Shield powering

Solarwatch

I think shield powering is too draining to sustain during flight. I think this could be remedied by a few things:

1) have a block that automates turning on and off shields when in combat, similar to how repairs work, but maybe lasting a little longer after a battle. This could also coordinate with the Sensor Array to detect when an enemy gets too close to turn on the shields.

2)In Star Wars/Trek you always see the Captain of the ship say to the crew set the shields to full (or something along those lines) and the entire ship is shielded. Also its a pain to go through and turn off every last shield in a ship, so I think if you select one shield gen, and then press let's say Shift+P and all of the shield gens turn on. This could also be used for every other block that you can turn on and off, and with firing at will.

3) Most simply, shield gens could just use less power. However, I think this would be the worst option, since that would make shields too OP.

Hodyn

I agree mostly. but instead of simply turning it off, i suggest having some sort of... like... power management. like:

20% of power to shields
40% to weapons
30% to ammo production
10% to ship maintenance

and the option to tweak those values on the go. I mean, i always found it very weird that the crew has to manually carry power cells throughout the whole ship, but that's part of the game mechanics, and the crew doesn't do much else apart from carrying stuff. But setting priorities for them the way i just suggested would be a GREAT feature, imo.

Solarwatch

Hodyn I think it would also be cool to have certain parts be prioritized so that then you can say during a battle that you want the crew to focus on weapons and shields, but out of combat on ftls or engines or sensors

Hodyn

should i create a new thread for such an idea...?

Solarwatch

Hodyn I think that is a wise desicion

Tobi-wan_Kenobi

Ship-wide shield management is already possible by setting control groups.

By holding Shift + Ctrl and then double clicking on a part, you can select all parts of that type that face the same direction. When you've selected all of the shields, you can bind them to a group with Ctrl + 1, 2, 3, etc.

Once a control group is formed, select it by pressing the number you bound it to. You can then press P to turn the group on and off.

Solarwatch

Tobi-wan_Kenobi Ok thanks

Solarwatch

Tobi-wan_Kenobi is it only for that ship or is it universal

Hodyn

Tobi-wan_Kenobi it's not turning on and off, it's giving it priorities. Priorities, not turning on and off. For an A.I. to do it.

Tobi-wan_Kenobi

Solarwatch You have to set custom groups for each ship. Currently groups have to be reformed when loading a new ship - they're not saved with the ship save. Also, if a part is destroyed then repaired, you'll have to add that part back into the group. It's not a great system, but Walt has plans to fix and improve it.