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Greetings, folks! Starmade can be a complicated game for newbloods to learn, especially ones that haven't had much experience with free-form sandboxes and aren't too keen on learning through exploration. In addition, many of the guides on this website are aged like fine wine and the numbers and effects that they contain may have changed multiple times by now.
That's why I'm going to be creating up-to-date guides on 'erethang you need to know to build a ship that is shapely, a base that is beautiful, and an economy for the enterprising!
Now keep in mind that all the numbers and mechanics explained in these guides are using the vanilla configuration. Anyone can change their server and private universe to have it's own unique block data.
More guides will be added to this thread with links to them as soon as they're done. Some days I may finish only one, some I may finish multiple. All of them I'll be keeping up to date with the latest changes in block configuration and tips from experts of the field!
These first few guides will be on the basics of designing a functional ship. Next up I'll be doing shielding and thrust! As always, feedback and tips are welcome here!
That's why I'm going to be creating up-to-date guides on 'erethang you need to know to build a ship that is shapely, a base that is beautiful, and an economy for the enterprising!
Now keep in mind that all the numbers and mechanics explained in these guides are using the vanilla configuration. Anyone can change their server and private universe to have it's own unique block data.
More guides will be added to this thread with links to them as soon as they're done. Some days I may finish only one, some I may finish multiple. All of them I'll be keeping up to date with the latest changes in block configuration and tips from experts of the field!
There is no better indicator of how effective a ship is than it's power. A power efficient ship can bring to bear more weapons, stronger effects, and more durable shielding than it's counterpart.
Power is split into two parts, regeneration and capacity.
Regeneration is how much power the ship is capable of generating in a second. Placing power reactors will usually increase it. If your ship ever runs out of power your regeneration will stop for one second, then resume.
Each reactor on your ship will generate a base 25 power a second.
In addition to that, there is a very large per-entity bonus for placing reactors in a specific way called the 'box dimension' bonus.
Each group of touching (must be a face, corners do not touch) reactor blocks is calculated individually. A group's box dimension is calculated by adding the total length, width, and height of the group together.
For example, if you have a line of 10 reactor blocks all touching faces, it will have a length of 10, a height of 1, and a width of 1. That makes for a box dimension of 12. If you took three of the blocks from one end of the group and used them to make an elbow into another axis then the box dimension would be 7+4+1=12.
If you made a 3 by 3 by 3 cube of reactors the box dimension will be 3+3+3=9. Even though it has 17 more blocks than the previous 'line' examples, it has a smaller box dimension and thus much less power regen.
Each point of box dimension a group has gives an increasingly large bonus to power regen. The larger the box dimension, the larger the bonus regen per box dimension point. This means that having a small number of large reactor groups is more efficient than having a large number of small ones.
The box dimension bonus grows until it tapers off at a maximum bonus of 1,000,000 energy regen a second (NOT counting the base 25 each power block will always give). This is called the soft cap or power cap. This cap is per entity, not per reactor group. Once you reach the soft cap you may place reactors wherever you wish as long as they do not disrupt the box dimensions of the reactor groups giving you the bonus.
Here are the stats for power regeneration:
PowerLinearGrowth: 25
Base power per reactor block.
PowerGrowth: 1.000696
Each point of box dimension multiplies the bonus for a group by this much.
PowerCeiling: 1,000,000
Maximum box dimension bonus.
PowerDivFactor: 0.333
Unknown, can someone explain this?
PowerRecoveryTime: 1,000
Time in milliseconds for power regen to restart if your power hits 0.
Power capacity is the maximum amount of power that an entity can store. Placing power capacitors will always increase it.
All entities have a starting power capacity of 50,000. Each capacitor you place increases this by a base 1,000. Capacitors have a 'group' bonus that increases the yield of capacitors in a group by 5% for each capacitor in the group. The more capacitors in a group, the more power storage you will gain. There is no upper limit to this bonus.
You will want to keep all of your power capacitor blocks in a single group to take maximum advantage of their scaling.
Here are the stats for power capacity:
PowerBaseCapacity: 50,000
Starting capacity for all entities.
PowerTankCapacityLinear: 1,000
Base power gain per capacitor.
PowerTankCapacityPow: 1.05
Each capacitor in a group multiplies the yield of capacitors in the group by this much.
Here are some tips to keep in mind while you're designing a ship's reactors and capacitors:
Balance the number of reactor groups you have with their size. If a ship is powered by only a single reactor group, it's a very tasty target. If that single reactor is cut in half by a beam weapon or blown out of the ship by a missile it will leave you with slow regen. Sometimes it's worth it to forgo a bit of efficiency in favor of redundancy.
It's important to never outgrow a ship's power regen rate. If your thrusters or shields cause your power bar to deplete then you are going to need to upgrade the ship's reactors; else you risk accidentally depleting your power during combat maneuvers.
Certain weapons match up with certain power setups very well. If your ship has a very large and slow reload weapon it may require a large capacity to fire and allow more time between shots to regen. Rapid fire weapons tend to favor power regen more than power capacity, as they are a constant drain on your power system.
If you designed a hull/armor shell and want to install reactors in it, make sure you take maximum advantage of the shell's shape. Creating a 'spine' of reactor groups along the vessel's longest axis with sticks branching out into the other axis is a good way of creating multiple reactor groups that have close to the maximum box dimension bonus that your design allows.
Because reactors have a soft cap and capacitors can scale infinitely, very large capital ships can make great use of massive capacitors to give them enough power storage to last through a fight even if their weapons and shields take far more power per second than they generate.
Power is split into two parts, regeneration and capacity.
Regeneration is how much power the ship is capable of generating in a second. Placing power reactors will usually increase it. If your ship ever runs out of power your regeneration will stop for one second, then resume.
Each reactor on your ship will generate a base 25 power a second.
In addition to that, there is a very large per-entity bonus for placing reactors in a specific way called the 'box dimension' bonus.
Each group of touching (must be a face, corners do not touch) reactor blocks is calculated individually. A group's box dimension is calculated by adding the total length, width, and height of the group together.
For example, if you have a line of 10 reactor blocks all touching faces, it will have a length of 10, a height of 1, and a width of 1. That makes for a box dimension of 12. If you took three of the blocks from one end of the group and used them to make an elbow into another axis then the box dimension would be 7+4+1=12.
If you made a 3 by 3 by 3 cube of reactors the box dimension will be 3+3+3=9. Even though it has 17 more blocks than the previous 'line' examples, it has a smaller box dimension and thus much less power regen.
Each point of box dimension a group has gives an increasingly large bonus to power regen. The larger the box dimension, the larger the bonus regen per box dimension point. This means that having a small number of large reactor groups is more efficient than having a large number of small ones.
The box dimension bonus grows until it tapers off at a maximum bonus of 1,000,000 energy regen a second (NOT counting the base 25 each power block will always give). This is called the soft cap or power cap. This cap is per entity, not per reactor group. Once you reach the soft cap you may place reactors wherever you wish as long as they do not disrupt the box dimensions of the reactor groups giving you the bonus.
Here are the stats for power regeneration:
PowerLinearGrowth: 25
Base power per reactor block.
PowerGrowth: 1.000696
Each point of box dimension multiplies the bonus for a group by this much.
PowerCeiling: 1,000,000
Maximum box dimension bonus.
PowerDivFactor: 0.333
Unknown, can someone explain this?
PowerRecoveryTime: 1,000
Time in milliseconds for power regen to restart if your power hits 0.
Power capacity is the maximum amount of power that an entity can store. Placing power capacitors will always increase it.
All entities have a starting power capacity of 50,000. Each capacitor you place increases this by a base 1,000. Capacitors have a 'group' bonus that increases the yield of capacitors in a group by 5% for each capacitor in the group. The more capacitors in a group, the more power storage you will gain. There is no upper limit to this bonus.
You will want to keep all of your power capacitor blocks in a single group to take maximum advantage of their scaling.
Here are the stats for power capacity:
PowerBaseCapacity: 50,000
Starting capacity for all entities.
PowerTankCapacityLinear: 1,000
Base power gain per capacitor.
PowerTankCapacityPow: 1.05
Each capacitor in a group multiplies the yield of capacitors in the group by this much.
Here are some tips to keep in mind while you're designing a ship's reactors and capacitors:
Balance the number of reactor groups you have with their size. If a ship is powered by only a single reactor group, it's a very tasty target. If that single reactor is cut in half by a beam weapon or blown out of the ship by a missile it will leave you with slow regen. Sometimes it's worth it to forgo a bit of efficiency in favor of redundancy.
It's important to never outgrow a ship's power regen rate. If your thrusters or shields cause your power bar to deplete then you are going to need to upgrade the ship's reactors; else you risk accidentally depleting your power during combat maneuvers.
Certain weapons match up with certain power setups very well. If your ship has a very large and slow reload weapon it may require a large capacity to fire and allow more time between shots to regen. Rapid fire weapons tend to favor power regen more than power capacity, as they are a constant drain on your power system.
If you designed a hull/armor shell and want to install reactors in it, make sure you take maximum advantage of the shell's shape. Creating a 'spine' of reactor groups along the vessel's longest axis with sticks branching out into the other axis is a good way of creating multiple reactor groups that have close to the maximum box dimension bonus that your design allows.
Because reactors have a soft cap and capacitors can scale infinitely, very large capital ships can make great use of massive capacitors to give them enough power storage to last through a fight even if their weapons and shields take far more power per second than they generate.
These first few guides will be on the basics of designing a functional ship. Next up I'll be doing shielding and thrust! As always, feedback and tips are welcome here!
