- Joined
- Dec 10, 2017
- Messages
- 205
- Reaction score
- 176
Introduction
There's a lot being said about these new stabilizers, and something that nobody seems to want to agree on (as far as I can see) is how they work. There's a lot that many people don't know or don't understand about the new stabilizers. What I want to do is resolve this confusion. This is meant to be an un-opinionated post that explains what stabilizers are and how they work. In this post, I will neither argue for nor against stabilizers, nor will I attempt to explain why anything is the way it is or propose any changes. This is a purely informative thread.
The Basic Rundown
With the new power update, reactors now have a stability statistic. As soon as a group of reactors contains more than 10 blocks, the stability begins to fall.
Stabilizers are used to bring this stability back up, and the farther away they are from the reactor, the more efficient they become.
Stabilizer Placement
Stabilizers become more efficient the farther they are from the reactors. This is measured based off of the absolute distance of the stabilizers from the nearest reactor in the group. In the picture below, all three reactors are at the minimum distance for 100% stabilization efficiency.
Because efficiency is determined by absolute distance, the direction of the stabilizer from the nearest reactor does not matter so long as the distance is the same. The stabilizers in the following image are all the minimum distance from the reactor for 100% stabilizer efficiency (don't mind the confused stabilizer stream, as it thinks two of the stabilizers are a single group).
Additionally, as the reactor group size increases, the minimum distance needed for 100% stabilizer efficiency grows. I was surprised, however, to find that this distance does not begin to grow until after the reactor group size has exceeded 10 blocks. The below pictures show a stabilizer at the minimum distance from a single reactor block for 100% reactor efficiency (upper) and another stabilizer at the same distance from a group of 12 reactor blocks expressing a stabilizer efficiency of only 36.2% (lower).
Stabilizer Streams
Stabilizer streams are the purple beams that connect stabilizer groups to reactor groups. Their size is determined by two factors:
- Reactor group size
- Stabilizer group size vs. total number of stabilizers connected to a reactor group
3x3x3 block of reactors and a single stabilizer.
4x4x4 block of reactors and a single stabilizer.
Same 4x4x4 block with a second separated stabilizer.
4x4x4 block with a single stabilizer and a separate 2x2x2 block of stabilizers. Note that the block of stabilizers has a larger stabilizer stream.
The stabilizer streams serve as a weak point for the ship's power, the reason being if a stabilizer stream should be hit the ship will be damaged in some way. The current penalty for a damaged stabilizer stream is a temporary shutdown of the stabilizer group, which may reduce the amount of power available to the player as well as make the reactors prone to exploding. It is for this reason that stabilizer streams must be protected within the ship's structure.
Stabilizer streams can be redirected through Reactor Stabilizer Stream Nodes. In order to use them, at least two nodes must be placed somewhere within the entity and connected in the desired order using C and V. Once connected, all stabilizer streams will be redirected through those nodes going from the reactor group until the path they reach the end of the created path, at which point the streams fork off to connect to their respective stabilizer groups. There is currently no way to manually fork the streams as they travel through the nodes, however we may be able to do so in the future. I also apologize for not including any pictures regarding nodes (did not know there was a limit to images I could upload).
Final Notes
Hopefully I managed to cover everything necessary to fully understand the new stabilizers. If not, please let me know. And if I for some reason got something wrong, please say something down in the comments section. When you do notify me, be sure to give an explanation of what I got wrong and what the correction is. I also would recommend including a screenshot that proves my mistake in order to make confirming it and correcting it easier. Remember, this post isn't about my opinion or anyone else's opinion of stabilizers. It is only for informing the community about what they do and don't do.
12/29/2017 UPDATE: After testing the newly-released dev build, 0.200.273, I have found that the size increase in stabilizer streams that comes with growing reactor group size has been greatly reduced (although this may have been introduced in 0.200.272). The size is still calculated based off of a logarithmic function, but the rate at which the size increases has been reduced by a factor of 2. The new equation is now: log10(ReactorGroupBlockCount) = StabilizerStreamDiameter (*rounded down to the nearest whole number). So what basically happens is the size of the stabilizer stream does not increase until StabilizerStreamDiameter reaches the next whole number, meaning that if you have 100 blocks in your reactor group the stabilizer stream will not increase in size until there are 1,000 blocks in the reactor group.
There's a lot being said about these new stabilizers, and something that nobody seems to want to agree on (as far as I can see) is how they work. There's a lot that many people don't know or don't understand about the new stabilizers. What I want to do is resolve this confusion. This is meant to be an un-opinionated post that explains what stabilizers are and how they work. In this post, I will neither argue for nor against stabilizers, nor will I attempt to explain why anything is the way it is or propose any changes. This is a purely informative thread.
The Basic Rundown
With the new power update, reactors now have a stability statistic. As soon as a group of reactors contains more than 10 blocks, the stability begins to fall.
Stabilizers are used to bring this stability back up, and the farther away they are from the reactor, the more efficient they become.
Stabilizer Placement
Stabilizers become more efficient the farther they are from the reactors. This is measured based off of the absolute distance of the stabilizers from the nearest reactor in the group. In the picture below, all three reactors are at the minimum distance for 100% stabilization efficiency.
Because efficiency is determined by absolute distance, the direction of the stabilizer from the nearest reactor does not matter so long as the distance is the same. The stabilizers in the following image are all the minimum distance from the reactor for 100% stabilizer efficiency (don't mind the confused stabilizer stream, as it thinks two of the stabilizers are a single group).
Additionally, as the reactor group size increases, the minimum distance needed for 100% stabilizer efficiency grows. I was surprised, however, to find that this distance does not begin to grow until after the reactor group size has exceeded 10 blocks. The below pictures show a stabilizer at the minimum distance from a single reactor block for 100% reactor efficiency (upper) and another stabilizer at the same distance from a group of 12 reactor blocks expressing a stabilizer efficiency of only 36.2% (lower).
Stabilizer Streams
Stabilizer streams are the purple beams that connect stabilizer groups to reactor groups. Their size is determined by two factors:
- Reactor group size
- Stabilizer group size vs. total number of stabilizers connected to a reactor group
3x3x3 block of reactors and a single stabilizer.
4x4x4 block of reactors and a single stabilizer.
Same 4x4x4 block with a second separated stabilizer.
4x4x4 block with a single stabilizer and a separate 2x2x2 block of stabilizers. Note that the block of stabilizers has a larger stabilizer stream.
The stabilizer streams serve as a weak point for the ship's power, the reason being if a stabilizer stream should be hit the ship will be damaged in some way. The current penalty for a damaged stabilizer stream is a temporary shutdown of the stabilizer group, which may reduce the amount of power available to the player as well as make the reactors prone to exploding. It is for this reason that stabilizer streams must be protected within the ship's structure.
Stabilizer streams can be redirected through Reactor Stabilizer Stream Nodes. In order to use them, at least two nodes must be placed somewhere within the entity and connected in the desired order using C and V. Once connected, all stabilizer streams will be redirected through those nodes going from the reactor group until the path they reach the end of the created path, at which point the streams fork off to connect to their respective stabilizer groups. There is currently no way to manually fork the streams as they travel through the nodes, however we may be able to do so in the future. I also apologize for not including any pictures regarding nodes (did not know there was a limit to images I could upload).
Final Notes
Hopefully I managed to cover everything necessary to fully understand the new stabilizers. If not, please let me know. And if I for some reason got something wrong, please say something down in the comments section. When you do notify me, be sure to give an explanation of what I got wrong and what the correction is. I also would recommend including a screenshot that proves my mistake in order to make confirming it and correcting it easier. Remember, this post isn't about my opinion or anyone else's opinion of stabilizers. It is only for informing the community about what they do and don't do.
12/29/2017 UPDATE: After testing the newly-released dev build, 0.200.273, I have found that the size increase in stabilizer streams that comes with growing reactor group size has been greatly reduced (although this may have been introduced in 0.200.272). The size is still calculated based off of a logarithmic function, but the rate at which the size increases has been reduced by a factor of 2. The new equation is now: log10(ReactorGroupBlockCount) = StabilizerStreamDiameter (*rounded down to the nearest whole number). So what basically happens is the size of the stabilizer stream does not increase until StabilizerStreamDiameter reaches the next whole number, meaning that if you have 100 blocks in your reactor group the stabilizer stream will not increase in size until there are 1,000 blocks in the reactor group.
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