Extremely happy to see Schine adressing the power issue.
Extremely happy to see Schine willing to make changes even if it means ships becoming obsolete.
Extremely happy to see Schine taking feedback on a feature before implementing it.
Actual suggestion? Not so much, but hey at least we can talk about it :D
Must read posts for people who haven't gone through thread:
Power System Overhaul Proposal (MANDATORY read by
Zackey_TNT)
Power System Overhaul Proposal
Power System Overhaul Proposal
Power System Overhaul Proposal
Lecic explaining the chandelier system, although i think that got eaten by the ministry of truth...
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.
This is a problem exclusive to the RP/cosmetic players, and one you are never going to fix, unless you remove all control over ship systems.
Instead of trying to reward interior, just remove all the penalties for it. Make armor lighter (and useful) and remove the mass% based defensive effects. Now RP ships will just be terrible because the people making them don't have a clue what they're doing
People should not be rewarded for cosmetic building, it should have zero impact on the ship, like empty space.
It's not about having to place things in arbitrary patterns, it's about having different outcomes; Ships with high capacity aren't currently viable because they end up MUCH weaker than ships with constant output; but if they were viable you could build ships able to one-hit-kill similar sized ships with high delay weapons and a ton of capacity.
Hypothetical power system setups:
- Ship with high capacity but slow regen able to run for 1minute+ so it's able to accomplish something in combat before running dry; but it will be weaker once the period is over
- Fighters with no onboard power systems, relying on carrier to provide for their power needs
- Ejectable batteries/heat sinks like docked reactors but ejected after use
are examples of more complex power systems; building in predefined patterns just results in more forced design.
Too many blocks involved (number, not types)
I don't believe this is an issue with the game's design, better fixed with tools like using the replace feature on a weapon computer with another weapon computer also replaces all the slave blocks with the corresponding slaves for the new computer.
Replace feature works fine for non-slaved systems
See 2. I don't see how the new design will solve this, please elaborate if it does.
I think generally the suggestion is still stuck in the mentality where you've decided what the outcome has to be (small ships get free power regen, big ships get much slower) which leaves players with very little control over how their ships function, and will only get worse with this much limitation on systems being added.
Adding depth to the game doesn't mean having a lot of hoops to jump through to achieve one thing, it means being able to achieve many different things that are all viable. We don't want to jump through hoops to build ships as
you intended, we want to build our own. This is why the most fun ships to build in starmade are the ones breaking the rules.
Also concerned that it seems thrusters will still require power. It is not possible to have power function as a speed limit and system limit simultaneously, because all combat ships need to move, quickly and constantly. This means every power system must supply quick and constant power; there is no negotiation here. A ship that cannot move in combat is useless; it can't dictate range or avoid incoming fire.
I believe this is what prompted the power bonus in the first place; to let small ships move faster than big ships while still able to power weapons, but what that's done is just encouraging multiple entity designs, or fleets of tiny ships because they are much more energy efficient.
If small ships continue to have power advantages over large ships, this will continue the trend of docked power.
How does this heat mechanic not favor 500 small guns on your ship over a few larger ones, if the small ones can be done with a few highly efficient small reactors?
Consider instead making thrusters use 0 power while only producing 5% of the thrust they currently do, while making overdrive effect much faster (reaching current speeds) but cost power similar to the current thruster cost (exponential cost with thruster amount). That way all ships are able to reach a minimum speed (0% overdrive) and small ships don't require a huge power boost to keep up.
Since you've introduced fleets to the game, the only thing stopping players from overwhelming larger ships with groups of smaller and more efficient ships are the ai issues; hardly a good ballancing tool.
If you can spend 10 hours mining to get 1 large ship or 1000 small ones, but the 1000 small ones are 10x stronger, why would you have large ships?
My concerns with the old power systems were overly emphasizing modular design and the lack of viable design variety. I don't see how this suggestion solves either.