Had some questions about the details of how power/shields work with docked entities, and did some experimentation for the answers.
Sharing the results for those still unaware of these details, as well as to suggest a change (which seems much-needed and straight-forward, at least to me).
Have a ship with a shield generator (that consumes power) and a power system (that can feed everything onboard). While undocked, the shield generator will protect all blocks (of main entity and its docked stuff) within its bubble, and put a load on the onboard reactor. However, when docked to a station, things start making less sense.
Have a station with reasonably long docking arms (to leave space for the parts of big ships that protrude beyond their USD ports). Plot twist: the ship is comparable in size/mass to the station. When such a ship is docked, power/shields behave as such:
Further plot twist: if the ship is larger/heavier than the station, its inactive shields can overload the station.
Suggestion: disable power consumption on inactive shields (and perhaps on other inactive systems).
I don't think it's uncommon or unreasonable to have stations anchor ships that are either individually or collectively more massive/power hungry than the station itself...
Sharing the results for those still unaware of these details, as well as to suggest a change (which seems much-needed and straight-forward, at least to me).
Have a ship with a shield generator (that consumes power) and a power system (that can feed everything onboard). While undocked, the shield generator will protect all blocks (of main entity and its docked stuff) within its bubble, and put a load on the onboard reactor. However, when docked to a station, things start making less sense.
Have a station with reasonably long docking arms (to leave space for the parts of big ships that protrude beyond their USD ports). Plot twist: the ship is comparable in size/mass to the station. When such a ship is docked, power/shields behave as such:
- ship reactor shuts down, and transfers all of its loads to the station (as reflected in the ship's flight-mode power bar or build-mode power stats, which stop showing onboard reactor load, and start showing the station's reactor load instead)
- ship shield bubble no longer protects either main entity or its docked stuff (or the station)
- ship shield generator still consumes power, adding its full load onto station's reactor
- ship blocks outside station's bubble can get damaged, despite both station/ship shields being full and consuming power
Further plot twist: if the ship is larger/heavier than the station, its inactive shields can overload the station.
Suggestion: disable power consumption on inactive shields (and perhaps on other inactive systems).
I don't think it's uncommon or unreasonable to have stations anchor ships that are either individually or collectively more massive/power hungry than the station itself...
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