Walt My intent for the Boost Thruster is that under normal circumstances it behaves more like an activated ability than a toggle. I think this would work better if crew couldn't deliver power to it while in boost mode, but allowing that does mean that the player can indefinitely power the thruster if they really want to pay the price to do so. So I'm a little torn.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and here's an idea that IMO would 1) encourage ability-boost over permanent boost (without removing perma-boost entirely), 2) help boost feel more like a cast-able ability than a toggle, and 3) make it unnecessary to constantly turn boost back on after a thruster runs out of power
So what if:
- while boosted, boost thrusters still have spin-up time,
- when boost is turned on, boosters immediately spin to full power,
- boost thrusters do not drain power when boost is turned off, and
- boost thrusters instantly drain some power when boost is turned on
The idea behind the spin-up changes is that if you activate boost, you get instant and powerful thrust. But you can't take advantage of quick spin-up time if you're keeping boost permanently on, so perma-boost is less powerful (though still possible).
The power changes would have a few effects. Having power drain when boost is turned on (instead of turned off) makes *activating* boost feel like the important decision, not *canceling* boost, which both makes sense (IMO) and makes it feel more like a cast-able ability. But, it still forces players to be more careful about when they boost, because toggling it on/off too often will waste tons of power. It also adds a de-facto cooldown to boosting, so that you can't keep turning on boost as soon as you get a single battery back in an empty thruster, which means that my original suggestion would be irrelevant.
Power drain on activation also gives a plausible reason why boosters would spin up instantly when turned on, and IMO it feels more intuitive than power drain on deactivation.
Walt The point of the instant-drain is to make the decision to enable boost mode a riskier one and one that you'll only make when you really need it.
I was unclear - I meant the power on/off toggle hotkeyed to P. Sometimes I'd like to temporarily stop a booster from firing without draining all the power, so it would be nice if powering off a boost thruster didn't cancel boost, but instead kept draining power at the normal -800/sec rate. But I guess it doesn't make sense for a part to drain power when turned off.
