Reactor Chamber effects

[StormWing0]

Stop confusing the Chambers with being "part of" the reactor.

They aren't physically part of it, and they don't affect power generation - they consume reactor resources, like engines do (if differently, they still are pure consumers of reactor production). We don't have "Reactor Thrusters."

Chambers exist entirely seperately from the power generation process. Failure to recognize and clarify this confuses their role and their potential.

Also...

Maybe make the chambers be actual chambers as per the definition of "chamber" instead of misnamed bricks.

Why?

They'll demand a lot more space that way and you can then starting coding them to later house crew as the explanation for how they generate all the mysterious effects they give to ships.

Maybe.

so make them better the more internal space they have inside their bounds? So make a hollow box and the bigger the hollow space the better?

 

[MacThule]

so make them better the more internal space they have inside their bounds? So make a hollow box and the bigger the hollow space the better?

Not better the more.

Just requiring some. Depending on the scale of the system they affect.

EDIT: Also. "hollow" might be the wrong descriptor. Can you think of nothing that would be appropriate to functional interior spaces on a ship?

 

[MacThule]

Things we already have in game would be good.

Like circuits; since those give a fair indication of a sytem having electronic components.

A few computers would also make sense inside a chamber that "does something" to your ship. But only if, like, you could acces the chamber and see it probably, otherwise might as well leave it empty.

Who wants to put interior space on ships though, right?

Transforming chambers into decorative interior zones would ruin my beautiful stick ship anyway - it'd end up looking like the Galactica by the time I got done if I had to turn all my little chamber rods into compartments with open space and hull enclosing them and stuff inside that made them look like they were something other than mystery bricks.

Probably a terrible idea to dovetail functional elements with form like that, but it was just an idea I had about chambers... Lancake did ask for effect ideas, after all. My idea was a spatial effect.

 

[MacThule]

Assault Shields: additional option for shield chambers

• Allows entity to continue a limited percentage of shield recharge while under fire (no delay).
  • Tier I: 10% of normal shields generated even under fire.
  • Tier II: 18% of normal shields generated even under fire.
  • Tier III: 25% of normal shields generated even under fire.
• The reactor percentage for this would need to be relatively high.
• There may need to be armor effectiveness penalties or the like to create more overall balance.

This would be an option for shield tanks and other specialty ships. It would prevent them from having shields worn down by small arms fire alone. Other options for regen percentages could be 6/11/15 or 15/25/33 but I feel like 10/18/25 is a good range with mildly decreasing returns for additional specialization.

I don't believe it would be OP. It would offer a lot to shield tank specialists, and would bring another serious tactical option to the table.

 

[EricBlank]

Inspired by this thread; Add a "Ready" state to reactor chambers

And the percieved need for more tactical, short-term changes that can be effected during combat, like the old effects system;

Auxilliary effect chambers;
This chamber tree offers short-term boosts to specific systems. The chambers themselves use very little RCp but while running consume moderate amounts of power. They have a maximum runtime and a cooldown period, but otherwise can be called on at any time.

Things these chambers can modify;
Increase power level of scanner or stealth systems
Increase charge speed of jump drive
Resistances to certain kinds of damage, momentum and emp/shield-penetration effects.
Boost thrust output and max speed
Boost integrity value of certain subsystems
...?

Alternative idea
-quick switch system; when activated, boosts the effectiveness of one of the other reactor chambers on the ship, chosen from a dropdown list of applicable chambers. Draws power while running and requires a significant investment in RCp itself.
-Perhaps this one can perform the same boosts as my previous suggestion; just one at a time.
-For balance, can run indefinitely in 15sec cycles, can be toggled off and wait for the current cycle to end to switch to a different booster type.

 

[Coyote27]

Apologies for resurrecting this thread with my fell necromancy, but since it's a sticky I suppose it's kinda allowed.

I've just had a few thoughts on chambers that occurred to me at once.

1. Reactor power boost, as it is now, is strictly worse than simply making the reactor bigger. It could be much better than this, however, if the boost power is a temporary toggleable effect with a stronger boost - kinda like how thrust boost is also a temporary but large thrust increase, an active reactor boost on the hotbar could be used in critical peak load times to give a massive power increase for a few seconds, and then consume power to recharge. It'd be a capacitor, in other words, and could even be renamed to a capacitor. This'd be something that could be actually worthwhile, but situationally, and not something every ship would need.

2. Move all the power efficiency trees to the power chambers, making the other trees less cluttered and giving the power tree more to work with.

3. Mass chamber rotational gravity - there is a viable way to do this that makes sense! Have it only apply to docked entities moving on rotator docks, not the parent entity, and the gravity would pull away from that docked entity's axis of rotation. This would make gravity areas on space stations, like O'Neill cylinders, and on ships like the little rotating ring crew area from 2001, workable and intuitive - and it'd negate all the issues that centrifugal gravity suggestions had previously since the effects would be entirely dependent on intentional design AND activating the rotation.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I was refitting my orbital cannon when I realized that cannons having recoil could screw up the stationary aspect of weapon so I though why not have a Recoil Dampener chamber. You can move it to the mobility chamber for the time being as we have no weapon specific chamber block.

Recoil Dampener 1=
Chamber capacity: 5%
Stats: -20% Cannon Recoil, -10% max range

Recoil Dampener 2=
Chamber capacity: 15%
Stats: -20% Cannon Recoil, -10% max range

Recoil Dampener 3=
Chamber capacity: 20%
Stats: -60% Cannon Recoil, -10% max range

Total Chamber capacity usage: 40%
Total stats: -100% cannon recoil, -30% max range

 

[EricBlank]

Thats a great idea, actually, and would be a huge help for craft with a couple big cannon turrets that are firing in different directions every couple seconds. The same chamber could reduce acceleration applied from enemy weapons hitting your craft too.

Maybe a resistance to tractor beams chamber. I havent had a chance to test them at all, so i dont know if theyre anywhere near powerful enough let alone overpowered, but it would still be a good option for fighter/bomber craft that can afford to spend some extra rc to increase their effective mass when targetted by a tractor beam.

A similar chamber that reduces an objects effective mass to tractor beams would be equally useful for cargo containers and the like that need to be able to be tugged around by tug craft. Would make moving lots of containers around without switching between vehicles and requiring propulsion on cargo pods possible.

Though cargo pods shouldnt really have a need for a reactor, so maybe a faction block setting or something that says "this object responds to all tractor beams as if it were 20% its actual mass." Not something youd use on any normal ship, for obvious vulnerability to getting caught in one in combat.

 

[MacThule]

A similar chamber that reduces an objects effective mass to tractor beams

Great idea, but why not just an all-round mass reduction chamber in the mass chamber family? Miniaturization chamber maybe? Affects mass for tractor beams, thrust, jumping, collisions, etc.

 

[EricBlank]

(Edit: i got the chance to play around with the tractor beam, and it doesnt look like it needs a lot of help; its fairly effecctive irregardless of the size of the object youre trying to move vs the size of the beam, its just applying thrust. So very small objecfs get flung around quickly, large ones take a bit to react. All assuming the object youre pull8ng around isnt trying to offer any resistance. A 250 block beam can manipulate a 58k mass block of armor. That said, a powerful enough beam could easily catch a fighter, so a resistance chamber to help reduce their effect on your ships would be beneficial. Tug boats though, dont worry about it.)

Thats also not a necessarily bad idea, but i could definitely see that being used to make very large ships far more manueverable than they ought to be in combat, and i often see a lot of complaints already about reasonably large craft, 20k mass+ behaving and being used too much like just large fighters, and i feel that way as well, honestly. Turrets being more reliable and useful would help a lot. It does eat into the combat chambers you could run alongside it, but cutting off even, ~30%, of a ships mass would be a huge bonus to your speed ratio and turning rate itself, and we do have a turning rate bonus chamber.

 

[MacThule]

If you have any ideas, or know previously made suggestions that would work well as a reactor chamber, leave that here in this thread. The only thing we ask is that you also provide a short description of what the said effect would do.

• Base Damage Control (in Reactor Defense category, with Base Shield Enhancement & Base Armor Enhancement). Ship uses a weak astrotech effect on itself whenever damaged (starting with systems if viable). This requires some power.
  • Base DC - DC starts 10 seconds after last damage
    • Base - Ship passively uses Astrotech effect on itself at a very low rate (i.e. 1/10 block per reactor level per second)
    • L2 - 1/9 block per reactor level per second
    • L3 - 1/8 block per reactor level per second
  • Combat DC (prereq: Base DC)
    • Base - DC begins 10 seconds after first damage and continues under fire as 1/5 block per RL per second
    • L2 - 1/3 block per RL per second
      
    • L3 -1/2 block per RL per second
  • Reduced DC Power Consumption (prereq: Base DC)
    • Base - 25% less power consumed
    • L2 - 50% less power consumed
• NOTES: This would have to draw from a designated onboard storage unit of materials, just like astrotech. Using Reactor Level to determine the base DC power seems fitting so the effect scales roughly with ship scale.

Using those conservative numbers, a big ship with a L32 reactor and maxed out DC could continuously heal at a rate of 16 blocks per second for a modest sacrifice of power. Not insane, considering it would have hundreds of thousands of blocks, but could make the difference in a prolonged battle or series of battles, or it could put a disabled ship back into battle or allow it to escape after a minute or two recovering.

Particularly potent if captains stocked their DC lockers with plenty of reactor, stabilizer, thruster and FTL Chamber blocks only or whatever their priority was - you could optimize the value of such a slow regen by stocking materials only for key systems or maybe armor, ignoring decor and secondary systems. Adds another level of detail to ship loadouts.

 

[kikaha]

I love the idea. and also i suppose the way the game could handle it. Having the spoils of war when boarding a ship or pirating it could be its regen reserves...

 

[Dr. Whammy]

• Base Damage Control (in Reactor Defense category, with Base Shield Enhancement & Base Armor Enhancement). Ship uses a weak astrotech effect on itself whenever damaged (starting with systems if viable). This requires some power.
  • Base DC - DC starts 10 seconds after last damage
    • Base - Ship passively uses Astrotech effect on itself at a very low rate (i.e. 1/10 block per reactor level per second)
    • L2 - 1/9 block per reactor level per second
    • L3 - 1/8 block per reactor level per second
  • Combat DC (prereq: Base DC)
    • Base - DC begins 10 seconds after first damage and continues under fire as 1/5 block per RL per second
    • L2 - 1/3 block per RL per second
      
    • L3 -1/2 block per RL per second
  • Reduced DC Power Consumption (prereq: Base DC)
    • Base - 25% less power consumed
    • L1 - 50% less power consumed
• NOTES: This would have to draw from a designated onboard storage unit of materials, just like astrotech. Using Reactor Level to determine the base DC power seems fitting so the effect scales roughly with ship scale.

Using those conservative numbers, a big ship with a L32 reactor and maxed out DC could continuously heal at a rate of 16 blocks per second for a modest sacrifice of power. Not insane, considering it would have hundreds of thousands of blocks, but could make the difference in a prolonged battle or series of battles, or it could put a disabled ship back into battle or allow it to escape after a minute or two recovering.

Particularly potent if captains stocked their DC lockers with plenty of reactor, stabilizer, thruster and FTL Chamber blocks only or whatever their priority was - you could optimize the value of such a slow regen by stocking materials only for key systems or maybe armor, ignoring decor and secondary systems. Adds another level of detail to ship loadouts.

Armor tanking? Hull Tanking? This is an absolutely EVE-il idea. I like it.

Edit: They would however, need to fix the Astro-Tech first.

 

[MacThule]

I love the idea. and also i suppose the way the game could handle it. Having the spoils of war when boarding a ship or pirating it could be its regen reserves...

Good point - this way most combat ships would have at least a little loot that didn't involve necessarily scuttling the ship for parts (because who wouldn't want at least Base DC & enough stuff to rebuild their reactor, stabs & thrusters).

 

[Ribbons0121R121]

an idea
Nano Astrotech Chamber
+Slowly repairs ship after a few seconds of not taking damage
-Quite the energy draw
-Needs new blocks to repair the old
+Only needs raw resources to repair damaged blocks

 

[EricBlank]

I think thts literally what the damage control suggestion above yours was meant to achieve. And its definitely something i would love to have available so +1 just because we're all on the same page anyway

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I'm ok with the regenerating armor but I don't think it should regenerate lost blocks. From a design stand point it would make astrotech support ships kinda redundant after awhile. There should be a consequence for taking too much damage and completely regenerating even at a much slower rate and with resource requirements seem unfair.

 

[EricBlank]

I dont think it would be entirely unfair to allow systems to be repaired, but it could do with more balancing features, such as the combat addition being no faster than the regular chambers, and the fact that it is actually more effective for smaller vessels when you remember each RL requires more blocks than the last. So it could do with a function based on mass, like extending its effect over longer periods at reactor levels below 10 and/or below a certain mass. Or basing it on # blocks on the ship instead.

The astrotech device really should be much faster, whatever the numbers turn out to be when/if this is all implemented (and the astrotech bugs are all fixed), but it needs its own improvements too, like working during combat, at a reduced rate, and reducing the combat penalty time. Further improvements there could be associated with their own chambers.

You could also say, damage control/astrotech chambers also cannot repair themselves, or cannot repair the reactor until all other blocks are repairs, and/or implement a priority tree of which blocks must be repaired before or more frequently than others.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I think the restoration of block HP and the repair of block physical damage should be the default effect for this kind of system.

However, I think full block regeneration (if implemented) should be a slow process with very high energy consumption (think cloak and jam energy cost). This would force you to choose between being a true "armor tanker" with mediocre weapons/shields or simply having a means to repair your ship in the field after a fight; provided you aren't under constant attack.

Edit: perhaps additional chambers could be used to add full block restoration (from on-board storage) at the higher energy cost.

 

[Ribbons0121R121]

well like i said, it was only an idea, but maybe something like an upgrade for it could allow for replacing lost blocks, 1 for system and functional and 1 for armor. with the downside being a higher energy draw and only one upgrade could be used at a time, locking the other one.