After experimenting with using auxiliary power to augment the stealth capabilities of ships (i.e. increasing the overall amount of other system blocks that can be stealthed by cloak/jam) it became increasingly obvious that not all power sinks (things that use power) use power the same way.
My work showed that cloak and radar jammer draw power from a ships capacitor asynchronously with power generation at a rate which varies with client connection quality. Unfortunately there are not many ways to address connection quality, but evaluating the power on the server for each loaded ship I feel is a better alternative to the current and completely unpredictable situation.
To break this down:
If we exclude weapons as an obvious exception, power sinks and power sources do not get evaluated at the same time and then applied to the capacitor. They instead are evaluated whenever it becomes necessary using a ships capacitor as sort of a buffer.
The obvious solution to fix this (and prevent stealth ships de-cloaking when they clearly have sufficient power generation) I suggest is the following:
Case 1: Weapons
Subtract weapon power cost per tick from the capacitor as normal.
Case 2: Radar jam, Cloak, Scanner, Jump drive/inhibitor, Shield recharge, Rail mass enhancers and anything else I've forgotten
Capacity = Capacity + (Total gain from power sources - Total cost from power sinks)
This should take care of every potentiality but if you think of one that you don't think is then please mention it so I can address it if necessary.
What are other player's thoughts on the issue of cloaked ships (with or without aux power) de-cloaking when they clearly shouldn't?
My work showed that cloak and radar jammer draw power from a ships capacitor asynchronously with power generation at a rate which varies with client connection quality. Unfortunately there are not many ways to address connection quality, but evaluating the power on the server for each loaded ship I feel is a better alternative to the current and completely unpredictable situation.
To break this down:
If we exclude weapons as an obvious exception, power sinks and power sources do not get evaluated at the same time and then applied to the capacitor. They instead are evaluated whenever it becomes necessary using a ships capacitor as sort of a buffer.
The obvious solution to fix this (and prevent stealth ships de-cloaking when they clearly have sufficient power generation) I suggest is the following:
Case 1: Weapons
Subtract weapon power cost per tick from the capacitor as normal.
Case 2: Radar jam, Cloak, Scanner, Jump drive/inhibitor, Shield recharge, Rail mass enhancers and anything else I've forgotten
Capacity = Capacity + (Total gain from power sources - Total cost from power sinks)
This should take care of every potentiality but if you think of one that you don't think is then please mention it so I can address it if necessary.
What are other player's thoughts on the issue of cloaked ships (with or without aux power) de-cloaking when they clearly shouldn't?
