Capacitor Overhaul concept

[hot girder]

that sound any better to you, Piston? @tired pendant

(ignoring whatever lost was trying to say lol)

as it stands, unless you want to split up batteries into PDs or whatever (which really should be a QOL for power in general, not a burden placed on capacitors. Im gonna go make that it's own suggestion.)

the main intended point of capacitors is to hold more power then you generate, which is what this rework intends to get at

including the possibility of power at a rate faster then you generate it, so you get benefits even if you could afford just slapping down another reactor

which everyone can after the start of the game, keeping capacitors relevant the whole game for some tasks

[tired pendant]

it'd be interesting if it were added but i don't like the extra complexity, and i don't think it's necessary

[hot girder]

what do you think is necessary for capacitors to be equally as useful as reactors, and not just for making sure PDs are loaded efficiently?

[tired pendant]

my opinion is that capacitors do not need to be as useful as reactors

they have a niche, they fill that niche well

imo they don't need to be changed

it's not just for pd, i also nearly always use them on small shields, and sometimes other things that are far away from the reactor

[simple juniper]

if they scale in size with reactor, aren't you pretty much always better off placing a reactor?
So I can place a 4x4 super cap that runs out in 12s or I can place a 4x4 reactor that doesn't run out ever. Plus all the power using machines are balanced to have at most 3x batteries so a reactor should be able to supply enough power that I wouldn't need tetra (or whatever) battery packs. Yes if these were added into the base game then things could be balanced against tetra (or whatever) battery packs. The only real use I could see for really big battery packs would be if you kept all your reactors in the centre of the ship then use the various capacitors as a distribution system to ship batteries out to less safe areas of the ship. That could be where you're going with the idea IDK, but I think otherwise it's increased complexity for the sake of increased complexity and doesn't really add anything... but as I said I could be misunderstanding your intent.

[hot girder]

let my explain my logic here

as far as powering your ship goes, you have two options: reactors, and capacitors.

lets talk about tier 1 because that's currently the only size of capacitor that exists

capacitors hold immediate power after being charged, and let you use power as a total reserve rather then being balanced against an inflow/outflow, which means you can briefly use more power then you can generate from a reactor if need be, until your outflow of power outpaces your reactor restock and it runs dry

at the moment, in vanilla, you are always better off placing a reactor if you can afford it

this is something this overhaul seeks to change.

I want reactors to remain relevant no matter what stage of the game you're in, so once you're later into progression and you can put down a reactor or a capacitor without worrying about the cost, you can make a decision based on what you need in particular

a capacitor of equal tier should be better in a reactor in some ways (because otherwise there's no point to having them when people can just reactor spam all over when they can start affording it)

and worse in some ways (because balance, obviously)

in this case, better is power output, where you can temporarily burn more power output then an equivalent reactor can give out.

and worse is that doing so means that if you misjudge how much power you needed at high power flow rates, while you might have managed to dump more power temporarily then a reactor could have

you're now kind of screwed if you got your math wrong lol

because a reactor is stable power, and a capacitor is high burn power that burns out and won't replenish in a combat time frame

i am not considering pd power balancing

because that is not what the capacitor was designed for and is a weird edge case based on how power is handled in general

ive got a seperate feedback for that

so yeah, while you could just build reactor spam all over you could also save space with a bit of risk verses reward if you can figure out a good estimate for how much power you'll need stored in total for combat encounters/high power use situations

it's an alternative side-grade based on need, not a complete and total replacement.

[tired pendant]

this is not true
almost all small shield modules use capacitors, simply because lots of energy is needed at once. Also, reactors are highly explosive, further supporting capacitors in vulnerable parts of your ship. The "if you can afford it" bit makes me think you usually play career, which is fine, but in pvp, you are never better off placing a reactor instead of a capacitor in a vulnerable place or to power shields, simply because the budget would be so much better spent elsewhere

[hot girder]

i do play career, and PVP has it's own meta which is almost entirely unrelated

[tired pendant]

ah, i rarely play career

[hot girder]

i think when it comes to game balancing

"solo game mode you can always play" verses "game mode you can play if you happen to have friends / other people who are currently playing, and currently interested in playing multiplayer"

balancing effort is better spent on the former imo

it's more consistent for most players

[tired pendant]

i think that currently, the game is in a decent spot as far as balancing both pvp and singleplayer goes

[hot girder]

so yes, bear in mind im balancing for career, not based on some...

arbitrary total-price-limit for ships for multiplayer fairness.

[tired pendant]

i'd personally prefer priority going to pvp balancing, but i'm obviously biased lol

[hot girder]

multiplayer lasts as long as there's an active playerbase

solo play is forever.

[tired pendant]

my thought process is more "solo play is until you finish the game if you even choose to do it at all, but multiplayer is as long as there's an active playerbase, of which i am one"

[hot girder]

by PVP logic you could have a block that instantly deletes your enemy's ship and explodes his computer when used and it would have zero value if it was too expensive to fit a total price limit

it's not the sort of consideration the main game has

i also think that multiplayer might have a better display of skill

but it has a worse display of creativity because any given meta will only have a few plausible strategies at best

and in a game about designing and building your own stuff, creativity is kind of a big selling point.

but thats another discussion im afraid

[tired pendant]

yeah tbh we're straying quite a bit from this thread's original idea

[hot girder]

so yeah, tldr

reactors: steady power flow, never runs out
capacitors: can draw more power for the same size but runs out if the fight runs longer then you planned for

like Boost Thrusters but for power use instead of speed.

[earnest gust]

Medium and large capacitors would definitely be interesting for crew management

I'm for them

Maybe a line that goes up and down to show batteries instead of actual battery slots

[nocturne dust]

capacitors currently r more of a buffer or for small power units, usually for factories

[nocturne dust]

eh u have to be creative to make ur offmeta efficient and stil unique

[nocturne dust]

old ship, will still work in modern if u fix some stuff and add eb/emp

capacitor alpha strike cannnnn work, but it's still better to use it as a buffer

[simple juniper]

I think the issue I see is to need a better capacitor as you're envisioning you need a use for it and at the moment such a use doesn't exist. Adding utility to existing structures would be more worthwhile. Or as already mentioned to add a power transport system to allow reactors to be kept safer at the centre of your ship. (And yeah I'm ignoring PvP use cases as well... not my thing.) ;)

[nocturne dust]

anything exploitable in pvp will be infinitely more exploitable in pve bc the ai won't be able to adapt to it (yet)

[earnest gust]

I've got a capacitor alpha railwall

[hot girder]

Yes, which is why I am making a suggestion to improve them over their current state

I've ready explained it's use case, based on what the concept of a capacitor is

The fact that it isn't used now is because medium and large capacitors don't exist

[nocturne dust]

they can work for alpha strike though, it's just the fact that munitions do a better job of it

[hot girder]

Yeah. They should have their own use and not be useless compared to other things.

[plush canopy]

I guess it's cool but in my opinion capacitors are already good enough and don't require any overhaul.

They already got a 15->18 battery buff in the new game, just like all the other energy-holding weapons and stuff.

(Minus TB which already had a beefy 24 energy capacity).

[plush canopy]

I thought ''DiAgOnAl sHiPs aRe aWfUl iN PvP 🤓''

[vivid gust]

I could totally see the enhanced batteries integrated, especially if they provide their machines with “power saturation”

This is definitely a big change to the game, but I think it gives the idea of a capacitor much more credit than it currently does in game. Maybe some changes could be made but I think this is pretty solid groundwork for an overhaul

[nocturne dust]

more pew pews, grid too small

[plush canopy]

Yeah.

That's my point too. More pew pew and block block per tile of space.

[plush canopy]

I will not believe that this is only 1.5Mil.

[nocturne dust]

capacitor cheap af

it allows u to pew pew for cheap

[plush canopy]

Not really...

Cap is a little too expensive for what it does, in my opinion.

4000 Credits? This basically doubles the price of a standard PD array, because it costs just as much as the 4PD it usually supports.

[nocturne dust]

yea but ur only thinking of pd

[plush canopy]

The same cost as 8 engines and this much armor.

2 laser blasters.

2 standard cannons minus the ammo.

8 crew.

[nocturne dust]

how many lasers worth of power can it hold though

[plush canopy]

Uhm, 4.

I guess lasers do be getting triple the firepower though...

They still don't hold nearly as much as their resource counterparts though.

2x2 storage, the size of a capacitor and the smallest storage size, can hold 80 small cannon and flak, and 20 large cannon shots. 8 Individual DC shots, 20 HE missiles, slightly less than 4 nukes, slightly more than 4EMPs and worst of all, 2 Mine salvoes.

OH, WAIT.....

[nocturne dust]

how many per cost of each gun can the different storages hold compared to capcitors

[plush canopy]

Cap can hold 80 Small blaster shots, 36 large blaster shots, 64 EB shots and miserable 4 seconds worth of TB.

Way better than I thought.

They really did nerf energy weapons' energy consumption to the ground, didn't they...

Thank god.

[broken flicker]

In MP, capacitors are commonly used and effective. It's different in single player because the uranium required to make a reactor is often easier to come by than the crew needed to use capacitors. In MP, the limiting factor is credits and capacitors are quite a bit cheaper to use than multiple reactors.

As for having multiple size capacitors, I'm for it. It was suggested a while back that regular capacitors could have the ability to select the size of battery they output instead of only small batteries and I was for that idea also.

[hot girder]

MP balance is not really a consideration for main game parts.

[nocturne dust]

capacitors r almost always adjacnet and no part (other than ions) r going to use less crew from that though

[broken flicker]

That seems rather obtuse

[hot girder]

I'd say you could have crew automatically draw a lower battery, but then odds are it would-

That's how game balance works in general across the industry.

[nocturne dust]

u can mod this in urself and if everyone likes it walt will probably implement it

[broken flicker]

Cosmoteer has made a point of balancing for both modes and has done a great job of it. Maybe the industry should be taking notes.

[hot girder]

It sounds like you guys don't want to use any part regardless of what it does if it costs too much.

And that you don't want to get any new single player content if it isn't balanced for multi-player first

[nocturne dust]

can we get mp content that isn't balanced for single player

everything has to be balacned

[hot girder]

If it's only used in multiplayer? Sure.

It's not unusual for stats to be different between multi-player and campaign in many games.

[nocturne dust]

example?

[hot girder]

I inow warframe is the one that comes to mind but it's a bad example because nobody likes conclave lol

[nocturne dust]

what game similar to cosmoteer does it though

[hot girder]

Requires a completely different skillet from the main game

[nocturne dust]

w/ individual parts and logistics and stuff in mind

[hot girder]

"Similiar to cosmoteer" is an extremely small field.

[broken flicker]

Everything in single player has MP tester fingerprints all over it already and that isn't likely to change.

[hot girder]

And to that point

Vehicle building games are for the most part all multi-player and don't have singleplayer modes

Or modes worth speaking of

[nocturne dust]

if u mod this in urself, get it balanced in mp, show that it has a use in sp, ppl know about it, it will probably get implemented base game

[broken flicker]

Walt specifically doesn't want this

[nocturne dust]

also the game literally can't do that rn

[hot girder]

So in short the community overwhelmingly doesn't like my concept because it's not multi-player optimized

Fine

Thread adjourned

[nocturne dust]

yep 2 ppl don't like the fact that u think only career exists so therefore this is a trash idea

[broken flicker]

At any rate, I'm not sure why you're so anti-mp, (something something game industry standard) but if you want to get idea traction in this community, you might consider being more inclusive of all of it's players

[hot girder]

Got it. Never mind it all then.

[nocturne dust]

u can mod it in in literally 2 hrs and get testing even faster

[broken flicker]

Let the record show that I supported your idea before you called me irrelevant 😅

[hot girder]

And that now you disapprove purely because of where the idea came from rather then on its own merits, yes.

[nocturne dust]

quix never said he disapproved of the idea itself

just ur attitude

[hot girder]

He just implied that he changed his mind purely because of my attitude.

[broken flicker]

Nah, I still support it. Always have

[nocturne dust]

take parts of this and put it into the capacitor and viola balance mod exists

then go ask someone to host a tourney around it and get testing

[broken flicker]

Is that the mod I made a while back or is that another one?

[nocturne dust]

that's the one stuffphoton made

[broken flicker]

Nifty

[hot girder]

I can't open this at the moment because my entire house is without power (on mobile). I'll consider making it a mod but given I don't play multi-player and don't have any plans to get regularly curbstomped by those who do to appease a community with different interests to my own, I'm not sure if I want to put the effort into an idea that's received so much pushback from a direction completely foreign to my skills or interests.

[nocturne dust]

it has all the framework for changing behavior on buttons

[nocturne dust]

if u make a mod and it's easy to tweak the values then the mp community will probably do all the balancing for u

[hot girder]

If it only takes like an hour or two of screwing with values I'll give it a go sometime when my desktop is functional.

[nocturne dust]

yay

if u need help #modding exists

[hot girder]

This whole thread feels like trying to suggest a new englishword in Florida and getting told it needs to sound nice in Spanish for the sake of Miami.

I guess I'll never fit in around here if you guys are really all about the multiplayer.

[broken flicker]

Modding is a good route because MP balance isn't an issue. MP rarely uses mods. Minding the MP community is valuable because it contains the densest player knowledge pool in the game. And they don't ONLY do MP, they're single players too. Nearly every built-in was build by an experienced MP player.

[nocturne dust]

currently all of them r

iirc

other than maybe the starters

[broken flicker]

I'm leaving room for the early ones in the file that don't spawn. Not sure about all of those

To be clear though, MP players aren't "all about the multiplayer", we're all about all modes and want balance across them all.

[plush canopy]

That will unsurprisingly confuse a lot of players willing to pick up playing in the competitive scene, in turn making the competitive community grow slower.

[rough parrot]

i need to introduce this guy to reassembly.
seriously man, if you want campaign first, mp second (which ironically, both exist and doesn't exist in reassembly).
in mp, there literally has useless blocks because resources are generally not a thing (can be activated) and so make all the resource oriented blocks useless.

well, ftl are useless in mp too for now in cosmoteer

[nocturne dust]

mining lasers are near useless too D:

[rough parrot]

but i don't think it really matters in the end.
fights in career and in mp are the same gameplay (oversimplification), just that in mp budget is really important, and any way to shave off credit is good

the game doesn't have different stats between the 2, so of course it has to have balance over the 2

[rough parrot]

i agree they could consume less energy. but otherwise they are hitscan deck mounted weapons. if they had good efficiency, you would see them a lot more

[nocturne dust]

if they had good efficiency they r no longer utility they r now weapon pretending to be utility

[rough parrot]

you know, a cutting tool doesn't care where the steel is located

[nocturne dust]

hmm yes i will bring an xacto knife to a sword fight

[rough parrot]

it's like complaining that a (normal) hammer makes a good weapon too

[nocturne dust]

imo their already pretty decent weapons especially for career

[rough parrot]

or perhaps, you're in fact not complaining

[nocturne dust]

early-mid/late game u can use them the whole time

*they're

[earnest gust]

They suck up power faster than anything else

[nocturne dust]

power is not really relevant in career

[earnest gust]

Idk bout that

You need crew to supply power

[nocturne dust]

literally 1 crew w/ adjacent power

2 total

[plush canopy]

Except when you're using energy weapons and meet a sapper. Or Fibril. Or mitigator. Or Any Cabal ship jesus christ- You get the point.

[earnest gust]

You made me want to try a mining laser fast wall

[rough parrot]

wait, they aren't that bad
just looked at the stats, now i have to make a new ship

[nocturne dust]

they're best on rammers imo

[earnest gust]

Yeah orbital fast wall

[rough parrot]

their damage to energy are just 2 times worse than ion, so no that bad (it's god awful, i know)

[earnest gust]

That rams

[nocturne dust]

that's also called just an orbital wall

[earnest gust]

Okay

[gaunt fossil]

This is certainly an interesting idea, even if capacitors already have uses. However, i'd like to point out that if the battery size from the capacitor is larger than 3, and even 3 if a medium reactor is being used, it could be used to convert the batteries from the reactor to larger batteries and using less crew. I am doubtful this would negatively impact the game, but i want to throw it out regardless just so people are aware this could happen.

[earnest gust]

The biggest capacitor should have a option to output any battery size you want

[gaunt fossil]

agreed, but being able to designate a specific battery size per system would be better

[broken flicker]

You must not have been around the day I was murdering people with mining lasers. They're really bad because of their energy use and the fact that they don't blow up anything (they take it apart) but they can still kill anything you can ram lock

[earnest gust]

I was not

yeah, I was more thinking you get the advantage of being able to have armor on your orbital wall

two deck cannons+mining lasers may be okay, but probably just a deck cannon rammer is better

[nocturne dust]

they do well *for a utility piece*

*an

[earnest gust]

I made one and it's fun to use