Variable Power Consumption from Jammers

[MacThule]

Any idea why a core, line of generators, and radar jammer with absolutely no other blocks draws a constantly fluctuating amount of power when jamming?

 

[Lancake]

Radarjammer power consumption is based on the ship's mass. Should be about 50 power per mass per second, but as I don't have the ship's blueprint, I can't see if what you're seeing is correct or not.

EDIT: Per mass, not per block ^^

 

[MacThule]

about 50 power per mass per second

It's the "about" that has me curious. I'm not seeing bad numbers on the power draw, it's just that literally every two seconds the power draw fluctuates between about 4 different amounts over a range of about 1.7% of the ship's power usage for no apparent reason. Not touching the keyboard or mouse, no other systems exist, literally just a ship core, some power, and some jammers. The power usage is in constant flux. I'm was just wondering what was up with that, if there is some predictable formula for it.

There's no ship, per se, but I'll attach a sment of the power core I was fiddling with.

 

[Deserea]

thats not the only system that does that. Ive noticed the same thing happens with thrusters, and quite a few passive effects. The power drain randomly spikes and falls back to normal .

 

[MacThule]

Yeah, I'm assuming it's deliberate to make power engineering a bit more 'fuzzy,' but I had never really pinned it down with a single system like that before. Got me to wondering whether it is actually deliberate, or something strange in the way SM calculates power consumption.

With the power overhaul inbound, any observations on power are probably moot though, aren't they?

 

[Lancake]

Might be worth looking into, yet the fluctuations I'm seeing here are negligible, less than 1%. Are you seeing the same fluctuations?

I believe the GUI is just reporting it incorrect as I believe it takes the average of the previous reported usage and the new one. Paired together that it should report every 0.5 seconds compared to the 30 updates per second and you'll get some weird seemingly inaccuracies.

Could also be some weird rounding going on from time to time...
[doublepost=1498169557,1498169476][/doublepost]

With the power overhaul inbound, any observations on power are probably moot though, aren't they?

They're not moot, same issue is most likely going to be present with the new system.

 

[MacThule]

I calculated the fluctuations at around 1.6-1.7% - still very minor - for that particular entity. If you are getting a different fluctuation then maybe it is a GUI issue, as you say. It's not an issue causing any problem, just a curiosity from my perspective. Perhaps more meaningful from yours, but I don't know.

Interesting addition: Add auxiliary power and turn on. The draw on the auxiliary power does not fluctuate but remains constant per my client.

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Huh, I had allways assumed that the fluctuation you're noticing was due to the ever-present client-to-server-to-client lag, and the player's GUI "updating" itself with what it expects, then being overriden by what the server tells it.

Well, untill it hits 0 on the GUI, then everything stops for several seconds regardless of what the server says.