#Backup generator

52 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

blissful helm
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With electron clouds being a thing now, people can design their ships with either a lot of reactors or capacitors to mitigate the downsides. I would like to see another option.

A backup generator works on sulfur and produces the same energy as a small reactor. It consumes one sulfur every 20 seconds while running, and can't be accessed from every side (ammo factory layout and size). It can hold 4 energy cells.

The backup generator does not shut down automatically. If it is full and it is enabled, it will consume sulfur.

The generator doesn't suffer from electron clouds.

Upon shutting down it will continue running until the one unit of sulfur it is currently consuming is depleted. It features 1 tile of storage + 1sulfur in the generator.

The generator is cheap at 5k credits and doesn't require any rare materials. Itself, it is not explosive, but the sulfur is. It has 5k hp, being a little sturdier than any reactor.

bitter violet
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i think having it not shut down automatically is not good - it would be objectively correct to turn it off whenever not in use (as it has a built in sulfur storage so it won't even affect crew reaction speed), and it seems to be just qol to have it turn off automatically

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could be interesting to have small reactor power generation w/ larger reactor size batteries (and maybe instant pickup too)

blissful helm
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I suggested it that way so it doesn't become a better small reactor for low maintenance areas. If it shuts down automatically, it would have a very very long uptime. No matter what happens, it will have around 8.5 minutes of uptime with a single 2x2 storage, wich is plenty imo. If it were to shut down automatically, dom ships wouldn't use reactors no more ahah

bitter violet
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dom ships don't use them much anywas lol

blissful helm
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yeah

bitter violet
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could just make it more expensive than a regular reactor

gleaming path
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i like this idea of a smaller, cheaper, and less reliable reactor that could be used in smaller ships

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like a sulfur engine

vernal cairn
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i agree with air that it should stop automatically

and i think it should use carbon instead of sulfur so it's a cheap reactor that becomes expensive if you use it too much

also coal powered starship is funny

bitter violet
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i don't think having it be a mini reactor is good - it should still have use in larger ships (like instant big batteries), and should also be more expensive than a regular reactor so choosing to forgo reactors (which would become a nondecision in some pvp gamemodes if it were cheaper) is not such a simple choice

gleaming path
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i do prefer the carbon-fueled alternative. if we think of the engine/generator as a factory, it would require storage and dedicated crew upkeep to function, which could deter its use or give it a more specialized function on a ship
if the carbon consumption rate was increased and the battery output was upped, i could see this being more of an alternative than a go-to (assuming it remained cheaper than a standard reactor)

sick kayak
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generators were always an interesting idea to me, especially since there seems to be a lot of unexplored room for additional power generation options now that there are actual resources in cosmoteer

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generators that respectively consume resources like sulfur, carbon, even uranium would be interesting though i personally usually disagree with the balance philosophy of an objectively better upside now for a downside that comes back in a few years time

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(as in, better power generation for the downside of wasting credits over time on resources)

sick kayak
midnight sail
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Another way it could be balanced is to have a larger capacity but far slower regeneration time. So it's more "bursty" but can't sustain very well.

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Maybe it holds like 20 single cell batteries but refills its empty slots at half the rate of a small reactor.

blissful helm
blissful helm
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Also I don't want to to be expensive to keep up

I want it so that you have to get out of your way to gather ressources and take time to resupply your storages so that discourages players to use them unless they need to

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If it's expensive it will have no use outside of electron clouds and I don't want that

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Also you can't make a sulfur engine more powerful than a literal nuclear reactor

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The nuclear reactor takes 4 tiles and produces 1.5 energy/s forever

The sulfur engine takes 4 tiles, and if you want to run it for 8 minutes 20s you have to spend 4 extra tiles on storage

Already you are more cost efficient but less compact

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If it's not more cost efficient then I would rather use oversized energy production and capacitors than carry backup reactors on my ship

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And carbon is too rare to find for something that could be used as an early game alternative to small reactors

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Also you guys don't understand that carbon itself isn't flammable

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Hydrocarbons are flammable

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And you don't make diamonds out of hydrocarbons

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Also hydrocarbons don't occure in space

bitter violet
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like a capacitor but large batteries for nonnebula use

blissful helm
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If you make 1.5 energy/s on large batteries you produce 1 battery every 2 seconds

bitter violet
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why does it beed to be cheap - it is mainly for nebula use, no? might as well make it more expensive and also have use case outside of nebula

blissful helm
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No, it's not mainly for nebula use, it all depends on what you do with it.

You can use a generator instead of a reactor early game to get more powerful starter weapons

You can use generators instead of capacitors in dom

You can use generators to complement systems that aren't worthy of their own reactors but are too far from the nearest reactor to be able to be supplied properly (ammo factories for flak on the edge of the ship, for example, or isolated deck cannon modules)

You can use generators simply because it's less explosive and you can put it closer to the frontline to supply your shields, with your sulfur being further back

sick kayak
blissful helm
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Capacitors run out too fast and sometimes I don't find them practical

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I think if you really wanted alternative to reactors with instant large batteries you could look towards modular reactors

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Also the generators don't replace capacitors

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Since if a capacitor is kept supplied by a large reactor they will "produce" much more energy than the generator and it can be unloaded really quickly

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Also it's slightly more expensive and you need storages

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But I can really see this used for cases where capacitors run out too fast, but more reactors/larger ones would be a waste.

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Also I would love to make a huge space steamboat

cold skiff
cold skiff
blissful helm
cold skiff
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No problem. I strongly approve of the idea of a cheaper-to-build but expensive-to-run sulfur burning generator, an “ammunition-based” analogue of the existing nuclear reactors.

blissful helm
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I mean it's not expensive, it's sulfur after all, but it needs logistics. You need to harvest the sulfur, and you have to store it. The reward is the cheaper entry cost, indeed. Once you get enough uranium in career, it is practically useless, so that's why it would feature the ability to not be affected by electron clouds. And in pvp, small size generators that are as efficient as medium reactors price wise is very useful.

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But I get what you're saying, thanks

vernal cairn
blissful helm
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Welp fuck school I knew that shit was useless