Power System Overhaul Proposal

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    NeonSturm

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    TL;DR - How is nerfing everything on everyone a fix to any system when the crew update may remedy a lot of these issues to begin with?
    Because crew update won't be perfect either.
    Crew may need 1-2 blocks wide corridors, but there will be a doom-cube for interiors also (putting the bed next to the work station and the toilet underneath the bed or similar)
     
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    The proposal is great, in that it shows serious thought about improving game mechanics. I do not think it is actually a great solution to improving game mechanics. Why not keep the old system, and add this system on top? Rather than make new block types, just add mechanics to the existing blocks. For example, if you build Reactor, Capacitor, Auxiliary, and Conduit blocks according to certain rules, and link them up, it toggles the ship over to the new system. It would essentially add a new reactor type to the game that generates a lot more power, but with severe penalties for packing systems around the reactor group.
    Keep thinking about it and wading through all of this feedback. I'm sure you'll arrive at something wonderful in the end.

    Also, NPCs and making the current set of decorative blocks useful are at the top of my wishlist:
    Add NPCs first, then rebalance stuff to fit NPCs, THEN decide if a total power revamp is worth it.
    Pretty please?
    ...with sugar on top?
    have an area around any system within which you can link consoles, exposed modules, the "computer, server, data readout or whatever" decorations already in the game, etc. for NPC use
    I can't be the only one utterly annoyed at fancy servers, switchboards, consoles, motherboards, circuits, etc., etc., that have no function whatsoever. Make them do something, please!

    Finally, a few comparisons have been made to real-life warships, and their interiors, so here are a couple info-graphics to illustrate the difference between Real Life and StarMade's current mechanics:
     
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    removing the cap raising the floor.how about just buffing the core then the other blocks too like
    Core example
    50k power cap
    5k power Regen
    10k shields
    1k shield Regen
    turning this into enuf to cut out blocks for smaller ship and a having decent base for ships
    and have the reactor and capacity blocks just give flat out bonus some thing around.

    Power blocks
    5k cap per block
    1k regen per block

    or even combining blocks into each like having the capacity block having 90% cap and 10% regen so having it act as 3 blocks together.
    having it at 15k cap and 3 k regen into one block. then having the regen block revers of the cap block 90% regen and 10% cap. basically just making blocks more compact, needing less blocks to power and operate a ship,then using something similar for shield cap/regen and weapons
    just compacting the weapon comp to add some power regan and damage to it. then having the weapon modules following the same setup making one act like 3.

    im not sure this is even coherent enuf for others.but thats how i think about it and hopfully clear enuf to get close to my idea
     
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    I will wait for more details to be worked out before deciding if I'm on board with this. I do like the way it sounds, but without more info I don't have much opinion. Power does need to be changed, and this would certainly do it.

    I would suggest making it so logic can activate/deactivate reactors. A large vessel would then be able to bring more reactors online or take them off as needed. With NPC update, NPC's would have the ability to control reactors then.
     
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    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.
    This is actually not true. I believed it myself for a good long while, but the optimum shape for optimum hull/armor surface area to volume ratio is an octahedron. For maximum armor utility you extrude one facing by a factor of two, three or more. The optimum shape for power generation is any shape with an adequate expanse extending in three dimensions. There is absolutely no advantage in this shape being a cube. There IS an advantage still for cubes with turn rate, but after a certain size, when you get past the million block range, this becomes fairly moot, as your ship takes thirty seconds to turn regardless.

    Using less blocks would be a big help as it seems most of my ships are made up of mostly power anyways.
    This is a perfect example of why the power system is already complex enough. This poster is CLEARLY not building power systems correctly. One rarely needs more than 5000 power modules to hit the soft cap if the power system is built correctly. There is absolutely no reason for which a ship should be "mostly power".

    As for NPCs, I personally would be bored to death if I had to build furniture and rooms for NPCs.
    If the thought of building even the most basic of rooms is so unappealing, it will almost certainly be possible to just fill a large expanse with crew space blocks, fill a few smaller planes with bed blocks and crew stations or whatever, etc., assign them and be done with it.
     
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    OK. Ive done a lot of reading in this thread and think I am ready to share my thoughts on this proposal.

    My thoughts on the current system.
    I've not personally felt that I was being held back in design decisions by the current power system. I've had some issues with #4 (Focused on regen) but not so much with being limited in ship shape, size, or placement of systems/interior.

    As far as complexity goes. I agree that its not easy getting someone to understand to proper way to place power lines. Once they DO understand the concept, they find it simple. But trying to explain it to begin with is not easy. Especially if your attempting to do so through a text chat.

    I have never felt there were too many block types involved. You only need to know about two of the block types until your working on a ship that needed energy over the soft cap. I think by that point a player would have a solid grasp on the mechanics of power reactor blocks and power capacitors. I will say that I couldn't find a good way to use Aux Power Reactors well yet. But that may be due to trying to use them for cloaking.

    The biggest issue to me is that the entire system is focused on regen. Weapon DPS is based off their power consumption. A cannon+cannon will require the same regen as a Missile+pulse weapon over the same amount of time. SO, in order to have the missile+pulse weapon keep up in overall DPS with the cannon+cannon system, you not only have to have the same E/S value, but you also need many more capacitors. This means you are sacrificing lots of space for other things when using such a weapon. Being that DPS is tied directly to power generation means that greater power = greater DPS. The only way to get power is to ether store massive amounts before a battle OR having enough energy per second to do the same. Issue with trying to save up a massive amount of power is that the effectiveness of power caps is way too low. At least in my experience.

    I REALLY like the idea of building generator "Cores". Especially if they get the ability to be assigned to a specific system or set of systems like others have suggested. I think multi-block reactors would be a very nice addition. I would also hope that there would be multiple types. Maybe even one or two that would consume fuel. Having to cool a core based off of how much energy is being drawn is a good idea. I also like the idea that has been stated by some that you could use this when scanning ships. Using heat to see if a ship has been in your sector recently or using heat signatures to find a cloaked ship would be very cool. This is possible with the proposed system.

    What I am not so sure about however is the heat box. At first I thought it would be a good way to incentivize people to add interior spaces to their ships. Now I am not too sure if it will do this, or if the benefits of it preforming this function would be enough to overcome some of the issues.

    The problems I see with this system.
    1. Possibility to restrict the placement of rooms to "heat zones". This reduces overall player creativity.

    2. Restricting the location you can place system blocks on your ships.

    3a. If a heat box affects all entities and not just the entities its part of, then fighters will be harmed. Imagine fighters stored, or passing by the core getting overheated before they launch even though they are not in use.

    3b. If the heat box does NOT affect entities other then the one that its on, then players will just circumvent the system with rail mounted guns. They will be less accurate, but in theory ships will also weigh less and could turn faster. Though this could be aided by having thrusters become weaker.

    4. Players may also be able to avoid the effects of the heat box's with clever ship design. Placing reactors on long sticks outside the ship, placing reactors so that 50% of the heat box is outside the ship, but still inside the ship bounding box and likely more.

    5. I fear that by making systems too small, we may run be opening a Pandora's box of config changes, which may have to happen before we see how valid my other points are. So IF my first few points were true, then it could slow down development quite a bit and cause more work in the long run.

    I do like the core of the idea though. To me the core idea is to incentivize building more interior spaces, and make building reactors "fun".

    SO.... the real question is how do we get the reposed system to minimize its own issues, fix the issues of the old system, AND allow it to maybe have some of these additional suggestions come into play?

    First I would keep the idea of shaped reactors and multi block/room reactors. There should be multiple types. For example some very simple and easy to build reactor chambers that would be placed more commonly on starter ships. Then more complex designs or chambers that more skilled players could benefit from. Early players will find building their first few power systems easy, but start to hunger for more advanced power systems latter. At least that is my thought. In theory players having a harder time with more advanced power solutions, could spam the easy systems and incur less effectiveness. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

    Next I would change the way ships use power. You would have "Power Generation" and "Power Required". Your Power Generated stat would effectively be what is currently our Energy Per Second. The power required would be somewhat more complicated then the current power cap.

    Every weapon system would use power only when reloading. Much like jump drives. Each weapon would draw a maximum amount of power per system block. Example: X = max energy draw per system block in a weapon. Y = number of system blocks in a weapon system. X*Y = the max amount of energy the weapon could use per tick. This value would determine the minimum reload time of a weapon. If you have multiple weapons or systems that require energy, it will give energy to them one at a time. Until ether A. No energy from tick remains. or B. No further systems require any energy. The value of any energy that is needed that is not provided for would be shown as your power required. This could be done by ether displaying the actual value, or a percentage of your total power generation.

    For this to work properly, shields, and thrust should get first priority on energy per tick. Optionally having a "Power Control Computer" to set the priority of your systems could be cool. This could also tie into what others have suggested with reactors connecting to specific systems.

    This change also makes it so that you can have a doom's day weapon that you can save until the right moment in combat. Its already charged when you started fighting so you are not spending your power generation budget on it. This would help solve the focus on regen I believe. As you no longer need power caps, and can pre-charge your really big alpha weapons.

    Next I would remove the heat bounding box. Instead I would have a "Heat Value" that is added too by weapons, systems, and your generators. This value could be used for future scanning/stealth mechanics.

    As far as incentivizing players to build interiors I feel like crew quarters and room requirements based on ship size could be the best option. Assuming that designating a room is straight forward, and would work in multiple shapes and designs of course. This way fighters and drones would not require anything more then a tiny cockpit while full on capital ships would require larger or more rooms of certain types or suffer penalties for not having such rooms or crew to man said rooms.

    Reworking the proposed system to one like this as far as I am aware, would have less exploits, and fix most of the issue with the current and proposed system. You get less complex systems for newbies. You get systems that are deep and more complex for more experienced players. The system would be less focused on regeneration as you can focus on pre-charging your guns and backup guns. This system would also hinder creativity in ship building very little. The main down side is we would rely on crew quarters and mandatory rooms for medium and large ships to solve the "system bricks" and "No interior we need more dakka" issues. I could see one way to solve that being to not reduce the size of systems much if at all. While possibly reducing overall reactor size. Once crew quarters are a thing, then we could talk about reduced size of main systems. at least that's my opinion.
     

    Valiant70

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    Ok, sure, but the space around the heatbox can still be mixmaxed. PvP players will still mixmax everything.
    That's fine. There will still be space to do other things even in a minmaxed ship. I like minmaxing too.
    [doublepost=1487043295,1487042500][/doublepost]
    This.

    I'm wondering if instead of a heat box or magnetic field, once NPC crew is in wouldn't it be more reasonable for reactors (and all other systems) to simply have a "service zone" instead? Rather than saying "this thing is too hot" say "we need x amount of space adjacent to the system for access to this thing to make it work, and it needs y number of terminals for crew to work at." This would dovetail a power overhaul with the addition of crew without dragging in unnecessary new dynamics that forces players to include big dead zones in every ship they build. Cause that's what the heat box looks like - a dead zone, to be filled with what is basically fluffy hull, something never seen IRL or in sci-fi. Replace Heat Box filled with garbage with a Service Zone filled with terminals and NPC crew hard at work.
    This could work, but I still like the idea of transitioning every system to a multi-block structure that has actual depth to it. If they instead just reduce the size of the heat box/magnetic field, though, you wouldn't HAVE to have a crew to make the extra space feasible, and it would make crews slightly stronger. Given the amount of work that's likely to go into managing a crew, I think that's fair. I think a system should take up about 15% of the volume of its magnetic field, not 5%. A 10x10x10 room with a 5x3x3 machine in it? That's a bit much. 7x5x5? That's a little better.

    What if we use both systems, with only a small magnetic field around systems normally, and a larger space requirement for crews? As long as you can reshape and shift the fields, I don't think it would restrict anything enough to be an issue.

    Regardless of what method is used to create space around systems, I would like to see larger ships' systems made of increasingly complex multiblock structures rather than simply stuffing them with blocks.
    [doublepost=1487043588][/doublepost]
    Not something anyone wants to deal with.
    When you say something like this, it makes almost any statement false. It doesn't matter what you're referring to. It would be more helpful to explain which styles of play something hurts, and why.
    [doublepost=1487043741][/doublepost]
    Because crew update won't be perfect either.
    Crew may need 1-2 blocks wide corridors, but there will be a doom-cube for interiors also (putting the bed next to the work station and the toilet underneath the bed or similar)
    This is the main reason for adding a forced space mechanic, even if it doesn't force much space. It gives you a few more options that don't involve making your ship less efficient.
     
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    I'm really excited about this, but please do it quickly, I don't want to build any new ships if I'm just going to have to refit them in a month when this update comes out.
     

    Valiant70

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    This really hits the nail on the head. If we just implement crew without multi block systems/forced space, the second image just needs to add a 1 block ladder tunnel and one little seat in the turret in the middle of all the bulletsbulletsbulletsbullets.
    [doublepost=1487043973,1487043917][/doublepost]
    I'm really excited about this, but please do it quickly, I don't want to build any new ships if I'm just going to have to refit them in a month when this update comes out.
    Any ships you build now, you'll be able to enjoy for several months to a year before you might have to think about putting the new reactors in them.
     
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    This really hits the nail on the head. If we just implement crew without multi block systems/forced space, the second image just needs to add a 1 block ladder tunnel and one little seat in the turret in the middle of all the bulletsbulletsbulletsbullets.
    [doublepost=1487043973,1487043917][/doublepost]

    Any ships you build now, you'll be able to enjoy for several months to a year before you might have to think about putting the new reactors in them.
    Maybe it's just my OCD, but I don't think I could build something that will be rendered so utterly obsolete and such a short time. I'm probably only going to have time to refit maybe 10% of my current ships anyway. But don't get me wrong, I've been wanting Starmade to do this for a long time.
     
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    This whole proposal feels very artificial; adding a bunch of complicated, and, frankly, weird mechanics to try and somehow justify reducing ship density just seems wrong.

    1) make increased power density a liability: Make all reactors operate like aux reactors. Make explosive failure severity and generation efficiency both based on group size (not dimensional size), such that small reactors are power-inefficient and survivable, and large reactors are power-efficient and unstable. Power capacitors should follow similar curves, though their explosive failure might more naturally scale based on the stored power they have at the time of failure.

    2) Add meaningful functions to NPC or Player crew to encourage functional interiors. The sort of interiors you get depends on what function you add (e.x. Jeffrey's tubes to allow in-flight repairs or maintenence vs grand interiors to fulfill some kind of NPC crew morale needs, see rimworld)

    In my opinion, heat is an entirely different mechanic which could be added later:

    3) Add heat generation when power is generated or consumed. Heat need not spread out in a box, it could simply accumulate in individual systems. If systems overheat, they might go offline to cool, and have a small chance of having a more critical failure (e.x. permanent failure requiring repair, or even exploding).

    4) Add multiple heat mitigation systems to encourage diverse designs. Thermal conduits can divert heat away from systems systems. Heavy heat sinks could increase total heat storage capacity before failure, or fragile radiators. Radiators might be more or less efficient based on how far away they are from the ship's center of mass. Rails and other connectors might also act like conduits, so ships could actually make use of variable geometry to cool themselves, or protect their radiators.

    PS: i know i'm guilty of contributing, but it's time for a new thread. Schine should weigh in with some opinions, or else we're just going to keep disagreeing with one another
     

    Valiant70

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    1) make increased power density a liability: Make all reactors operate like aux reactors. Make explosive failure severity and generation efficiency both based on group size (not dimensional size), such that small reactors are power-inefficient and survivable, and large reactors are power-efficient and unstable. Power capacitors should follow similar curves, though their explosive failure might more naturally scale based on the stored power they have at the time of failure.
    This... could be more frustrating than fun. Many players seem to be worried about returning to the "core-drilling" days, and this would definitely do that. Making block/system damage more severe might not be a bad thing, but not to the extent that you shoot the reactor and it pops or starts a chain reaction to destroy the whole ship.

    2) Add meaningful functions to NPC or Player crew to encourage functional interiors. The sort of interiors you get depends on what function you add (e.x. Jeffrey's tubes to allow in-flight repairs or maintenence vs grand interiors to fulfill some kind of NPC crew morale needs, see rimworld)
    Unless the space requirements are both generous and worthwhile (even for hallways!), this won't do what you want it to do. Even then, people will try to build interiors as small as they are allowed to with as few hallways as possible. It might still help somewhat.
     
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    This... could be more frustrating than fun. Many players seem to be worried about returning to the "core-drilling" days, and this would definitely do that. Making block/system damage more severe might not be a bad thing, but not to the extent that you shoot the reactor and it pops or starts a chain reaction to destroy the whole ship.
    I agree that balance is a concern, but at least this gives you fairly simple knobs to turn. if reactor drilling is a concern, from a shipwrights perspective, then multiple, partially redundant, midsized reactors distributed throughout you hull seem like a good fit.

    Unless the space requirements are both generous and worthwhile (even for hallways!), this won't do what you want it to do. Even then, people will try to build interiors as small as they are allowed to with as few hallways as possible. It might still help somewhat.
    some people will always build as small as possible. i dont know what you consider reasonable (sorry if you explained earlier, but mammoth thread is mammoth), but without real mechanics backing up interiors / crew, they will always be optional.
     
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    I agree with a more complex and compact reactor system, but I strongly disagree with arbitrary boundaries that prevent systems from functioning, and I propose an alternative somewhat similar to others in the thread.

    1. Increase reactor complexity with various systems around the core to increase efficiency and safety in the event of overheating. Furthermore, add heat sinks, radiator blocks, and possibly coolant pipes to connect them. Reactors would provide power and produce heat as a by-product. As power demands increase, so too would heat output.

    2. Instead of arbitrary boundaries, tie heat management to the surface area of hull and armor blocks exposed to space. Armor blocks would be less efficient at dissipating heat than basic hull blocks, therefore forcing design choices to be made. Lightly armored ships with fast heat dissipation would be one extreme, while heavily-armored brawlers devoting lots of internal space to heat sinks would be the other.

    Hull shape would also be important, as the surface area to volume ratio of an oversized brick is lacking, to say the least. This would be the death knell of efficient Borg cubes of massive size, due to the square-cube law. This would also allow for more design decisions and compromises, since a non-combat ship such as a cargo or mining vessel could get away with a boxy hull and large, flat "sails" made of basic hull plating or other blocks that act as basic and cheap low-temperature radiators. On the other hand, this arrangement would be less than ideal for a combat ship, which would probably opt for dedicated (but expensive) radiator blocks and heat sinks to prevent their cooling from being shot off the moment the shields go down.

    3. The idea of radiators and heat sinks I'm going for are not the hard sci-fi fare of massive retractable panels, but similar to those in the Mass Effect universe, which are strips made of high-temperature material placed along the hull. In game, these would be ordinary but expensive blocks placed along the outer hull that provide a large amount of additional cooling, but take up a small enough area on the hull that they are not blatantly obvious weak points for the average weapon. The radiators could glow with heat when under heavy load, which would be a nice visual effect and allow for creative design choices, such as a symbol on the hull only becoming obvious when the ship is operating at full combat power.

    4. Overheating. Vessels should suffer from overheating if heat output exceeds heat dissipation, and any heat sinks are already overburdened. First, this would cause HUD warnings. Second, radiators and blocks close to them would begin to take damage, exacerbating the problem if the ship continues to operate over-capacity as these systems are destroyed. Lastly, the reactor core or cores would melt down, causing extensive internal damage and disabling the vessel, even gutting it. Internal armoring should be able to mitigate this effect, but if coolant pipes are implemented, would force compromises. Reactors should not explode by being directly hit, but only through battle damage to cooling systems that would be distributed throughout the ship in a good design.

    5. The system should be balanced so that massive flying bricks and spheres dedicated to combat are highly inefficient or even non-functional, but well before the point that space-borne chandeliers rule the skies. That would be silly.
     
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    2. Instead of arbitrary boundaries, tie heat management to the surface area of hull and armor blocks exposed to space. Armor blocks would be less efficient at dissipating heat than basic hull blocks, therefore forcing design choices to be made. Lightly armored ships with fast heat dissipation would be one extreme, while heavily-armored brawlers devoting lots of internal space to heat sinks would be the other.
    i agree that this would be ideal, but i fear this might be comp0utationally expensive to implement without easy exploits; what if all the radiators are under docked armor, or similar, for example
     
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    i agree that this would be ideal, but i fear this might be comp0utationally expensive to implement without easy exploits; what if all the radiators are under docked armor, or similar, for example
    Yeah, you'd have to run occasional line-of-sight checks, which would probably result in hilarity as 'sploity ships spontaneously melt. The performance concerns are probably valid, though.
     
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    I rent out generators to construction sites. There are a few ways to provide power on a construction site. Lots of small generators, which is inefficient, but has the advantage if one breaks down, the others are still working. For better efficiency, you can have a large generator but you need power distribution. In this case you have your generator, then you have the large power cables to how ever many distribution boxes you need for power delivery. At the distribution sites, you plug in what items you need. A power grid works in the same way. When you look at the power generator itself you need a power source or fuel, you need to balance temperature, not too hot and not too cold. For the purpose of StarMade, i would say you start with a "warp core" or reactor. For more power, you would need to build a bigger reactor, then you have to balance the heating and cooling factors to keep the generator happy and not blowing up. Next you would have to build a distribution network to get the power where you need it. To prevent being incapacitated, redundancies would have to be built in. You could decide to build a central power core and distribute all the power, or a few smaller power cores. Look at military ships, Nuclear Carriers use more than one reactor for power. To me, we should look at how things work real world, and build a similar system. I think it would be fun to create power distribution networks, and balance the power loads. And also the balance of keeping the power generator temperature in the proper zone. The single down side, massive refits, but in the end, i think it will all make things better going forward. That is what makes sense to me. Power flow and water flow are amazingly similar, it is quite fascinating. Imagine playing a game that teaches how power flow works.
     

    Lecic

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    This really hits the nail on the head. If we just implement crew without multi block systems/forced space, the second image just needs to add a 1 block ladder tunnel and one little seat in the turret in the middle of all the bulletsbulletsbulletsbullets.
    Uh, no? A large turret would surely still need crew maintenance access to the gun barrels, power systems, mass enhancers, and any onboard shields it might have on top of a seat for a turret pilot. Hell, on a very large ship or station, some of the biggest guns might even have their own bunks and kitchens so the crew don't need to walk across the huge distances to the main quarters.

    You don't need pointless multi-block systems or forced space- the need for crew maintenance and the pre-existing systems that exist in multiple components would do that just fine.
     
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    I have played Starmade since the early stages and sure I had to refit some systems through some of the more major updates like the weapon and rail update.

    I'll try to summarize some points of interest I've gathered but there might be some spots I missed to touch upon.

    In my opinion the current power system is robust and reliable advanced enough and simple to use that it can fit into nearly any conceivable design.

    I have countless times seen suggestions of making energy production different to balance and encourage smaller ships but their suggestions always seemed to ironically again make ships have to be bigger, and now of all people Schema is asking us to brainstorm his idea of
    "different power"
    Not to mention that there are a lot of game mechanics currently not implemented that were supposed to be added some time ago and this proposal is not helping as it would also require it's own balancing and testing, something that the current system already is.

    I would welcome the change of making other systems more condensed even adding a heat mechanic somewhere could work, but not destroying it in favor for a somewhat theoretical system that could be a nightmare to balance and optimize.

    Currently I see the diminishing returns and the need to fill ships modules just to be somewhat effective as the main problem, the sole reason why my fighters have doubled in size is because of the minimum requirements have changed over time.

    What we need is not a completely new system, but to make requirements for weapons, effect modules and most importantly thrusters to be smaller.

    We also need to know how our current systems work with planned game mechanics, planned features.
    This should take priority over brainstorming an idea that will need rebalancing, bugtesting and fixes for potentially game breaking exploits.

    In a way I want to believe that this is just some kind of social experiment for the community I mean it certainly got everyone going.

    I'll end this wall of text saying that Starmade needs to have all it's components in place before we start to redo entire systems.
    I do appreciate the fact that Schema approached us with his idea to us first though.
     
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