1.3B1: ReactorPower 'X' is actually "X-1"

Bug reports for the different beta versions of transcendence.
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Song
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Details found Here.


Basically, when making an NPC ship/auton with maximum power level of X, the game will only allow the installation of devices of X-1 (so "100" [10MW] becomes a useable of "99", or 9.9MW). This means that the default power level for autons is actually 9.9mw rather than 10mw, locking out a lot of weapons (including the particle gun that's installed by default on the 1M). This may or may not affect playerships as well, but if it does it probably doesn't matter because who honestly installs a device that uses all of their reactor strength?

Solution would be to make the check on ReactorPower allow installation if device requirements are less than or equal to reactorpower, rather than the current "less than".
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ReactorPower 'X' is ReactorPower 'X'. It is that you are not allowed to install anything with powerUse equals (or greater than) ReactorPower. If your playership's total power use equals ReactorPower 'X', your power bar will blink, but you will not overload.

It affects playerships too. The playership (but not NPCs) always uses 0.5 MW to live. You will always need fuel to live even if you have nothing with powerUse on or installed.

This is why the Wolfen's stock reactor of 10 MW is too weak.
dual laser cannon = 3 MW
hull plate ionizer = 4 MW
default thrusters = 2 MW
NAMI missile launcher = 1 MW
life support = 0.5 MW

Total = 10.5 MW

NPCs are cheaters! One, they never use fuel. Two, they can use any combination of devices as long as each device is less than reactorPower (unlike player who needs all devices use no more than reactorPower to avoid overload). For example, NPC destroyer with 50 MW can use several lancers and a Yoroi S500 (all taking 30 MW each) without any problem. The playership cannot do that.

One more thing. Armor with powerUse (e.g., powered armor) can always be installed even if powerUse is higher than maximum reactor power.
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PM wrote:ReactorPower 'X' is ReactorPower 'X'. It is that you are not allowed to install anything with powerUse equals (or greater than) ReactorPower. If your playership's total power use equals ReactorPower 'X', your power bar will blink, but you will not overload.

It affects playerships too. The playership (but not NPCs) always uses 0.5 MW to live. You will always need fuel to live even if you have nothing with powerUse on or installed.

This is why the Wolfen's stock reactor of 10 MW is too weak.
dual laser cannon = 3 MW
hull plate ionizer = 4 MW
default thrusters = 2 MW
NAMI missile launcher = 1 MW
life support = 0.5 MW

Total = 10.5 MW

NPCs are cheaters! One, they never use fuel. Two, they can use any combination of devices as long as each device is less than reactorPower (unlike player who needs all devices use no more than reactorPower to avoid overload). For example, NPC destroyer with 50 MW can use several lancers and a Yoroi S500 (all taking 30 MW each) without any problem. The playership cannot do that.

One more thing. Armor with powerUse (e.g., powered armor) can always be installed even if powerUse is higher than maximum reactor power.
The net effect is still the same: As long as reactorpower is used as the effective cap on individual device power for NPCs, the "equal to or greater than" check will still unfairly limit auton device installation. Maybe we need some tweaks to how this is handled so it works coherently across NPCs and playerships. Although simply adding a 0.1MW buffer would still make sense: the Nova 100 is a 100MW reactor, for example, not a 99.9MW reactor.
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The reason it needs to be 'less than' and not 'less than or equal to' is that there's always the life support, I think. So if you have a 10 MW reactor, 0.5 would always be used for life support, so you can only use the 9.5 MW left.
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sun1404 wrote:The reason it needs to be 'less than' and not 'less than or equal to' is that there's always the life support, I think. So if you have a 10 MW reactor, 0.5 would always be used for life support, so you can only use the 9.5 MW left.
Life support isn't the cause, and does not inherently create this issue. If you add the 0.5MW (or whatever) required on a playership (since NPCs don't follow the same rules for power use) then a 10MW reactor actually has a useable capacity of 9.4MW: Actually using 9.5 will push total use to 10MW and overload the reactor.
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Shrike wrote:Actually using 9.5 will push total use to 10MW and overload the reactor.
This is false. Your power bar will blink, but you will not overload. You must actually exceed peak power to overload reactor. If your ship has max power of 10 MW, using all 10 MW will not overload, but using 10.1 MW will.

For the playership with 10 MW max, he can equip any combination of items whose total use does not exceed 9.5 MW.
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Regardless: The original problem highlighted with this thread, that AI power handling is misleading, is still a problem.
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