power system manipulation

Talk among developers, and propose and discuss general development planning/tackling/etc... feature in this forum.
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power system manipulation

Post by safemode »

I'd like to see a HUD menu (accessible like the damage readout), that shows the current priority for power allocation. Using the damage readout and this hud, we can put some keys in control of changing the priority of how power is to be allocated.

Right now, i believe power is allocated linearly by a hard-coded heirarchy. That is, if say shields is looked at first, we'll push all the power that shields can recharge at in a given frame before moving on to the next system. This could starve other systems completely. Maybe as a pilot, you would prefer to sacrifice shield recharge rate for the ability to get off 1 more shot. You should be able to do that.

likewise, you may want to throttle you gun fire down so you dont starve your shield recharge, but you dont want to have to think "fire, wait 2 seconds, fire, wait two seconds". The power control HUD would let you give a higher priority to the shields so this doesn't happen.

That's what this feature is meant to allow. It changes the order of the subsystems getting recharged in a given frame depending on the settings the pilot makes in the Power HUD.
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Post by rivalin »

I-WAR 2 had a good example of such a system, you could even power down all systems for a while, to avoid detection by other ships, although life support would cut out eventually. The UI was so good that you could manipulate system power distribution on the fly during battles, there was also a triangular whatsit diagram showing the bias between shields engines and weapons.
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Post by safemode »

I just want to make it clear, this isn't the same thing as shady mechanic increasing the rate of recharge or capacity of a system. All this does is say that if you had two subsystems that need recharging at the same time, one will get favor over the other, either totally or by some fraction.

This only has a noticable effect when our total recharge power needs are greater than the reactor can produce in a given frame.

Also, it would be a good idea to make reactor core breaches possible when it is being throttled at >95% for too many frames. This would minimize the ability for ships to be invulnerable with a shield with fast enough recharge and a massive reactor holding off against massive weapon fire indefinitely. As the reactor would have to continually work at max capacity to continually recharge the shields, it would throw a warning and then explode, destroying the ship from within.

The only way that idea is related to this thread is that it would be more possible to "cheat" via the idea in this thread, by putting yourself up with shields with a fast recharge rate and then making it high priority. With strong enough shields and a nice sized reactor, you could throw the balance of the game way off, by surviving no matter how much enemy fire you take. Plus, the reactor really should suffer from fatigue.
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Post by vodalian »

I think this is a good idea.
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Post by shadow_slicer »

PU already does something like this. In PU you can use the s or S buttons to toggle your shields down to 2/3 or 1/3 strength, providing more available power for the guns or afterburner. This is actually a feature in the original privateer as well.

As for VS, since the player has complete control over when guns are firing and what the engines are doing, all that really should be necessary is some additional control over the shield level. In other words, recharge the shield to some set level and then try to top off the capacitor. If the capacitor is full, finish charging the shields with the remainder. If the user wants more engines they can use the afterburner. If they want more guns they can pull the trigger.

It may sound nice to "divert power from the shields", but I don't see the player adjusting a 3-way slide bar or whatever to allocate power during battle. There is far to much going on. In VS currently, the only power draw that the user has no control over currently is shields. The engines respond to throttle/flight computer and afterburner keys. The guns respond to the trigger. If we added a key to toggle between a few "shield recharge modes", it should provide all the control a user should need.
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as long as we are theorizing here

Post by whatch1 »

as long as we are theorizing here

Assume Shielding made a ship almost invunerable and had to be droped to fire guns or missles and takes seconds to recharge to regain full strength what would that do to this first person shooter they have been building add a little strategy to the gunfights where the shooter is just as vulnerable as the shootee.

just to throw a rock in the pond

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Post by safemode »

you're missing the point.


The way power goes now is one system comes after the other, with power being given to each according to their recharge rate, their capacity, and the reactor energy left. The order determines what gets left with nothing in the case that we have to recharge more than we produce.

What i'm saying is the pilot could determine what that order is to some extent.

I want to set some states, and let the ship's computer auto handle everything. I dont want to have to adjust things mid-fight. Just set things up going into a fight real quick, pull back on the trigger and not have to worry about leaving time for the shields to recharge. The ship's computer should do that for me. Or if i set it up this way, override the ships tendency to recharge weakened defenses, and first and always recharge weapons. etc

it's about the order by which it recharges the subsystems, and giving the pilot control over an automatic ship's computer handling of power management, not manual management.
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Post by bgaskey »

This would add an interesting tactical dimension to the game. I wonder if you could maybe overcharge your shield going into battle to take the edge off the first enemy attack run. But you should be able to put guns ahead of shields if for instance, you have weak shielding but good armor and are going for quick kills. 8)
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Post by safemode »

It's a niche feature. It wont have much of an effect for most of the time.

overloading a system could be a similar feature. and related to throttling the reactor at too high of a percent for too long. You could boost recharge rate over rated mode (maybe via shady mechanic) and that change would be unused unless you push more power to that system over normal priority.

such a feature would be good for single strike (hope to god it works) missions. currently we have no such missions.
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Post by bgaskey »

when the campaign finally gets scripted in earnest (hopefully this summer) we'll have some fun missions like that I hope. It'll make all these discussions about features worthwhile to be able to apply them to a complex story line 8) :wink:
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Post by iaindaddy »

I like the idea of playing around with power distribution ... even to the point of shutting down life support for a short while to get a couple of more shots off before having to run for the hills. I think any real space pilot would be looking for any trick he could use to get the most out of his ship.

But please, lets not have Scotty announcing "She wont take any more captain!" when we pump all the power to the engines and run for it.

All the best

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Post by bgaskey »

Actually, a scotty voice warning the pilot when the reactor is going critical would be a nice touch imho :wink:
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Overheating ?

Post by TBeholder »

safemode wrote: Also, it would be a good idea to make reactor core breaches possible when it is being throttled at >95% for too many frames. This would minimize the ability for ships to be invulnerable with a shield with fast enough recharge and a massive reactor holding off against massive weapon fire indefinitely. As the reactor would have to continually work at max capacity to continually recharge the shields, it would throw a warning and then explode, destroying the ship from within.
Why it would ? If you don't want ultra-power, it would be more universal to calculate heat generated (and removed). When there's too much, ship warms up, then systems start to stutter and fail, and when current failed device is "pilot cabin", it means pilot is boiled alive, game over. In old Elite heat was problem, why it should not be in VS ?
Options:
1) raised shields strength diminishes heat-sinking.
2) best way of quick heat-sinking involves dropping some working medium, like water.
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Post by safemode »

water would have little effect, indeed, relying on conduction for heat dissipation is a poor way in space, since space is mostly empty, leaving nothing to conduct to away from the ship. Phase change in water doesn't take nearly as much energy in space as it does in an atmosphere, because of the very very low vapor pressure in space.

The best way to radiate heat off a ship is probably by finding another means of outputting energy while shutting the reactor down. One could imagine an energy storage device of the future to be efficient enough such that as it's used, it gets colder, since it's draining even the thermal energy of the storage medium. Those would be last ditch heat sinks.


Likewise, raising shields would only help in that above method. They would not really affect radiating heat via conductance.
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Post by TBeholder »

safemode wrote:water would have little effect, indeed, relying on conduction for heat dissipation is a poor way in space,
Brrr... i lost the track. Is it conduction or open space ?
safemode wrote: since space is mostly empty
That's exactly why working medium is needed: no contact cooling at all, while radiation cooling is slow, and when ship is somewhere like Earth orbit and not in shadow, it's problem to avoid too much of radiation heating, let alone cool down.
What is left: cooling with loss of mass, i.e. ablation (incoming heat pulses heats some trash which blows away immediately) and more slow variant with cooling agent. BTW, it's funny, but there's already one open-cycle cooling system in VS. ;)
safemode wrote: Phase change in water doesn't take nearly as much energy in space as it does in an atmosphere,
...though evidently enough to freeze unvaporized part of water in case of fast depressurizing...
safemode wrote: because of the very very low vapor pressure in space.
Did anyone mentioned open outboard evaporator ? Pump heat in coolant until it boils then drop steam from high-pressure part outside.
safemode wrote: The best way to radiate heat off a ship is probably by finding another means of outputting energy
I'm very interested what those another means of cooling (possible at all in vacuum) are ? Other than by radiation or loss of some hot mass. What method can be more efficient than using coolant in open cycle ? Save the fact coolant mass is limited, of course.
safemode wrote: One could imagine an energy storage device of the future to be efficient enough such that as it's used, it gets colder, since it's draining even the thermal energy of the storage medium.
It's widely known as "perpetuum mobile of second kind". That is, you connect it with heat-engine in loop and it produces energy from heat produced by heat-engine and vice versa... wait ! Why there's some "reactor" then ? :?
safemode wrote: Those would be last ditch heat sinks.
Of course, no one likes to lose limited resources, like mass on board. The same for armor...
safemode wrote: They would not really affect radiating heat via conductance.
I cannot argue with this, i only hopelessly wonder what "radiating heat via conductance" is. :twisted:
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generalizing it...

Post by TBeholder »

1) All in all, priority list is very good idea. And not only for power — repairs need to be prioritized as well.
Another question is: whether priorities should be absolute or weighted, and if latter, how exacly. E.g., having shield priority reasonably higher is one thing, but allowing almost full shield to completely block weapon recharge is another.

2) Even as far as power is concerned, more distinct systems seems to be good (if not desperately needed) idea. If we'll consider priorities of different upgrades, then why not separate weapons ? That means capacitors on mounts instead of single "total" bank (after all, there's reasons why pulse power systems tend to have high-power circuits as short as possible).
Sub-units can be integrated better. E.g. in some situations anti-missile turret(s) must have very high priority while heavy offensive turret(s) that could wait a bit. Or vice versa.

3) Auxiliary reactors. Mostly for critical hit resistance, of course.
3a) as separate upgrades can be bigger than basic reactor, if we'll assume that latter is not standalone, but replaceable part plugged in the same basic armature (connecting with ship's cooling, power-distributing and fuel-feeding systems) which is included in ship's mass and volume, not upgrade's.
3b) if ship internals will be more structurized, it's the same reactor as main + "add_reactor_armature" which eats some upgrade space and gives reactor slot.
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Re: power system manipulation

Post by Deus Siddis »

As has been discussed further and more recently in the wormholes thread, energy production this far in the future, in space, doesn't really mean anything. Because you much sooner hit the limit of how quickly you can dissipate heat in space.

So I think the way this would work realistically is while your reactor can run everything at full at once, it can only do so for so long before your ship starts to melt. By powering down systems you reduce waste heat production and buy more time to radiate it into space.
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Re: power system manipulation

Post by hopfen »

i think this complicates the game too much. i like to point to the netrek model. it worked well for netrek. just have the weapons, cloaking, warping, tractors, bombing, beaming, [and mining] use fuel at it's own rate depending on ship. the fuel regenerates at a rate depending on the ship. the shield regenerates at a rate depending on the ship. the hull regenerates at a rate depending on the ship. you can add more ship types or spec a ship where you can have a weak shield and strong weapons.
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Re:

Post by Shark »

shadow_slicer wrote:It may sound nice to "divert power from the shields", but I don't see the player adjusting a 3-way slide bar or whatever to allocate power during battle. There is far to much going on. In VS currently, the only power draw that the user has no control over currently is shields. The engines respond to throttle/flight computer and afterburner keys. The guns respond to the trigger. If we added a key to toggle between a few "shield recharge modes", it should provide all the control a user should need.
Why are you making these silly assumptions when it has already been stated that this has been done (and done well to boot) previously?

Anyone here who says that IWar was too hard really does not belong on these forums.

:evil:

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Re: power system manipulation

Post by Garbius »

It seems like there are some different opinions in this matter. Maybe make a "System Overrider", a new piece of shady mechanic that allows the player to switch between fully automated, semi-automated and override.
  • Automated is the normal computer controlled power management.
  • Semi-automated allows the pilot adjust basic priorities i.e. shields on high priority, weapons on medium and engines on low.
  • Override grants the player full customization to change priorities and/or max power per time unit for individual components and change reactor load, even overload the reactor, which makes it unstable.


An other thing about power management: All ships should be able to power down some systems, i.e. weapons, shields and engines and make them completely offline. When a system is powered down, it should take a little time to power it up again. The status of these systems should be shown to ships targeting it. In addition, there should be be some kind of notification when a pilot attempts to power up a system. Maybe a sound or something.

The use for this feature is when you're completely outnumbered and/or outgunned. The stronger pilots need a way to insure themselves against sudden attacks from the surrendered ship. To make more usages for this feature, a constant power draw can be added to these systems, not much, but enough to make an impact on the other systems. Powering down weapons when just flying around would then make life easier. This opens up the possibility to feel like the Rheinlander in the first mission of Freelancer when some bad guys appear and say "Powering up weapons" in the COM-channel.

Additions to these ideas are appreciated.
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Re: power system manipulation

Post by travists »

Glad to see someone else is interested in reviving this thread!
I see power management as having three levels.

Power Management Levels:
  • Systems Priority: Which system to feed power to first.
  • Systems Operational Level: Percentage of maximum power to feed at, including <100%.
  • Reactor Level: The amount of power output the reactor is generating.
Let us ignore heat generation for now, save that heat is what causes the systems to fail if over driven. At a given percentage, systems take damage for every second in operation. Most systems can handle say 110% for hours, but do experience extended ware. It should be possible for random system failures to occur, with overdriven systems more likely to experience random failures. I also think that more base systems should be handled like upgrades. That would let them be damaged, repaired, and overpowered with everything else. Further, perhaps repairs can be done more efficiently if system is powered down,

Overdrive possibilities:
System : Effect : Failure mode
Reactor : More power : Ship Explosion
Shields : Greater damage level : Loss of generator, 2% damage to all armor
Guns : Greater damage level, 5% reduction to refire : Loss of cannon
Thrusters : Greater accel. and max spd : forward accel. droped to maneuvering lvl, 25% dmg to aft armor
Sensors : Greater range : loss of device, 4% damage to fore armor
Maneuvering : Greater turn rate and turn accel. : Loss of maneuvering ability, 6% dmg to all armor
Repair : Greater repair rates : 10% damage to random system
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Re: power system manipulation

Post by klauss »

I like where you're going - but failure modes should be varied and random. With fatal failure modes less likely than nonfatal ones, and there could be upgrades to limit the effect of catastrophic failure on any system.

You'd have to include heat management upgrades too.
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Re: power system manipulation

Post by travists »

My thinking on failure modes was a non-failsafe total failure i.e. part is burned out and/or explodes. Failsafe upgrades would work, as would heatsinks (ignoring the tricky details of how) Gun coolers could boost refire rates (Like in "Privateer Righteous Fire"). One of the main things is the bigger the boost, the more catastrophic the failure. It's a balance as well as realism thing. Yes, you can boost shields to an invulnerable state, but only for so long until they die, causing damage in the process, leaving you worse off than before. Boost the guns too high: one shot downs the enemy, but you are nearly disabled. Perhaps rather than loosing an upgrade to failure, it's 99% damage? I also would limit the protective effects of failsafes and heatsinks to one per system, so as not to totally eliminate the consequences of overdriving a system.
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Re: power system manipulation

Post by TBeholder »

Garbius wrote:An other thing about power management: All ships should be able to power down some systems, i.e. weapons, shields and engines and make them completely offline. When a system is powered down, it should take a little time to power it up again. The status of these systems should be shown to ships targeting it. In addition, there should be be some kind of notification when a pilot attempts to power up a system. Maybe a sound or something.
Yes, though it's related more to repair model: component status, shutdown to repair, repair priority (including "disable repair" if you don't want your shield or point defence to go down in a wrong moment).
klauss wrote:I like where you're going - but failure modes should be varied and random. With fatal failure modes less likely than nonfatal ones, and there could be upgrades to limit the effect of catastrophic failure on any system.
I.e. more detailed critical damage / repair model? So that a ship system would have a damage effect function assigned with damage type (kinetic hit, EMP hit, collision, wear, overloading, overheating, etc) as one more argument.
Also, resource and a list of repair requirements - type and level, optionally list of components.
Whether the component is extensive (given per ton) or not should be taken from the part's own statistics - i.e. either armor's cost and mass may be multiplied by S for the ship. Then again, it can just have place for S/4 typical armor plates in each of 4 sectors.
Continuing with armor: if it would require a port with high enough repair tech level (basic for metal plates, higher for trickier composites) or a large-scale repair bot (as opposed to internal components repairs bot), and some amount of soecific goods from .../Alloys on board or in port, Polysteel Armor would get something like default_armor, {armorer; 3}, 20000, {Refined_Materials/Alloys/Aera/Polysteel; 1}.
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Re: power system manipulation

Post by klauss »

Turbo Beholder wrote:
klauss wrote:I like where you're going - but failure modes should be varied and random. With fatal failure modes less likely than nonfatal ones, and there could be upgrades to limit the effect of catastrophic failure on any system.
I.e. more detailed critical damage / repair model? So that a ship system would have a damage effect function assigned with damage type (kinetic hit, EMP hit, collision, wear, overloading, overheating, etc) as one more argument.
Also, resource and a list of repair requirements - type and level, optionally list of components.
Whether the component is extensive (given per ton) or not should be taken from the part's own statistics - i.e. either armor's cost and mass may be multiplied by S for the ship. Then again, it can just have place for S/4 typical armor plates in each of 4 sectors.
Continuing with armor: if it would require a port with high enough repair tech level (basic for metal plates, higher for trickier composites) or a large-scale repair bot (as opposed to internal components repairs bot), and some amount of soecific goods from .../Alloys on board or in port, Polysteel Armor would get something like default_armor, {armorer; 3}, 20000, {Refined_Materials/Alloys/Aera/Polysteel; 1}.
You know, I had the same idea. You just posted it earlier ;)
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