AI. So that when BOBBY gets shot, he says "What????" before looking for a target, while the NPC goes "OH CRAP" and shoots back immediately. Or something similar. Perhaps invest some better pathfinding and targeting into NPCs, but leave BOBBY functional.

    The trade-offs are obvious. You can run a fleet of BOBBY AI ships, or you can sacrifice a little internal space to allow for NPC pilots.

    Refits:
    Let's not lay waste to every single ship ever constructed in StarMade unless we have to, alright? Because this would pretty well do just that. More effective than even the largest fleet ever assembled, this update will single-handedly drydock every design ever in one shot update and make a mess of everybody's day. Except for mine, since I'm not a fast builder and so have very few worthwhile vessels to change. And would love to experiment with such a neat new power and crew system (Even though I'm terrible with aesthetics xD).

    Ridiculous Vulnerability:
    The Death Star died in a silly fashion. Enough said.

    And finally, for now at least: Development Time:
    I don't know about everyone else, but I want more interactivity with factions, shipyards that build ships, not evaporate them into nothingness, depth to the universe, more more more more more. Not less. Certainly not at the cost of a maybe-sorta-kinda massive change. Unless there are major coding hurdles that this overcomes, or perhaps power systems run on some sort of horrifying spaghetti code spiked with a hallucinogen, or this would somehow streamline all further development.
     
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    (this is synical AND optimistic talking here)

    Lets just delay this update for a while. Let it take time. Like a wine or a radioactive waste.
    A big system change that breaks ALL ships? Need to take some time.
     
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    I just need to point out that giving the player "total freedom", or otherwise no restrictions basically translates the game into "choose a shape, and type in the number of stats you want".
    The very reason we call it a game is because you're given the task of maximising your utility with these tradeoffs and compromises available. A simple translation from the nature of the ship to utility gives us an easily 'gamed' game. You can beat it very quickly because the maximum utility is very easy to find- just follow the basic rules. A better game has some fractal-ass nature to it; where maximum utility has many different places it is greater; and ultimately there is never an end to a larger spike hidden just around the corner. The trick is to not make that spike findable by just following the curve.

    That's a little bit of theory; but it's implication (if you understand it) is that without tradeoffs, without these "forced design choices", then it becomes less of a game, and more of a painting canvas.
     
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    Why do blocks need so many damn hit-points. Can’t we make a system where a block only has 4 hit points? (0=block destroyed, 1=Block no longer functional, 2=block damaged, only half functional, 3= block not damaged and fully functional) (allowing a destroyed block to have 0 hit-points makes it possible for crew to replace missing/destroyed blocks
    If you do this then how you balance astronaut weapons?
     
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