Scale Reactor Chamber Capacity

[Kiithnaras]

Rather than have a flat percentage for chamber effects, I'd like to propose a different mechanic than the percentages we have now. As it is now, large vessels or stations will require many, many reactors to perform their various requisite functions and active management of an increasingly-complex array of reactor-chamber pairing systems. To the end of making capital ships and large, fortified shipyards possible again without a high degree of active maintenance and management, I propose scaling the reactor's effect capacity while setting a fixed cost to each chamber effect.

A simple way to go about this, for example, is to give each Reactor a number of Chamber Points equal to its Level (which already scales with diminishing returns as a Reactor increases in size). The most simple chamber effects would, in this example, use only one point per effect level. Some might cost more than one point, though, such as some advanced stealth or interdiction effects. Other effects might even be free, in a sense, though these effects would be minor and non-combat, and they would still require the appropriate chambers. In this way, the multitude of awesome chamber effects existing presently and in the future don't require over a dozen reactors to fully utilize on larger vessels or stations.

Another option would to allow chambers larger than the minimum size to offer an efficiency discount on the amount of Chamber capacity they utilize, resulting in more versatility for a higher material, mass, and space cost. Essentially, a chamber that is twice the minimum size would use half of the normal cost for its assigned effect. A chamber three times larger would use only one third of the normal cost, and so forth. This would produce a diminishing return system for chamber effects if one desired to have more effects paired onto a single reactor, but it would make it possible without having to manage individual effects or swap between multiple reactors.

Additionally, Reactors that are over-capacity on effects should not simply shut off all of their effects. Instead, the effects should either operate at a lower potency (allowing one to diversify their effects for less powerful ones) or cause the reactor to produce less energy (diverting power output to maintain over-capacity chambers).

I'd love to hear other thoughts on this!

Update: In fact, a little research and math shows that many chamber trees exceed the capacity all on their own. It is, in fact, impossible to have a ship that is permanently both cloaked and jammed. Such a vessel, even if it were just barely possible, would also be ~very~ power-hungry and make use of a load of reactor chambers compared to its reactor size.

 

[Kiithnaras]

Decreasing reactor capacity percentages for bigger chambers will lead to more possible metabuilds with filling all empty spaces inside the ships with the chamber bricks, which will make ships with interiors completely weak versus interiorless pvp-builds again.

I disagree purely because of the diminishing return nature of what I proposed; if you double the size of a chamber, you only reduce its chamber cost by half. Even if the ships were very small, it would be entirely possible to have decent interior spaces worked into a design that is still highly functional and competitive. The nature of the chambers doesn't allow for duplicate effects, so the ship without an interior will, at most, merely have more non-combat utility. Most ship designs, new and old, are less than 50% interior space anyway (and the larger ships are much, much less than interior space.

I think there is an important distinction to make between "interior" space - space used decoratively to give a sense of living and working spaces inside the ship - and "empty" space - mere empty voids intentionally left thus due to mass and material concerns. Keep in mind, also, that filling "empty" space is actually desirable as ships increase in size as filled spaces reduce the graphical rendering overhead, for a block that is neighbored on all six sides does not need to be rendered.

 

[NTIMESc]

In this way, the multitude of awesome chamber effects existing presently and in the future don't require over a dozen reactors to fully utilize on larger vessels or stations.

I don't think it would promote diversity if every large ship could have have one of every chamber type without a significant drawback like having to switch reactors. I enjoy having constraints that promote more diversity between ships.

I'm not particularly excited by the current state of the chamber system, though, and do think it needs some tweaking.
One thing I don't like is how undersized chambers do nothing. Scaling down their effect power would make sense, but of course, who would want a chamber taking up a fixed RC% that wasn't the best it could be?

A mechanism or formula for reducing RC usage is attractive, but I'm not too sure about over-sized chambers being the best way. Chamber stuffing is one reason, but also because I find it unintuitive that more blocks would use less capacity.

What about having the percentage used scale on the just the current required chamber size with a diminishing returns penalty to deter adding one-block chambers for every effect? So, for example, if the required size is 15, and the chamber only has 9 blocks, then it would only use 60%*(1+p) ((9/15)*(1+p) = 0.6*(1+p)) of the full RC%, where p is the diminishing returns penalty. The effect power would, of course, also be reduced accordingly.

For the penalty, off hand, I would suggest that having fewer chamber blocks than required for the previous reactor level would result in severe penalties which might include effect malfunctions, like navigation errors when jumping, chamber overload/explosion, power/shield/weapons fluctuations, false scan readings, etc.

 

[Kiithnaras]

I don't think it would promote diversity if every large ship could have have one of every chamber type without a significant drawback like having to switch reactors. I enjoy having constraints that promote more diversity between ships.

I feel like you over-estimate the potency of my proposal; using the level-based point system would have extremely diminishing returns. A Reactor's Level scales from 0 to 10 with every 10 blocks, then from 11 to 20 with every 100, then 21 to 30 with every 1000, and so forth. Each Level affects the requisite size of the chambers as well. Only absolutely massive stations or ships would even be able to approach being able to have "every" effect active and fully-levelled with this method. In fact, this would favor ships with multiple smaller reactors even more over singular large reactors (but it would still grant a higher degree of flexibility to an individual reactor regardless of size). I could even amend this proposal and say that ~every~ reactor has at least 10 chamber points to work with regardless of size, and would only gain more points as it grows to level 11 and beyond.

Even expanding chambers for more efficiency would quickly balloon into impracticality if abused as a large portion of the ship space and mass would need to be dedicated to chambers (already expensive and frail blocks) instead of more or larger reactors. The most optimum efficiency expansion would likely be in the range of 2-4 times the minimum chamber size. Even with this, it would still be beneficial to have separate reactors, but it would only require 2-3 reactor groups on a large ship to make use of every reasonably-useful effect instead of a dozen reactor groups.

What about having the percentage used scale on the just the current required chamber size with a diminishing returns penalty to deter adding one-block chambers for every effect?

This was actually a part I thought up later of the proposal to have larger chambers be more efficient - the flip side that chambers underneath the minimum size would have effects scaling downward (e.g. a chamber at half the required size would provide half the effect for half of the RC cost) proportionate to their size. The exception would be "toggle" effects, like jump interdiction and jump autocharge, where those simply wouldn't work at all (or perhaps have a chance of malfunction?). Larger chambers wouldn't be any more potent, but the added space would reduce the strain on the reactor to keep them powered, so they would simply cost less.