- Joined
- Feb 2, 2015
- Messages
- 15
- Reaction score
- 6
I'm new to this game, but it's fantastic, mostly because it's letting me fulfill my dream of building spaceships.
Right now I'm working on a multi-tenant ship, and there's one thing that I would really love: The ability for non-pilots to spool the jump drive. As it stands, spooling is a long process that can only be managed by the pilot, and it pretty universally eats the entire capacitor bank. What's more frustrating is that it requires 100% of the pilots attention, when really this is a thing that can be managed by a logic system or another player (the engineer)
tl;dr : Implement remote-activation for jump drive charging and firing
My thoughts on implementation:
Jump drive modules can be connected to activation blocks, every jump drive module activated contributes to it's attached jump drive computer the appropriate amount as determined by the power consumption formula.
e.g. A ship has 100 blocks including 10 jump drive modules, a remote activation block tied to 3 of those modules, and a jump drive computer. The player can spool the jump drive manually (from the action bar) using 10 jump drive modules/ per second to fill the jump computer. The player can also press the remote activation block before getting into the core, so the jump drive computer would fill continually as if it were be spooled by three jump-drive modules
presumably, you could expedite the process by focusing all attention on the jump drive, using 10 modules again, but the basic idea is that a ship can determine its ideal draw, and continually use, say 15% of it's power to charge jump drives. This makes ship design more fun, because you start thinking about power distribution as a timing function, and it also gives you an excuse to yell at your engineer:
"I'm busy shooting at fighters, I NEED MORE POWER TO THE ENGINES SO WE CAN GET OUT OF HERE!"
Additionally, it would be pretty cool to have remote activated jump drive computers. doing so would fire the jump drive, so you could actually time picard-style attacks. i.e. time your jump system such that when a sufficient delay has passed that you can be certain your drive is charged, it auto-fires. This would be useful for long-range travel as well, since you could plot a course, then go work on stuff on your ship while you're in transit. It's dangerous, because if you've plotted your course poorly you'll burn, or get attacked, but it means you don't have to sit in the cockpit doing nothing while you're on a routine trade run.
Right now I'm working on a multi-tenant ship, and there's one thing that I would really love: The ability for non-pilots to spool the jump drive. As it stands, spooling is a long process that can only be managed by the pilot, and it pretty universally eats the entire capacitor bank. What's more frustrating is that it requires 100% of the pilots attention, when really this is a thing that can be managed by a logic system or another player (the engineer)
tl;dr : Implement remote-activation for jump drive charging and firing
My thoughts on implementation:
Jump drive modules can be connected to activation blocks, every jump drive module activated contributes to it's attached jump drive computer the appropriate amount as determined by the power consumption formula.
e.g. A ship has 100 blocks including 10 jump drive modules, a remote activation block tied to 3 of those modules, and a jump drive computer. The player can spool the jump drive manually (from the action bar) using 10 jump drive modules/ per second to fill the jump computer. The player can also press the remote activation block before getting into the core, so the jump drive computer would fill continually as if it were be spooled by three jump-drive modules
presumably, you could expedite the process by focusing all attention on the jump drive, using 10 modules again, but the basic idea is that a ship can determine its ideal draw, and continually use, say 15% of it's power to charge jump drives. This makes ship design more fun, because you start thinking about power distribution as a timing function, and it also gives you an excuse to yell at your engineer:
"I'm busy shooting at fighters, I NEED MORE POWER TO THE ENGINES SO WE CAN GET OUT OF HERE!"
Additionally, it would be pretty cool to have remote activated jump drive computers. doing so would fire the jump drive, so you could actually time picard-style attacks. i.e. time your jump system such that when a sufficient delay has passed that you can be certain your drive is charged, it auto-fires. This would be useful for long-range travel as well, since you could plot a course, then go work on stuff on your ship while you're in transit. It's dangerous, because if you've plotted your course poorly you'll burn, or get attacked, but it means you don't have to sit in the cockpit doing nothing while you're on a routine trade run.
