Seabase Power Systems
IDTia
New York Join Date: 2016-01-04 Member: 210874Members
New York Join Date: 2016-01-04 Member: 210874Members
This is a draft currently, still working on making it more clear.
Sea Base Power Systems
Currently, the power systems for the seabases are silly, they work, yes, but more could be done to add a bit of depth to the system and the progress of the game itself. Please note that I likely butchered the units and numbers, and will continue to work to make it accurate.
Instead of having a pool of power units depending on how many power producers are connected, you have a power output instead, so instead of draining power from a pool, you produce it at a constant current which devices feed off of. I lack the technical terms, so I'll just use Watts.
Examples
First Stage
You have a small tube base, first one you make, you add solar panels to power it, which output around 25 KW per in optimal conditions. As your base is small and basic, you don't have a very large drain on the power. Let's say that lights drain 5 KW, Atmospheric and Life Support systems take up 10 KW, a basic emergency fabricator 15 KW. Let's throw in another drain, Communication Systems, which handles stuff like the GPS and beacons, as well as the AI, 5 KW, as it's a small base.
Very rough explanation, adding it up, a small base would draw 35 KW of power, which would need to be supported by two basic solar panels. Of course there are back up batteries and storage for the night and during emergencies.
This introduces the idea of tiered fabricators, which gives you something to progress through, each giving different power drains. This contributes to building a good Tech Tree
Second Stage
As you gather more materials and upgrade the base, better solar panels, but you still require more power to run more advanced fabricators, or science equipment and scanners which the Devs are working on. This creates the need to find alternative energy sources, thermal, bio electric, hydroelectric. These give a motivation to build deeper bases for easy power sources. I write this under the impression that Thermal Energy would be the most efficient at this stage. With much more power being generated from these sources, you can have bigger bases with more advanced machines and research labs.
Third Stage
You obtain the required supplies and blueprint to build a nuclear reactor, you are pretty set for power.
This is just a rough idea, I'll continue to work on it to make it easier to understand.
Early Draft of Post
As for Sea Bases, I just want something different for power, like normal upkeep systems, lighting, Atmospherics, navigational, informational, and all the other science stuff. I'm thinking Space Engineers, where instead of it being recharging (Not saying I'm against storing power as a backup), the amount of power you have is based on your power producers.
Strictly as an example, because I was utterly rubbish at this in school, your first base, a few tubes or a room powered by solar, basic stuff. You have lights, which take, like, what, 1-5 Kilowatts, a basic fabricator, which take up what, maybe 50 KW, or a 100 KW? Then you have atmospherics, so because it's a small base, it's not much, lets give it 25 KW. With these arbitrary numbers, you have a power drain of rounding up, 150 KW with a basic set up.
Strictly as an example, because I was utterly rubbish at this in school, your first base, a few tubes or a room powered by solar, basic stuff. You have lights, which take, like, what, 1-5 Kilowatts, a basic fabricator, which take up what, maybe 50 KW, or a 100 KW? Then you have atmospherics, so because it's a small base, it's not much, lets give it 25 KW. With these arbitrary numbers, you have a power drain of rounding up, 150 KW with a basic set up.
Comments
Not a bad idea, overall, but no need to change the existing mechanics (it's not perfect, but unless you have EXACTLY the necessary power, you'd never notice the quirk of waiting for a power unit to be generated and then something draining it when it becomes available). I agree a generate-drain-store model is better, but it would be a good bit of work to refactor all the existing stuff. Really the only change that needs/should be made is making a constant drain for each base component, which is one of the things mentioned in the trello link.
A real expansion on power might be to make it configurable, and allow control of what things are on, and setting tiers for what gets shut off first when power is low (similar to Space Engineers interface for seeing connected stuff). Elite: Dangerous, remarkably, provides a great example model of how one might prioritize power allocation. By assigning each power-using system a group number, groups could be shut down in order when power falls below some critical level. You could have multiple things in a group, or you could assign a different number to each system.