Engineering Console (Power Console Rework)

[DumbMarine]

Power management is pretty decent right now. I think it can be better though. Things I have noticed:

• Newbies don't pick up on it very fast. I think this is partly because of the psychological anchoring of the default settings. Shields start at 400, 1000 is over twice that, 1000 must be ridiculously high shields. Ah, newbies.
• Overclocking is lacking. There is no weapon overclocking at all. Shield and engine overclocking are broadly moving targets. Is 400 GW into shields a lot? No powerdock, 400 GW is desperation. With powerdock, 400 GW is "our capacitor is full". It's hard to balance this.
• Core stability requires very little decision making. There are tricks to squeeze power from core stability, but they're very robotic to do so. Raise core, wait 30 seconds, lower core, an AI could do it.
• Managing core stability is rarely an issue. The only reason it would ever become an issue is if you intentionally make it one. The benefits are relatively small compared to the problems in doing this.

So, I'm proposing a change to the power system. Replace the power console with an engineering console! Here's how it works:

All consoles manage their own power now. Engines consume less power if the throttle is lower. Weapons doesn't consume power unless they're firing. The engineering console is now responsible for how effective these things are. Instead of setting how much power they receive, you set how 'effective' you want something to be. Effectiveness is measured in %, starting at 100% and ranging from 0 to whatever by increments of 25%. Set shields to 200%, get more shields. Set weapons to 200%, weapons shoot faster. Increasing a component's effectiveness doesn't directly affect power drain anymore (but it does indirectly raise it through heat).

In addition, there's two new mechanics to replace core stability: heat and coolant. Unlike core stability, every component has a heat level associated with it. As you use a component, it generates heat, and if you overclock something, it will get used more often, resulting in more heat. Overclocking also passively increases heat generation.

What does heat do? Aside from side effects (which can be good or bad), it increases the amount of power that the component needs to work. It can also eventually shut down that component entirely if it gets too out of control. Overclocking your engines lets you get away from danger fast, but it will kill your capacitor in the process and leave your engines glowing hot for a while.

But fear not! The BC now has a supply of coolant it can use to fight overheating in a pinch. Coolant refreshes itself slowly, like one charge every 90 seconds. Once it's used up in a fight it's probably time to start worrying. Coolant is powerful enough to keep your shields frosty while they repel broadsides, or give you every ounce of firepower you need to obliterate your opponent.

So, the engineer would ultimately have more responsibilities, now that they have to manage coolant on top of giving components more oomph when it's needed. Teams would now need to communicate more to handle power issues. The BC can be more easily balanced against everything else, averting the current 'faster than a miner, tougher than a destroyer, more guns than a corvette' BC incarnation. Basically, it would pave the way for more teamwork-focused gameplay.

[WhyteDragon]

It's funny, I remember having a conversation utilizing the concept of having all weapon types able to fire simultaneously, you simply assign a percentage of the potential fire you wanted to that section. Somehow this feels similar to a way, except expanding the idea to the entire ship.

Alright, I want to discuss the pros and cons of all of these points.

All consoles manage their own power now. Engines consume less power if the throttle is lower. Weapons doesn't consume power unless they're firing. The engineering console is now responsible for how effective these things are. Instead of setting how much power they receive, you set how 'effective' you want something to be. Effectiveness is measured in %, starting at 100% and ranging from 0 to whatever by increments of 25%. Set shields to 200%, get more shields. Set weapons to 200%, weapons shoot faster. Increasing a component's effectiveness doesn't directly affect power drain anymore (but it does indirectly raise it through heat).

In a sense, I like the concept of each station being able to control it's own power usage. At the same time, I hate it. It's a concept geared towards higher level play which demands that your noob players don't accidentally drain all of your potential power. Yeah, I get that Engineering can put a limiter on it, but I imagine much like throttle vs. engine power at the moment, you probably won't want to in most situations. How much of an actual issue this is depends on how much you let people screw with power.

I also see this getting very messy very fast - not that it's necessarily a bad thing. But if you want to change all of your power settings on the BC, especially AI controlled stations, you're going to have to ask those AIs to return home, go on the console, change the power settings, get them back on, rinse and repeat. It's going to be a lot of extra actions to perform these tasks which ordinarily wouldn't take that long. Having actual AIs on consoles will be a lot more difficult, forcing players to utilizing players primarily. Otherwise, you're going to have to allow the Drones console to allow you to tell AIs what power to set, and if it was that simple I get the feeling Siretu would have already done it.

In addition, there's two new mechanics to replace core stability: heat and coolant. Unlike core stability, every component has a heat level associated with it. As you use a component, it generates heat, and if you overclock something, it will get used more often, resulting in more heat. Overclocking also passively increases heat generation.

What does heat do? Aside from side effects (which can be good or bad), it increases the amount of power that the component needs to work. It can also eventually shut down that component entirely if it gets too out of control. Overclocking your engines lets you get away from danger fast, but it will kill your capacitor in the process and leave your engines glowing hot for a while.

But fear not! The BC now has a supply of coolant it can use to fight overheating in a pinch. Coolant refreshes itself slowly, like one charge every 90 seconds. Once it's used up in a fight it's probably time to start worrying. Coolant is powerful enough to keep your shields frosty while they repel broadsides, or give you every ounce of firepower you need to obliterate your opponent.

My first thoughts on heat + coolant -- it's energy within energy. Enerception. If you run low on power in a BC fight, you try and disengage. If you run low on coolant during a BC fight, you try and disengage. They both serve the purpose of allowing your tools to be more efficient given energy. In a sense, they feel extremely similar. What I do like about it is it creates a bit more chaos for the manager - they have to manage a sort of 'Core Stability' on each separate console. And I find that to be a lot more engaging, especially considering you want to remove the larger aspect of power's job.

So, the engineer would ultimately have more responsibilities, now that they have to manage coolant on top of giving components more oomph when it's needed. Teams would now need to communicate more to handle power issues. The BC can be more easily balanced against everything else, averting the current 'faster than a miner, tougher than a destroyer, more guns than a corvette' BC incarnation. Basically, it would pave the way for more teamwork-focused gameplay.

Alright, so does this make it more teamwork-focused?

Okay, firstly I feel there's a few unaddressed issues. What controls shields? What happens to the weapon capacitor? What about broadsides? What about Power Transfer? Does this change Power Docking? How does this change Wasp Missiles? There's probably more,

What this does is it allows each console to more properly maintain their own usage of power. This means that each player has to be competent enough to understand their own power usage, I.E. you don't want the shields manager to drop shields to 0 while you're trying to get 200% efficiency. More than anything, I feel as if what you're suggesting is splitting power up amongst all the consoles and adding a support station that helps each station raise or lower power very quickly. This will force communication, since both stations need to understand what they should be doing with their power.

[DumbMarine]

This idea wasn't really thought out with AI on weapons. Setting power wouldn't be necessary, but there would certainly need to be some way to pull the AI off before it drains all of your weapon power in some situations.

There's definitely the possibility that this will make everything much messier. That's sort of the goal, but at the same time it isn't. The power console is currently a very one-directional console regarding communication. Everything the power console does affects everyone else, but nothing anyone else does really affects the power console (aside from nav cutting throttle which just drives me up the wall when someone does that, waste of power). One intention is to even out the relationship between these consoles. However, discombobulation between consoles isn't intended. Avoiding having the game become 'BC inevitably runs out of power after 90 seconds of fighting with all but the most elite of teams' is important to keep in mind. The only thing I want limiting teamwork is how fast can the players think, and not pit new player's natural instincts against each other.

Okay, firstly I feel there's a few unaddressed issues. What controls shields? What happens to the weapon capacitor? What about broadsides? What about Power Transfer? Does this change Power Docking? How does this change Wasp Missiles? There's probably more,

There's technically the option of a shield core, but I don't see a reason to bring that back really, shield stuff can stay on the engineering console. Maybe if shields were made more interesting.

The weapon capacitor can still stick around, or it can go away and let weapons draw from the main capacitor, either way is okay. I feel like the only reason the weapon capacitor is around at all currently is so that dumping power into weapons isn't completely meaningless. Since dumping power into weapons would mean more damage now, rolling it into the main capacitor would be ok.

The wasp missile can mess with engineering settings still.

Not sure what would need to change with the broadsides (other than which capacitor it taps).

This doesn't change power transfer at all, or power docking. You still have a main capacitor, and the team still has to manage its power. Weapons that drain a BC's energy energy still drain energy. Core stability damage could get translated into either reducing coolant or increasing heat in components.