Large Reactor Prototype 1

Walt

As many of you are probably aware, the update due out in a couple of weeks (not the one this coming Friday, but the one two weeks after that) is planned to add "medium" and "large" reactor variants in addition to the current "small" reactor.

I would like to get your feedback on my proposed balance for these reactors, so I am releasing a special "prototype" that you can download and try out. As with any prototype I release, all the graphics/art is temporary, and EVERYTHING is subject to change. (So don't use the new reactors on any ships that you would be sad if they stopped working in a later prototype or update.)

Download Large Reactor Prototype 1

Some notes about the new reactors:

Each reactor produces 3x the power (and has 3x the capacity) but costs only 2x as much as the previous size. (So the medium reactor is 3x/2x the small reactor, and the large reactor is 9x/4x the small reactor.) This was done to provide a strong cost incentive to building fewer larger reactors instead of a lot of smaller reactors and thus hopefully discourage compartmentalization.
The medium and large reactors have MUCH larger blast areas when destroyed, so you'll need to protect them well and likely need place them farther from the weapons and other systems that use their power. All reactor explosions (including the small reactor) expand over time (similar to nukes but faster), which was necessary for performance reasons.
To offset the reduced efficiency from needing to place them farther away, larger reactors produce bigger, higher-capacity batteries, meaning each individual crew can carry more power from a larger reactor. Medium reactor batteries hold 2x the power of small reactor batteries, and large reactor batteries hold 3x the power of small reactor batteries.
Crew will take the size of reactor into consideration when choosing which reactor to grab power from, sometimes traveling farther to a larger reactor because they can grab a bigger battery with more power. As in the 0.15.2 RCs, you can override this by assigning specific reactors to specific other parts.
If crew drop off a large battery at a part that doesn't need all that power, any excess power will be lost.
If crew drop off a large battery at a power storage, the large battery will "split" into multiple smaller batteries in the storage.
The medium & large reactors only have the same health as a small reactor. This was done deliberately to make them just as fragile.
I'm sure this affects the balance of many other things, like shields, ions, and boost thrusters, but I haven't made any other balance changes in this prototype. Please let me know what you think needs adjusting.

Thanks for your feedback!!

chief_chaman478

Walt hopefully discourage compartmentalization.

kinda. i can see us just creating larger compartments. but it does make non compartment cruisers and captiols ect alot more effective, especially since crew have to travel less due to battery sizes

SpaceCat

Walt discourage compartmentalization

only costs a mild laugh around here ... (as we say in DE & AT)

Didn't have time to try it so far.
What i can say tho is that for truly "zentralized reactor design" crew has to deliver energy faster, by either running faster or starting to deliver earlier.

🙂

Vess

I'm so excited for these. That being said. the larger battery types are a game changer. It makes maintaining shields and ions etc, super easy with minimal staff. And I cant justify using storage due to the batteries getting down graded.
I think one battery size from reactors should be enough, the increase in production and storage are great improvements.
The Better Batteries Could be the product of a new factory type that combines smaller batteries into big ones And should have limited delivery distances. But as another bonus from the reactor it makes smaller reactors pointless.

FlameWolfSpirit

I feel like the reactors should have different hit points like the larger and medium should have a larger amount compared to the small reactor. and maybe add a different look to the larger reactors.

I am just suggesting this but maybe u have a weapon or defense that requires mass energy to run. i was also thinking since the these batteries are bigger maybe they should be heavier and slower moving like mine transfer speed.i think that nukes should be transported slower as well as the EMP so it equal to the mine transfer speed. But that is just me

thatPolarBear

FlameWolfSpirit crew carry all parts at the same speed mines are not slower

Walt

FlameWolfSpirit I feel like the reactors should have different hit points like the larger and medium should have a larger amount compared to the small reactor.

I made all reactors the same so that a single large reactor would be just as fragile as a cluster of small reactors. I'm open to feedback on this though.

FlameWolfSpirit and maybe add a different look to the larger reactors.

The graphics in the prototype are only temporary. They will have a different look.

FlameWolfSpirit i was also thinking since the these batteries are bigger maybe they should be heavier and slower moving like mine transfer speed.

The point of the bigger batteries is to compensate for the farther distances of larger reactors. However, I'm not opposed to adjusting walk speed of larger batteries if finer-grained tuning is required.

thatPolarBear crew carry all parts at the same speed mines are not slower

Crew walk at 3/4 speed when carrying mines.

Nordwolf Thanks for the feedback. I want to hear feedback from others as well before making any major balance changes.

Catelyn A cool idea would be some sort of larger storage as well, similar to the current storage but allows crew to take out larger batteries, even if they put in smaller batteries.

The larger batteries are meant specifically to compensate for the farther distances of larger reactors. Storages are meant to be a local short-distance cache, so I don't see a strong reason to have large battery storages.

oem That also means less crew-time lost to crew collisions, and less volume lost to crew space, which enables denser and much faster-recharging shielding.

A good point. I could potentially reduce crew speed a bit when carrying larger batteries so the large battery advantage isn't quite as overwhelming.

oem I like Nord's idea that larger reactors can only supply energy storage, because I think it would be a good way to keep the centralization enabled by larger reactors while at the same time removing the crew efficiency increase provided by the larger 2x and 3x batteries, but I think that that could also be a source of confusion for new players because one would expect that a larger reactor would function identically to a smaller one.

It's an interesting idea that might make sense for balance, but as you say would be pretty weird and confusing. I'd prefer to find a different solution.

oem Nord's idea reminded of the energy pipeline idea from a previous thread, where larger reactors would feed power to energy storage through 1x1 pipeline parts. I think that could be a pretty interesting way to handle it, and would provide opportunities to make it clear that larger reactors cannot supply parts directly e.g. by preventing the player from adding doors to them, highlighting energy storage parts while the player is placing pipeline, and highlighting non-energy-storage parts in red if the player connects a pipeline to them.

This was basically my original idea. (Probably wouldn't need to prohibit crew picking up power if the batteries are the same size.) In principle, I prefer the larger batteries because it keeps the focus on the crew, which is really what Cosmoteer is all about.

oem Would it be helpful to send .rec files in later feedback?

Yes, absolutely!

Gamer_as Thanks for the feedback!

Nordwolf

Just want to suggest renaming Medium reactor to Large and Large to Huge, imo describes them much better this way.

Also this is exactly what I suggested for factories also, with similar ratios as well. So you can supply a lot of modules at the cost of complexity (and some other drawbacks?).

Oh and btw, I have an engine module cost efficiency sheet that I have been maintaining for a while, just added some new engine modules to it at the bottom:
Engine Spreadsheet
The new boost modules are more efficient than even the old huge engine setups. I haven't added any new huge engine setups with the new reactors yet.

Nordwolf

Initial thoughts: larger batteries make almost any kind of storage relays useless as crew efficiency you gain from them is so great that distance matters less. The benefits are so great in fact that you can pretty much reserve only one/2 crew member per any part that you want to supply with power, striking down crew costs immensely. Additionally, the batteries allow for incredibly powerful shield setups that are very hard to break through (EMP or EB are basically required to do anything, or large nuke volleys).

Now I am not really sure of the balance implications of this (I like some of these things), but one thing for sure - orbiters got a hell of a buff, most orbiters are already quite dead when penetrated so the larger explosion radius is mostly irrelevant. Orbiters get essentially halved power cost, faster shield recharging and easier to protect reactors, and because of the usual power density required crew doesn't even need to do much traveling. Although with such powerful shield setups their usual ion/rail damage is nerfed quite a bit.

EDIT: one drastic solution would be to allow large batteries to only supply storages, although I am having a lot of fun playing with the large batteries supply ability.

Catelyn

A cool idea would be some sort of larger storage as well, similar to the current storage but allows crew to take out larger batteries, even if they put in smaller batteries.

Might be OP tho

oem

I'm with Nord on this. These larger reactors are a buff to most designs but, just going off of module costs and defense testing, they are an enormous buff to orbiters in particular. The increase to crew efficiency thanks to larger batteries is a big part of that: the assumption seems to be that these reactors would have to be widely spaced because of their volatility, but placing parts adjacent or near-adjacent to them means you need far fewer crew in a module because those crew are supplying more than 2 or 3 times as much energy per second. So not only are you more than halving the cost of power production by using the largest reactor, you are also more than halving the cost of the crew that you need to move that power. That also means less crew-time lost to crew collisions, and less volume lost to crew space, which enables denser and much faster-recharging shielding. Orbiters are the archetype that is most able to take advantage of these benefits. These larger reactors can only entrench them in the meta, and I am pretty confident that testing finished ships that were made for this game version won't change that conclusion.

I like Nord's idea that larger reactors can only supply energy storage, because I think it would be a good way to keep the centralization enabled by larger reactors while at the same time removing the crew efficiency increase provided by the larger 2x and 3x batteries, but I think that that could also be a source of confusion for new players because one would expect that a larger reactor would function identically to a smaller one. I know I've experienced a small amount of confusion with some of the new crew behavior prioritization features...

Nord's idea reminded of the energy pipeline idea from a previous thread, where larger reactors would feed power to energy storage through 1x1 pipeline parts. I think that could be a pretty interesting way to handle it, and would provide opportunities to make it clear that larger reactors cannot supply parts directly e.g. by preventing the player from adding doors to them, highlighting energy storage parts while the player is placing pipeline, and highlighting non-energy-storage parts in red if the player connects a pipeline to them.

Would it be helpful to send .rec files in later feedback?

Lafiel

So far I think all the ratios are good.

Since the larger reactors are supposed to be more vulnerable I propose a surface health increase schemes:

proportional scheme: each size tile would add 2000 => medium would be 6000; large 8000
incremental scheme: small base cost plus 1000 for each additional size tile => medium would be 5000; large 6000

Gamer_as

Done some testing , currently larger reactors are inferior to the old one , and here is why.

1) The obvious benefit of being more cost-power efficient is offset by the fact , that if the larger reactor gets destroyed it blows up much more stuff , more money spend on repairs.
2)The blast radius and damage is huge! the large reactor is able to chew trough 4 layered armor like it is nothing - making it harder to build systems that do not chain react and as such reducing the potential power per ship volume density.
3) All or nothing. Defense powered by improved batteries are significantly stronger , but if it fails ones -you die without a chance.
4)The only part that can consume the enormous amounts of power provided by bigger reactors is a tractor beam.
For others large and medium reactors are excessive.
Solutions: Nerfing the blast damage , Increasing the cost and inventing some "power hungry" parts.

Nordwolf

Gamer_as I agree with 1 and 2 somewhat, but you are missing out on how the most powerful archetypes are built with p3 and 4.
.
3. All in defense is already incredibly popular and arguably the most powerful way to build your ship right now, so previously if such ship was penetrated enough to get to the juicy bits it would be as good as dead anyway.
4. There are A TON of uses for large and huge reactors, they cut the cost like in half for most of the power hungry systems, namely shields, ions, thrusters (including permaboost), you can also power a huge low power hungry ship (like a missile barge) with just one very well protected reactor (using storages obviously).

In fact in my opinion if used right, they are very much op atm.

Namek

Walt

I have a small idea about the energy storage being able to store large batteries.

What if, you can change what kind of battery it stores. (Like the missile storage changing the kind of missile.)

If you set it to larger batteries, it changes shape, and stores a smaller amount of batteries. (Since they are larger, and it would balance it.) However, it would support all battery kind input, since small batteries would fuse into larger ones.

The big reason why one would want this option, is all about what it would be powering. If the energy storage is near a lot of small parts which needs less power each, one would choose to have smaller batteries.

If it is near a shield, or other parts which needs way more energy, one would pick the large batteries option, so crew travel less.

If it seems unbalanced in your opinion, you could make crew travel slower with larger batteries. (Which was mentioned before I believe.)

Hope you like my concept.

clojelo

0huixuan0 Why do all types of reactors have only 4k duration, instead of 4k/9k/16k? Is that a mistake?

It's by design. See Walt's reply from prototype phase.

Walt I made all reactors the same so that a single large reactor would be just as fragile as a cluster of small reactors. I'm open to feedback on this though.

New large reactor is beauuutiful ♥

OneRubySky

Time for those zero point modules! (stargate lover)

ucyimDa_Ruler

So I've played around with the larger reactor and I like it. But I keep designing my ship as if it were a normal reactor - on purpose to see the side effects.

A few wish list items that could accompany this:

Reactor with built in conveyors. Walking at 75% speed from one end to another seems to negate its usefulness. Crew entering on one side to deliver on the other is just painstakingly slow.
I seem to need the energy the moment something runs out but I see it is on the way. Perhaps another crew behavior option that states, "Have ammo/energy in route when supply reaches XX%". Maybe implement a slider that represents a percentage of when crew should deliver supplies. 100% means always in route, 50% means when energy or ammo drops below 50% and 0% means only when its empty.

Having that option paired with choosing the reactor to pull from would probably eliminate the need for larger reactors. But I must admit, I love the 3x concept!

Also I don't like the idea of crew walking slower because they take on a bigger load. Instead, I have them gather longer. (Another behavior option) Allow 2x, 3x, 4x or 5x loads! But that would increase the "gather" mode so if it takes 1 second for normal gathering, then it would be multiplied. But this option is defined by the weapon or part that needs the ammo.

Maybe even a two part option. Max gather time (crew based) and max load (part based). So this covers all scenarios. If a crew member is trying to gather energy from a reactor but its empty and his load capacity is set to 3x then max gather time would force him to move to the next reactor or deliver what he currently has. This would cover all scenarios across all weapons for fill as fast as you can vs fill as much as you can. And it won't impact any conveyor builds already in flight.

After careful consideration the above still won't solve the problem. Walt - when an energy weapon is firing, some internal calculation fires that signals a crew member to restock its energy. What happens to that internal calculation when the weapon is out of ammo? Does it still calculate?

The reason for my question is because it should still calculate as if the ammo in route had made it. Then when that is expired, it should prompt another crew member to start delivering more ammo. To feed that constant supply. This is like my biggest pain point of not seeing enough supplies delivered by the crew. With the current game state, I'm happy to over delivery and waste resources.

Walt

ucyimDa_Ruler Reactor with built in conveyors. Walking at 75% speed from one end to another seems to negate its usefulness. Crew entering on one side to deliver on the other is just painstakingly slow.

It used to be that crew would go to the tile closest to their ultimate destination when picking up power/ammo, but I got rid of that simply for technical reasons. I could probably bring it back without too much trouble, in which case crew would then at least be smart enough to walk around the reactor if that's faster. (Have you tried putting conveyors/corridors on the outside of the reactor for crew to walk around it after picking up power?)

ucyimDa_Ruler I seem to need the energy the moment something runs out but I see it is on the way. Perhaps another crew behavior option that states, "Have ammo/energy in route when supply reaches XX%". Maybe implement a slider that represents a percentage of when crew should deliver supplies. 100% means always in route, 50% means when energy or ammo drops below 50% and 0% means only when its empty.

Right now, as soon as a part needs power (in most cases needs at least half a battery), crew will start going to the reactor to get power. The only delay comes from the fact that crew get assigned to jobs more slowly on larger ships.

ucyimDa_Ruler gather time

As an aside, gather time might be a good way of nerfing large reactors that are placed very close to shields/ions without greatly nerfing their use at longer distances.

ucyimDa_Ruler What happens to that internal calculation when the weapon is out of ammo? Does it still calculate?

It will assign enough crew to fill up the weapon, assuming enough crew are available.

ucyimDa_Ruler

Maybe that internal calculation could be marked as a high priority part that gets that extra benefit. And each control room allows for 3 - 5 high priority parts so it can't be abused and won't overwhelm the CPU.

Nordwolf

Trying to create supply lines I found a crew assignment issue that I can't solve:
If you want a few parts to be supplied by a storage and a large reactor, but some crew to only use storage it can't do that. It's important for when I have crew that supplies the storage to also be able to supply the shields, but don't want the specific shield crew to not wander away in case of emergency.

Equalizer

Nordwolf If you want a few parts to be supplied by a storage and a large reactor, but some crew to only use storage it can't do that.

Assign the crew that you want to only use power from the power storage to the power storage. Disable supply power to power storage for these crew. Link the power storage to the parts it is to provide power to.

The large reactor is then linked to the storage and the parts that are to also be supplied directly. Crew that are to only take power from the reactor are assigned to the reactor and those that can take power from either reactor or power storage are assigned to the parts.

Nordwolf

Equalizer Thanks, I haven't thought of disabling their ability to supply storages! Even though I used the priorities before for other types of crew (like far away operator only crew or higher priority on certain parts like engine rooms), very useful.