Valiant's Excessive and Insane Power Rework Ideas

[Valiant70]

I keep hearing people complain about power and balance between big and small ships. Current power generation mechanics contain a soft cap, which seems to be a futile attempt to bring titans into reasonable balance with smaller ships. I... don't think it works. I also think that nerfing large ships is the most idiotic possibly way to (vainly attempt to) solve this.

I think we need other ways to balance big and small ships that don't make one size necessarily stronger or weaker against another, but rather makes ships more effective against ships of similar bulk and less able to kill others, essentially creating partial weight class division among ships.

Anyway, on to my crazy idea. This is more of a brainstorm than anything definitely good, so bear with me. I know these ideas are crazy and will probably be controversial but please try not to heat up arguments.

Part 1: Fuel.
I've written a lengthy thread about the effects of different fuel mechanics on gameplay style and faction strategy. It should be linked in my signature. I honestly don't care where it comes from as long as the following config options make sense:

• Depletability (true/false): determines whether a fuel source may permanently run out.
• RenewSpeed (numeric multiplier): determines how quickly fuel sources renew themselves. Set to 0 for non-renewable fuel and -1 for unlimited gathering.
• Consumption (numeric multiplier): changes how fast ships burn fuel.
• FuellessGeneration (numeric multiplier): Sets how much power a ship with no fuel may produce as a fraction of normal (fueled) generation. Set to 0 if you like Space Engineers. Set to 1 to make fuel useless.

If any of these config options don't make sense, you might want to read my thread on fuel and balancing to see why they are useful for changing play style.

Part 2:Reactors.
I've had a lot of fun maximizing boxdims of a number of formations of power reactors in order to give my ships an edge (and I'm pretty doggone good at it too), but current power generation just seems a little strange. What are these magical blocks, and why does more power come out when you make them longer? I'll tell you what they are...

Spoiler: Starmade Reactor Physics

I DON'T FLIPPIN' KNOW!

Anyway, something more reactor-like might be more fun to cram into a ship. Ideally, it wouldn't take up a huge amount of room so you can build a cool reactor room if desired, but you also wouldn't be able to cram TOO much power into one ship just by making your reactor insanely large.

My crazy idea is thus: Two parts: core and collector. Three blocks: Reactor core, reactor booster, reactor collector. Fuel is burned as power is consumed by the ship. How to build a reactor:

1. Place a core. For a small ship like a shuttle that's all you need. It generates up to 500 e/sec and consumes a proportional amount of fuel.
2. If you want more power, place collectors.
   1. These increase fuel burn and proportionally increase power generation. Link to the core with C & V.
   2. A collector may only link if it has line of sight to the core.
3. Can't cram enough power into the space you want to use? Either add another reactor or add reactor boosters.
   1. These act like afterburners, increasing overall power generation per block of reactor, but greatly increasing fuel consumption per power generated.
   2. One block of a booster formation must have line of sight to the reactor core for the formation to work.
   3. Boosters are on by default but may be disengaged by logic.
   4. Server configs could be set so that reactors only consume fuel when boosters are being used. That could even be a default setting.

Worried about your fighters? Don't be. Putting six collectors around a reactor core should give you plenty of power for a small ship.

I've purposefully left numbers out of this. Hopefully all of the formulae would be server-configurable as well as having an all-around-good default.

You may have noticed something by now. This would result in power generation growing linearly with ship size. How overpowered is that!? Well, it wouldn't be if power generation itself had inherent drawbacks, which brings us to part 3.

Part 3: Balancing.
I say we balance ships not based on mass (which includes decoration) but based on power generation, which directly influences combat effectiveness. This is the general idea which I know is pretty sound. Note that balancing mechanics would apply to a ship's maximum generation, not its current consumption.

Here are some potentially dumb ideas on how to do it:

Idea 1: Due to the crazy amounts of energy spinning around in there, these reactors increase moment of inertia, reducing ships' turning speed. With this, there would be no more need for boxdim or mass-based turning. A ship's potential combat effectiveness, limited by its power generation, is inversely proportional to its turn speed. In other words, the more powerful a ship is regardless of mass, the slower it turns. A small factor due to mass or moment of inertia could be kept in for realism, but this would be dwarfed by reactor drag.

Idea 2: If you thought all that energy might be a cancer risk... well, no comment. BUT it definitely interferes with targeting systems. The more power your ship produces, the less accurate your weapons are. This shouldn't be a dramatic effect, but it should be noticeable against small, fast targets. Larger ships would have less weapon accuracy. They should still be able to hit ships their own size with no problems, but smaller ships should have a chance to avoid the big guns they mount. Perhaps a specific slave or a new effect could mitigate this. The beam slave might work as it adds no DPS, and it makes sense because accuracy is a bigger problem at longer ranges, even against similar-sized ships. The degree to which the effect is mitigated could be server-configurable.

Combat scenario: A battleship is trying to shoot down a pesky corvette that's about to make a reckless head-on bombing run, but keeps missing. The captain yells "ENGINEERING! Kill the boosters! Tactical can't hit crap with all this interference and we can't maneuver!"

The captain has just discovered another advantage to reactor boosters: at the expense of a lot of fuel and some tedium, ships may get most of their power from boosters in order to change their characteristics on a moment's notice. To keep this from being imba, reactor boosters can be capped or softcapped per reactor, requiring ships to get a certain percentage of their total power from collectors which cannot be changed in the heat of battle.

Idea 3: "Space friction" would be off by default, but spatial drag would be caused by boosters. This would also help to balance boosters.

Idea 4: It takes longer to enter warp if you have a powerful reactor. See part 4.

All, one, or any combination or modification of these could be used to balance ships based on power generation.

Part 4: FTL (jump/warp/etc)
I know Schema probably doesn't want warp to be an "activate, then sit and wait" thing, but that would honestly be better than what we have now, because right now it's "Shall I wear my finger out for 15 minutes or wait four hours with a weight on a key?" Plus, it opens new possibilities for balancing without creating tedium. For example, a ship with a big reactor might take longer to establish a warp field to run away, but once it's up and running it might go just as fast as a small ship depending on its %mass of jump drive modules.

Perhaps as a server option, jump/warp could burn fuel directly rather than reactor power, meaning small ships could use disproportionately large jump drives if they have the fuel to do so. This would give a lighter ship a greater chance to escape from an angry titan.

Part 5: Side effects.

• Different ship roles within weight classes may start to emerge. "Weight class" would be determined primarily by power generation rather than actual size, and roles would emerge within that by devoting percentages of the ship's power generation to different kinds of systems. Balancing different roles against one another can be done by changing the power consumption of different systems like shields, thrusters, and weapons.
• I'll add more to this section as discussions happen.

 

[TheOmega]

I agree, as long as fuel isn't too hard to come by. Maybe have automatic collection when X sectors from a star or something.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I'd rather the game not use fuel at all to be honest. Either it's so common that its existence in the game is pointless from a mechanics standpoint, or it becomes a pure hassle, slowing the games already slow pace down. I really think fuel should be the realm of mods, not part of the core game.

I also don't really think the soft cap system we currently have a bad system. I see it as more of a buff to smaller ships, encouraging numbers and use of fleets. It's also not really that big a drawback too ships big enough to break the soft cap, I personally have rarely felt like I wasn't getting enough power for my weapons in larger ships I've made, barring times I've purposefully gone overboard. With the current system larger ships are still superior in every way aside from manoeuvrability.

 

[Valiant70]

I'd rather the game not use fuel at all to be honest. Either it's so common that its existence in the game is pointless from a mechanics standpoint, or it becomes a pure hassle, slowing the games already slow pace down. I really think fuel should be the realm of mods, not part of the core game.

Try reading my thread about fuel. http://starmadedock.net/threads/a-manifesto-on-fuel-balancing-and-various-play-styles.5130/

I also don't really think the soft cap system we currently have a bad system. I see it as more of a buff to smaller ships, encouraging numbers and use of fleets. It's also not really that big a drawback too ships big enough to break the soft cap, I personally have rarely felt like I wasn't getting enough power for my weapons in larger ships I've made, barring times I've purposefully gone overboard. With the current system larger ships are still superior in every way aside from manoeuvrability

In itself the soft cap isn't bad, but it doesn't allow balancing in the same way that the ideas I outlined above do. My ideas would allow some very fine tuning of balance in late beta and by individual servers.

 

[Incap]

Fuel is an idea I'd definitely get behind. I've always thought it weird that ship reactors can produce power indefinitely without any kind of catalyst or fuel source.

 

[UndeadPotato]

I think you should add source spawning rate to your list of config options. This way, server owners can choose how rare they are, and even set them to 0 if they choose to not have them on the server.

 

[Valiant70]

I think you should add source spawning rate to your list of config options. This way, server owners can choose how rare they are, and even set them to 0 if they choose to not have them on the server.

I hadn't thought of that. Good idea.

 

[Warprider]

I agree that fuel should be an optional config as long as it's off by default. Lets be honest only true survival/roleplay servers would use it.

 

[Snk]

Fuel is like food. In Vanilla, you should be able to survive without it, but it should also be able to boost your ship's performance.

 

[Valiant70]

I agree that fuel should be an optional config as long as it's off by default. Lets be honest only true survival/roleplay servers would use it.

I wouldn't say off by default, but not necessary by default. Perhaps it would be used only for reactor boosters and maybe FTL by default. If something is going to be completely unused by default, why have it in the game? I'm sure Schema wouldn't want to bother coding it.

 

[Warprider]

I wouldn't say off by default, but not necessary by default. Perhaps it would be used only for reactor boosters and maybe FTL by default. If something is going to be completely unused by default, why have it in the game? I'm sure Schema wouldn't want to bother coding it.

Because options!

 

[Snk]

The poll doesn't lie. People seem to like this.

 

[Jake_Lancia]

I disagree with fuel as a required resource as it punishes casual players and adds more required tedium to an already boring survival. However having fuels or some other consumable (catalysts maybe?) boosting a system's performance rather than just running it is something I can get behind, and wouldn't require ridiculous refitting of ships again.
Mind you I wouldn't be opposed to an additional engine type in addition to the current ones that provides some 150% of the current engine's thrust but use fuel only, and have only one type of engine usable on one ship at a time. That way the fuel supporters can have their fuel-using engines while the rest of the players can keep their ships as they are (but with fuel/catalyst boosters too)

 

[Stakhanov]

That poll is invalid as it doesn't give any option to downvote individual bad ideas (or all of them) and so should be ignored.

Fuel has been discussed before , the consensus was that it would add nothing of value to the game. As for non-essential performance boosting consumables , there's still the problem of unlimited quantities allowed in player inventories , which would result in a meta of everyone carrying tons of the stuff. Once that's sorted , there's also storage blocks intended for mass harvesting , that would not be very balanced for the purpose of storing them. Finally , there's no reason consumables should boost something as generic as ship power , since it has the most potential to be abused. Afterburner fuel for example would be much simpler to handle.

Consumable usage should also have a cooldown , to make them a tactical variable rather than a constant bonus.

 

[Jake_Lancia]

Afterburner fuel for example would be much simpler to handle.

Consumable usage should also have a cooldown , to make them a tactical variable rather than a constant bonus.

This is pretty much exactly what I meant in reference to consumables! Something boosting ship power shouldn't exist, but yes, afterburner fuel, temporarily increated weapon damage and perhaps even something that affects the shields would make good consumables. They should go on the hotbar of a ship to make using them in combat quicker, and yes, they should have a cooldown.

 

[Snk]

Fuel has been discussed before , the consensus was that it would add nothing of value to the game. As for non-essential performance boosting consumables , there's still the problem of unlimited quantities allowed in player inventories , which would result in a meta of everyone carrying tons of the stuff. Once that's sorted , there's also storage blocks intended for mass harvesting , that would not be very balanced for the purpose of storing them. Finally , there's no reason consumables should boost something as generic as ship power , since it has the most potential to be abused. Afterburner fuel for example would be much simpler to handle.

Fuel was discussed before and people were pretty divided, but no conclusion was reached.

 

[MeepMoop]

This is pretty much exactly what I meant in reference to consumables! Something boosting ship power shouldn't exist, but yes, afterburner fuel, temporarily increated weapon damage and perhaps even something that affects the shields would make good consumables. They should go on the hotbar of a ship to make using them in combat quicker, and yes, they should have a cooldown.

I thought about something like this before-in fact, I've even drawn up a system for it already, here.
It's more centered around economy, but consumables are a huge part of it. It's also possible that if a server admin wanted to, they could set the bonuses from using certain bonuses(like power regen) to be much higher and reduce the native power regen to close to none if not none, effectively adding fuel.

 

[Valiant70]

That poll is invalid as it doesn't give any option to downvote individual bad ideas (or all of them) and so should be ignored.

It does now.
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Fuel has been discussed before , the consensus was that it would add nothing of value to the game.

This is not true from what I've seen. The general response to this thread was positive with the condition that everything is configurable.

As for non-essential performance boosting consumables , there's still the problem of unlimited quantities allowed in player inventories , which would result in a meta of everyone carrying tons of the stuff.

This is a flaw caused by a missing feature that will no doubt be added, so it is almost irrelevant.

Once that's sorted , there's also storage blocks intended for mass harvesting , that would not be very balanced for the purpose of storing them.

I'm not sure what you mean. I think you're saying ships would be able to carry too much. If that's an issue, fuel capacity could be limited another way, like requiring a different type of storage container with its own rules. If fuel were antimatter or something similarly volatile, this would make sense.

Finally , there's no reason consumables should boost something as generic as ship power , since it has the most potential to be abused. Afterburner fuel for example would be much simpler to handle.

Consumable usage should also have a cooldown , to make them a tactical variable rather than a constant bonus.

This is pretty much exactly what I meant in reference to consumables! Something boosting ship power shouldn't exist, but yes, afterburner fuel, temporarily increated weapon damage and perhaps even something that affects the shields would make good consumables. They should go on the hotbar of a ship to make using them in combat quicker, and yes, they should have a cooldown.

If you read the OP, I've suggested that boosting power would not only require fuel, but would debuff the ship in other ways, like turn rate, weapon accuracy, and jump charge time while the boost is active. I. freaking. hate. cooldown. timers. I would much rather have an actual heat bar, and "cooldown time" would literally be the time it takes for a device to cool off enough to use. A reactor could have heat sinks and cooling radiators to determine the characteristics of the cooldown. The performance characteristics of these devices can be adjusted to achieve the desired results. For example, coolers could require power to work, giving more of an "energy loan" that has to be paid back a few seconds later. The lower the power requirements, the greater the net energy gain.

Considering that everyone appears to be more interested in shouting down fuel, I wish I had left that out of this thread. A far more interesting topic is balancing by ship power rather than by mass, which is a huge part of this thread and in fact more important than fuel, as fuel would be optional but balancing mechanics are the heart of the meta.

 

[shadowulf]

I like the idea of OPTIONAL equipment using something to buff it. Fuel, maybe, or exponential power use. For instance, afterburners give you 150% acceleration, but require 200% power, or a fuel that's pretty common. Or a rapid reloader doubles your SPS, but after a time take damage because they overheat. Something like that would be epic

 

[friendofvampires]

I dislike solely balancing via power, because i like to have more power than needed on hand, and this would punish me for that. maybe instead of laying mass completely to the side make it a more even balance? or even make it so the balance is relative to power-gen above a ratio to the mass?