Power-up, cool-down, ... for arrays and effects (like push)?

[NeonSturm]

Settings for (if these new settings are active depends on server's blockBehaviourConfig.xml)

Power-up:

Example: beam computers need to power-up "beamPowerUpTime" seconds if they were initially shut down and reduce power regeneration by "beamActivePowerPenalty".

Power-up is by default 1/2 or 1/3 recharge cycle of weapons which is started by pressing the fire-button (but will not fire, just remain online until pressed again).

You can power-down things with shift-hotkey and abbort power-down in the next three seconds by pressing only shift or the hot-key again (or would you use other keys? like strg/alt?)

Spoiler: How to warm-up and power-down with logic

Computers are warmed up when an activation block sets them active.
If you want to use them, cause a logic update on then

(don't turn them off, but on again).​

They output 0 if they are powered or cooling down, 1 if they are ready.

That reduces lags by not requiring clocks and increases activate rate by up to 0.5 seconds (no delay as possibly with a clock which just missed the end of a cool-down)​

• bridge:
  1. actUp = activation block : "power-up" = active | inactive
  2. actTrigger = activation block : "queued action" = active | inactive
  3. actRepeat = activation block : "repeat action" = active | inactive
• computer internal (not visible, but maybe a wiki may show it):
  • (in) input = 1 : "power-up" || 0 : "power-down"
    
  • warmedUp = 1 : "powered up" || 0 : "powered down"
  • cooledDown = 1 : " ready" || 0 : "cooling down"
    
  • (out) output = 1 : "active" || 0 : "powered down or cooling down"
  • 
    
  • (input : logic-update) -> (delay : "power-up from config") )), input -> and -> (warmedUp : "needs time to power-up, but can (currently) immediately shut down")
  • (powered-up : logic-update), cooledDown -> and -> not -> USE, cooledDown -> (delay : "cool-down time) -> not -> *WIP*(cooledDown : "somehow delete without triggering a logic update for "and")

• machine room | weapon deck | bridge | array room:
  1. (actTrigger -> not -> actInverseTrigger -> not -> actTrigger) = 01 or 10
  2. (actTrigger, (computer : "not on cool-down & active") -> or) , actUp -> and -> computer:
  3. • "or" causes just a logic update and is always active
       
     • 2 functions already accessible with just 7 logic blocks and computer.

I think this will add a new layer of strategy without making things too complicated.

Effect Examples:

• Effects will finally be used what they are meant for:
  • Push
    • high power demands to make it impossible to power shields and weapons in parallel.
    • reasonable power-up time to avoid using quick jumps to evade while in battle when needed without paying constant power costs.
    • if you want to have it as a warp-engine alternative: low cool-down
      
    • Else: high cool-down (how often do you need to escape a planet's gravity field if your thrusters have not >1 thrust : 1 mass?)
  • Evade
    • is it meant to evade asteroids or while in combat?
    • if it is for asteroids, have stats similar to push for warp mentioned above
    • if it is for combat, have a low powered-up penalty and low cool-down, but high activation cost.
  • Overload
    • High power-up penalty
    • No manually trigger-able event.

Other examples:

• Weapons could have about 10% of their power usage instead as powered-up penalty
• Thrusters could have about 20% as power-up penalty

You will be able to save energy if you shut down things that you don't need -> At least I would like it as an option, but I hope others like that too

 

[Zeno9141]

Interesting, very interesting.
I suppose I would like to see this in the game.

I'd imagine it would make a difference between ships oriented around hit-and-run attacks, ships that sit and tank, and ships that need insanely fast response time - for intercepting other shippies.

... Like you said, an extra layer of strategy.