You just got to love the chunk system used on vehicles.

[GRHayes]

Especially since you don't have to use docked reactors any more.

Ok as I was discussing with another individual. The docked reactors provide me 6 times the power in the same space. As you can see I actually built it and verified it.

The docked reactor provides 30+ times the normal power systems.

The chained docked reactor provides more power than the beam systems also because it doesn't have all those extra blocks or loss of beam transfer efficiency.

Coupled with the layered shield system it provides almost enough shield regen to block the same size ship using the aux system weapon damage.

If you want the most efficient aux system as someone pointed out about 7200 blocks is the area.
However, if you do that well you have an issue. You want to make them as close to cubes in shape as possible that would be 20x20x20.
The reason for that is the size of the group determines the size of explosions. You can shoot a single block out of a 7200 group and end up with 1666 more or less of that group. Those explosions can reach out past the surface as much as 5 space or more. So you want a 5 buffer around them. It will blow through hull with a group that size. You could use armor but then you have the added weight. If you make a long narrow system you will have a lot more surface area. Cubes have the least amount of surface area thus meaning less buffer room need from surrounding structure. It also allows for more explosions to occur internal to the group and not on the surface.

Because it now takes because these systems are less efficient that means more of the ship is now needed to provide power. That means any shot coming into the ship has a higher chance of hitting such a structure. Consider what the effect of strafing a ship with a beam or cannon that has an effect like punch through could do. It could effectively set off the structures through out a ship like the 4th of July.

The good part about this now you will be able to have those epic battles where a fighter gets lucky shot off and destroys the capital ship.

TL: DR;

Heys has docked a good 450+ entities together.
Each entity consisting of minimum 4 chunks.

At some point in time hes had either a flush or loading issue or crash (probably during a save funny enough), which has resulted in multiple chunks not being saved.
When large amounts of entities are involved chunk initialization can also become a issue, but really at that point you are trying to break the game.
Downside of working with ballstarded amount of docked entities (or entities in general).

128 x 4 sets of docked systems each block is 128 long chain of them.
In truth I was trying to make a larger version of a smaller model I tested.

Consider the fact that the docked system uses 1/3 the space and blocks that the aux system that is visible does which is also at the max performance as well. The docked system for that 1/3 space produces more than 2 times the power. That is a 6 times block increase required to produce that power. How much faster would it kill the game or system if I was trying to build the ship using the volatile Aux system.

Also chunk issue abound without it being a large amount of entities. create a missile system with 76000 blocks. if you chain the number of chunks you can view you will get more or less issues. But even with it entirely visible in the chunk system you will find issues like they will ungroup from the missile computer. Simply moving around changing your view position will cause it. I tried making the groups various shapes and it still happened.

It has more to do with the fact they run checks all the time on the chunks and groups created and are continually rebuilding them rather than just rebuilding them when a change is made. You can watch that nice purple highlight for each box change and see them come ungrouped and regroup others. Looks like it almost belongs in a 70s Music video. You can also watch it under the ships systems box.
These images are just one observation of it.
[doublepost=1474348915,1474348702][/doublepost]

It's Schema telling you to stop making your expoitmobile.

Best explanation yet.

Is it an exploit though to make use of intended game mechanics?
While you might be joking another individual wasn't about it being an exploit.
Guess having a brain and using it is also an exploit.
I always thought sand boxes where about people using what they are given and being creative.
O well guess that is why I spend 1% of the time I used to playing.

 

[Lecic]

Is it an exploit though to make use of intended game mechanics?
While you might be joking another individual wasn't about it being an exploit.
Guess having a brain and using it is also an exploit.
I always thought sand boxes where about people using what they are given and being creative.
O well guess that is why I spend 1% of the time I used to playing.

It's an exploit in that it's exploiting a function of power transferring up the docking chain that wasn't intended to be in the game.

Really, though, the game is breaking because you're pushing the engine too hard. You've got a ship with, what, at LEAST 465 entities on a single ship there?

 

[Tunk]

Grouping iterates over blocks, so with large groups it will take time to link them and you will see it iterate over them once you've filled the queue.
If you press ctrl-shift-v over it multiple times it will oscillate due to slowdown code kicking in.
Starmade has lots of 'slowdown' code, where if too many operations in a set period it will slow stuff down until its reached the end of the queue.

Logic being a classic example, controller linking being another.
There is also a view distance on controller links purple boxes as well.

When working at those scales patience is literally a virtue.

 

[GRHayes]

It's an exploit in that it's exploiting a function of power transferring up the docking chain that wasn't intended to be in the game.

Really, though, the game is breaking because you're pushing the engine too hard. You've got a ship with, what, at LEAST 465 entities on a single ship there?

But it was intended. It has always been intended that ships could transfer power to docked ships that could transfer power to docked turrets and so on. There isn't a limit on that docking because you could have a ship docked to a station which is has another ship docked to it.... Until you get to a turret.

That was built in. In fact it is how large turrets can fire without having their own capacitors on the turret and the base.

Most people don't realize it is the capacitors that transfer power upstream. They have no limit on the amount that can be transferred. If they ever do large turrets without power will stop working.

For that matter shields work similarly.

All I did is make use of my understanding of how things work.

You can try and prevent it a number of ways limiting the connections, limiting how power flows through putting a counter on it which will cause lag and make large turrets impossible without having their own power source. I listed other ways. All have massive negative trade offs.

Is that what is wanted in this so called sand box we punish those who think who use their brain and can actually analyze how something works? If that is the case may as well hand out ready made ships.

Funny, I built and designed realtime systems with vastly more attached entities and mine doesn't crash. Others have also with nuclear particle physics and so on. There is a reason different programming models have been developed for different types of functions.

There is also the issue of running functions and checks when there is no need to run them.
Example: The only way a group can be modified is player adds block, player removes block, damage, or player uses group editing such as control V or control C. So there is no reasons what-so-ever to retest and rebuild a group otherwise. Yet in this game it is done continually. Something as simple as you turning your camera or moving causes it to be looked at.

 

[Tunk]

meh its a engineering problem, you've just created something too big to support its own weight.
aka ballstarded amount of docked entities.

Sure its a sandbox, but you aren't going to be building the empire state building to scale in a 3x3 box.

 

[Az14el]

Weapons technically drain power down the chain, starting with their own entity. So not upfeed, each part still needs an equal share in the total capacity req. It's still so retardedly over-efficient compared to any other method this way, of course its unintended to be taken to these extremes, far as i know there is no limitations on chain docking & therefore these kind of soft-cap abuse exploits because the setting just straight up doesn't work yet (if it did you wouldnt have this power or problem, in an ideal world), and if it did it could very well kill some legitimate designs. Given that it's an unintended mechanic introduced by the rail system, and not the only one, of course it's not going to be perfectly implemented either

As for the chunks failing to save, this is just a fact of life when you dock hundreds of entities to yourself.
Why I usually save shit like PD/Chaff/Smaller turrets until very last, even despite their small size.
Not sure if the actual server software/hardware or the engine hates creating massive file/folder structures on the fly any more than the other. I guess that's where the chunk system has its issues, but it's been worse (had this completely ruin a BP at around the 250 entity mark because i happened to save during a server save and who knows why it didn't like this, but I can only assume having to read/save less chunks helps)

 

[GRHayes]

meh its a engineering problem, you've just created something too big to support its own weight.
aka ballstarded amount of docked entities.

Sure its a sandbox, but you aren't going to be building the empire state building to scale in a 3x3 box.

Kind of funny when you think about you are creating a universe in a box that isn't close to that size namely your PC.

In a way you are right though. The programming model chosen for building this part of the game has inherent issues making it a poor choice for moving objects. Had a more appropriate model been chosen then it would have effectively created a much larger sandbox without such limitations.

I'm not sure why the chunk system was chose in this case. I could assume it was simply the one they knew of when it came to systems allowing manipulation of blocks. That is all that would be. However, there are other models for dealing with building structures from blocks. Each has their pros and cons.

If you look at terrain a chunk system is ideal. It allows for building very large areas that have no systems in it. You have to add to the chunk system to actually build such systems.

If you look at a car or space ship or anything else in general man made it has various systems. Those systems are better represented by models that represent such systems and allow changing the block count and location in those systems.

Take one of the docked reactor modules on that ship. In game it takes up 22 Meg of memory under this system. The blue sment file is compressed to 1.8Meg.
However, every block orientation and connection can be represented in far less than 22Meg. Each contains approx 243,712 blocks or so.
However, they do not need to be represented as such until something changes. You could start by representing it as 1 large cube and 8 narrow smaller cubes and simply keep the block location orientation and total power figures. The only time you need to make a change is when either a player adds or removes a block or damage happens or someone modifies the group with control v or control c. Then you simple change it into the next largest possible block and list the smaller ones. At no point will it ever come to reach the full size or demand the current game resources both in memory or processor.

If you really want to a model that handles massive connects check out unified particle physics models.

But to make a point you have to give these guys some serious credit getting this far. I have no idea what their level of education is or exposure to the stuff I get into is. If this is all self learn it is pretty impressive.

Grouping iterates over blocks, so with large groups it will take time to link them and you will see it iterate over them once you've filled the queue.
If you press ctrl-shift-v over it multiple times it will oscillate due to slowdown code kicking in.
Starmade has lots of 'slowdown' code, where if too many operations in a set period it will slow stuff down until its reached the end of the queue.

Logic being a classic example, controller linking being another.
There is also a view distance on controller links purple boxes as well.

When working at those scales patience is literally a virtue.

It does have slow down code but the issue is independent of that. The system will remain stable so long as you don't move. The second you change view angle or position then it will come undone all on its own. It is bad enough when you save large chunks will end up lost entirely.

If you read the reply to Lecic you will see what the causes I found are.

 

[Scypio]

What you're telling is that chunks are checked continually ? Damn, no wonder that big ships/planets are hard to load.

 

[Gasboy]

But it was intended. It has always been intended that ships could transfer power to docked ships that could transfer power to docked turrets and so on. There isn't a limit on that docking because you could have a ship docked to a station which is has another ship docked to it.... Until you get to a turret.

That was built in. In fact it is how large turrets can fire without having their own capacitors on the turret and the base.

The cap on power is there in an attempt to curb gigantism. Yes, the intent was for ships to transfer power to docked ships and turrets, not for people to dock 500m long reactors inside their ship to boost their power over the cap. That was not intended.

And you can see that it was not intended as after the patch, ships still transfer power to docked ships and turrets. But docked power reactors can't beam their power over any longer.

The intended purpose is still there, while the unintended purpose has been removed.

So no, docked power reactors solely for boosting a ship past the power cap were not intended.

At this point, bringing anything with docked reactors is simply selfishness on your part.

 

[GRHayes]

The cap on power is there in an attempt to curb gigantism. Yes, the intent was for ships to transfer power to docked ships and turrets, not for people to dock 500m long reactors inside their ship to boost their power over the cap. That was not intended.

And you can see that it was not intended as after the patch, ships still transfer power to docked ships and turrets. But docked power reactors can't beam their power over any longer.

The intended purpose is still there, while the unintended purpose has been removed.

So no, docked power reactors solely for boosting a ship past the power cap were not intended.

At this point, bringing anything with docked reactors is simply selfishness on your part.

Your logic is flawed.
You bring up the fact they discontinued power transfer by beams but you seem to miss the aspect that they created the beam transfer system to start with.
Your logic equates to someone saying a gas pump was never intended to pump gas.

It wasn't they didn't intend people to build powerful ships they didn't want it to be as simple as stuffing in a large number of blocks.
[doublepost=1474377052,1474376996][/doublepost]

What you're telling is that chunks are checked continually ? Damn, no wonder that big ships/planets are hard to load.

More over that is why the CPU is continually pushing as much as it does.
[doublepost=1474379094][/doublepost]

Weapons technically drain power down the chain, starting with their own entity. So not upfeed, each part still needs an equal share in the total capacity req. It's still so retardedly over-efficient compared to any other method this way, of course its unintended to be taken to these extremes, far as i know there is no limitations on chain docking & therefore these kind of soft-cap abuse exploits because the setting just straight up doesn't work yet (if it did you wouldnt have this power or problem, in an ideal world), and if it did it could very well kill some legitimate designs. Given that it's an unintended mechanic introduced by the rail system, and not the only one, of course it's not going to be perfectly implemented either

As for the chunks failing to save, this is just a fact of life when you dock hundreds of entities to yourself.
Why I usually save shit like PD/Chaff/Smaller turrets until very last, even despite their small size.
Not sure if the actual server software/hardware or the engine hates creating massive file/folder structures on the fly any more than the other. I guess that's where the chunk system has its issues, but it's been worse (had this completely ruin a BP at around the 250 entity mark because i happened to save during a server save and who knows why it didn't like this, but I can only assume having to read/save less chunks helps)

The chain docking issues is flaky to say the least. The docked reactors I have saved as blue prints have all 128 chained. However, when it comes to the ship it seems to fail about the 11th or 12th row 7th set. Which makes it either the 95 or 103 in the chain. If you look in the blue print folder you can actually see each attached docked system as an attachment linking to another sub folder.
That in itself is dangerous relying on the OS to allow such deep subfolder storage. It would be far better to use an entity id and a contact point for docking. It is vastly more stable.

Power transferred to docked ships prior to the rail system. The only thing the rail system made different in this was that they actually connected together and looked like a single entity.

Lets not talk ideal worlds. In an ideal world or even real life for that matter power systems get more efficient the larger they get.
Consider a cube the surface area as it gets larger does not increase proportionally to the volume of the cube. So if you looked at the systems efficiency and compared it to heat loss through surface area you would find that the larger it gets the less efficiency is lost because heat loss is do to surface area is smaller on a larger system.

2x2x2 block
surface area 4x6=24 volume = 8
4x4x4 block
surface area 16x6=96 volume = 64
10x10x10 block
surface area 600 volume 1000

Looking at that block is similar to dealing with steam system such as nuclear power plants, combustion engines, generators....
Granted its a little more complex but the point is if you take to power systems built on an equal technology level the larger one will be more efficient.

So when we look at power systems that get less efficient with size it is absurbed out side of a game context. If there was ever such a universe in which physics allowed such black holes would never form stars would never shine ... In short

 

[Az14el]

My point being theres a config setting that should be stopping you from doing this by default (and therefore stopping a lot of the issues you're seeing... but not all, this has happened to me recently on a ship with no docked parts to speak of, which obviously points to the chunk system, but then I was doing something approximately this silly with that one entity anyway *shrugs*).

But for now the config setting doesn't work, it should stop you by default after the 25th entity layer.

True the setting is for stability on certain OS's the server may be running, but in the first place would also be a limiting factor in this sort of design if it were to be working as intended.

 

[Gasboy]

Your logic is flawed.
You bring up the fact they discontinued power transfer by beams but you seem to miss the aspect that they created the beam transfer system to start with.
Your logic equates to someone saying a gas pump was never intended to pump gas.

They created the beam transfer system in order to create ships that could transfer shields and power, or drain shields and power. Ships.

Being able to create docked power reactors that transferred power to bump ships over the cap was an unintended (even if it was possible) consequence. And they have closed that loophole. It is your comparison that is flawed.

The more apt comparison is extension cords. They allow you to have a power plug where you need one, for the inconvenient places in your house. They are not intended to be run all over your house, powering everything. That creates a massive fire hazard. Notice no level of government has banned extension cords, even though they can be abused?

The power transfer system is the same thing, it allows the transfer of power. This does not mean they wanted you to boost your ship over the soft cap, even though the system they created allowed it.

As I said, they have removed the unintended use, and have given a similar yet less powerful system in its place. The new system removes a source of massive lag, as well, reduces the chances of errors while saving your blueprint.

It ain't perfect, and everyone knows that.

But you continue to use the old way. You suffer the consequences of doing that.

 

[Scypio]

Being able to create docked power reactors that transferred power to bump ships over the cap was an unintended (even if it was possible) consequence. And they have closed that loophole. It is your comparison that is flawed.

For what i've understood, the main reason for auxiliary power to exist is to remove docked reactor. But the reason of the removal of them isn't simple "just because it goes over the cap". It took me time to understand why so (because there is plenty of other and easier things to do to curve ship's size), but they're just as they are, a lag fix for when docked reactor got detached and nothing else. That's why they blow up, to create the same thing when your docked reactor got hit, having this particular reactor useless. Maybe add a few cool things to it and there you go. A bloc doing the same kind of things that docked reactor used to do but without lags when they got detached.

 

[GRHayes]

This does not mean they wanted you to boost your ship over the soft cap, even though the system they created allowed it.

You do understand the definition of what a soft cap is?
If they didn't want you to go past the soft cap they simply would make it a hard cap. They allowed for very large ships with lots of power by not making it a hard cap. That was a conscious decision.

Have a couple battles with so called new way and this aux system and you will see real fast that the risk of having a module decouple is vastly better than the risk created by having the volatile aux system.

The Aux power system isn't designed for small ships. Which again is a fact point to they wanted large ships not just small vessels.
Putting an Aux Power system in a small vessel is pretty much a guaranty to loose.
You have to have enough radial space around it to prevent income rounds from reaching it. You need space around it to protect other ships structure or you need armor which make the ship significantly heavier ... None of which lend to it being useful for a small ship.
In truth unless you are running something titan class this isn't even worth looking at. Even then when you are looking at potential deep weapon penetration which would set the entire ship off like a box of matches.

In short the risk of the Aux Power system leading to the end of your ship far exceeds the docked reactors.

 

[Gasboy]

a lag fix for when docked reactor got detached and nothing else.

As I said, they have removed the unintended use, and have given a similar yet less powerful system in its place. The new system removes a source of massive lag, as well, reduces the chances of errors while saving your blueprint.

I did say that. But it does do the other things too.

 

[StormWing0]

The original intent for power and shield supply beams was undocked ship to undocked ship recharge not docked ship to docked ship. While the ways the system works allowed docked to docked it was never intended and slated to be removed and replaced down the road. That said keep those old docked reactors and put them on AI driven ships for later when the devs figure out how to teach the AI how to use support weapons. Since you'll get your almighty regen you want so badly back then.

 

[Gasboy]

You do understand the definition of what a soft cap is?
If they didn't want you to go past the soft cap they simply would make it a hard cap. They allowed for very large ships with lots of power by not making it a hard cap. That was a conscious decision.

Have a couple battles with so called new way and this aux system and you will see real fast that the risk of having a module decouple is vastly better than the risk created by having the volatile aux system.

The Aux power system isn't designed for small ships. Which again is a fact point to they wanted large ships not just small vessels.
Putting an Aux Power system in a small vessel is pretty much a guaranty to loose.
You have to have enough radial space around it to prevent income rounds from reaching it. You need space around it to protect other ships structure or you need armor which make the ship significantly heavier ... None of which lend to it being useful for a small ship.
In truth unless you are running something titan class this isn't even worth looking at. Even then when you are looking at potential deep weapon penetration which would set the entire ship off like a box of matches.

In short the risk of the Aux Power system leading to the end of your ship far exceeds the docked reactors.

Now you're just mincing words. It's a soft cap, but why build docked reactors? Because at the soft cap, the efficiency of the power reactors drops precipitously. Docked reactors gets around that by being able to dock perfect efficiency power to your ship. They allowed for large ships only if people were willing to have lower efficiency power. Diminishing returns and all that. They did not implement a hard cap, because if someone wants to build a large ship, why prevent them from doing so? They did not understand how creative people are, and did not foresee people using dozens of large docked power reactors.

And I have not said they did not want large vessels, they simply wanted to have an upper limit on them. Gigantism > large.

As for the aux system? No, the risk of a module decoupling is NOT worth the aux power exploding. That's a very selfish way to think. I'm going to subject people to horrible lag because I want my docked power. And the risks of losing docked power aren't as small as you seem to think. You know that people build weapons that penetrate hundreds of meters of stuff. A turret is very tempting target, but since everyone can see docked reactors, they are prime targets also. My 200m penetrating cannon is like going to shoot and decouple a few with each shot. Have you even seen titan combat? All it takes is a few shots after the shields go down, and it goes into super duper slideshow quality FPS. You wanna make a private server to do that on, good on you. You show up on a public server to do that? Shame on you.

 

[Dvaren]

It's a soft cap, but why build docked reactors? Because at the soft cap, the efficiency of the power reactors drops precipitously. Docked reactors gets around that by being able to dock perfect efficiency power to your ship.

Does not the newly implemented system completely bypass the softcap?

I'm going to subject people to horrible lag because I want my docked power.

An issue only relevant when pertaining to those who refuse to dock their generators outside the ship. Enforcement of such could have, perhaps even should have, been left to server admins. A few week long bans goes a long way in teaching the obstinate how to appreciate respect for others.

You know that people build weapons that penetrate hundreds of meters of stuff. A turret is very tempting target, but since everyone can see docked reactors, they are prime targets also.

You assume in either case that ( a) everyone has docks turned on in navigation and (b) that people intentionally target and successfully destroy the rail docker easily. Personally, leaving "docked" checked in navigation gives me a headache, and I usually have little problem targeting offensive turrets, which I find the greater threat. Also, in my experience at least, destroying my reactor's rail docker has never resulted in system wide damage to other parts of my ship.

All it takes is a few shots after the shields go down, and it goes into super duper slideshow quality FPS.

You just described all titan versus titan combat =)

You wanna make a private server to do that on, good on you. You show up on a public server to do that? Shame on you.

His system will not work on the vast supermajority of servers regardless....correct? No harm no foul?

 

[Gasboy]

Does not the newly implemented system completely bypass the softcap?

Of course. With diminishing returns as well.

An issue only relevant when pertaining to those who refuse to dock their generators outside the ship. Enforcement of such could have, perhaps even should have, been left to server admins. A few week long bans goes a long way in teaching the obstinate how to appreciate respect for others.

It does appear he is attempting to build a ship with internally docked reactors. :P

You assume in either case that ( a) everyone has docks turned on in navigation and (b) that people intentionally target and successfully destroy the rail docker easily. Personally, leaving "docked" checked in navigation gives me a headache, and I usually have little problem targeting offensive turrets, which I find the greater threat. Also, in my experience at least, destroying my reactor's rail docker has never resulted in system wide damage to other parts of my ship.

If you wish to not use an advantage in combat, that is completely up to you. Never stop an enemy while he's making a mistake.

Yes, the aux power is volatile. But unless the guy shooting at you knows where your aux power is, he's going to hit it completely randomly, or after he can see through the holes in your ship. And if he does hit it, you still get to use the power it generates, and you can go down swinging. Hit a docked reactor docking point, and you lose the power instantly, AND you get to play powerpoint slideshow.

You just described all titan versus titan combat =

Hopefully less so once everyone has switched to aux.

His system will not work on the vast supermajority of servers regardless....correct? No harm no foul?

But until he sees the error of his ways, he'll continue to complain about the game. While changing to aux might save him some headaches.

 

[takethispie]

I gotta love the way the OP is discrediting Schema's programming skills while making assumption about code he has no access to AFAIK
and STILL achieves to talk about a better way to do things w/o posting any kind of architecture nor code and using as an example a ship that most would consider a reason to ban someone off any server