Red Energy Breaks the Game

[>< V ><]

This game was really showing potential until the discover of how pointless energy is. There is no need to build any generators. Just slap down all the guns you want, use 250% ship power, because that's a thing, and just flip a circuit breaker every now and then. Or don't, nothing will happen until all 3 flip.

This has to change immediately. The energy economy is a major part of decision making and that's all destroyed with this game breaking mechanic.

[Phabreez]

Yeah the game was fun until finding that out. Just waiting to see everyone doing it and the game spiraling into a joke. The fun and intensity came from managing your power selecting proper weapons oh do i pick shields or point defence system. Now? why not all of it? Can we get a fix or a punishment for going over the power limit? 50% reduction to all systems maybe? A % chance for stuff to shut off per power over the limit because like said about its easy to cheese the breakers and just fix them and stay at 16/6 power like a match i recently had.

[Zenthar]

Not to mention it makes the Destroyer a pointless ship as you can just slap down whatever you want on the Frigate without having to worry about generators taking up the limited space. The quickest (and laziest) solution would be to reduce the time circuit breakers take to trip. Would be a lot more incentivised to use generators if breakers tripped ever 5 seconds. You get 15 seconds to fix your red power or your ship turns off.

[Tanyon]

I've only got about 10 hours so far but I agree this does need to be addressed we just turn everything on.. and our engineer just deals with the circuits and stuff.

[Traltwin]

Originally posted by Zenthar:

Not to mention it makes the Destroyer a pointless ship as you can just slap down whatever you want on the Frigate without having to worry about generators taking up the limited space. The quickest (and laziest) solution would be to reduce the time circuit breakers take to trip. Would be a lot more incentivised to use generators if breakers tripped ever 5 seconds. You get 15 seconds to fix your red power or your ship turns off.

You Could do that sure ... but on a 3 man crew size ... 1 person pilots, 1 person shoots the gun ... and the last is the Engineer whose sole job is to run between the engine room and the power core room flipping levers/knobs.

Will be a very difficult thing to balance.

[PovKetz]

It was definitely unfortunate discovering this. It's funny joining missions with rookies and watching them desperately trying to keep the energy from going into the red for even a second. Going to be a challenge to sort out balancing though. I've heard that the circuit triggers every minute when energy is in the red, but I don't know how true that is. The more above the max the power goes, the faster the circuits could trigger, or it could start having negative effects on the ship or weapons. Reduced fire-rate, faster overheating, reduced total thrust, etc. Or have it triggering the electrical components around the ship, requiring them to be repaired if the energy it well above capacity

EDIT - I suppose there could also be a hidden max capacity for energy, something like 1.5x or 2x above the max capacity, generators included, where the homoculus say something like "Warning, Energy massively exceeds safe levels, calibrate the energy usage immediately!" and if not sorted out in like 10 to 20 seconds the power shuts off. Obviously this wouldn't take into account the energy storms that can greatly reduce the max energy capacity, as that'd just be rough

[[HUTLIHUT] Daniel]

Thank you for the feedback!

Well, I got bad news and good news.

The bad news is your comment revealed a bug! The good news is it's already fixed and will make it into the next patch 🙂

How is it supposed to work, you ask?! Well, they should have been popping! The power management gameplay is about pushing your luck under pressure, and trying to mitigate that risk between encounters (by investing in generators or disabling systems) 🙂

The basic concept is that the power grid can overload, and the more strain they are under the faster they break. The circuit breakers have a random threshold somewhere between 50 and 150 - the higher the pressure, the faster it pops. Opposite is also true - go under the safety threshold and the pressure drops. Now the pressure is based on overload "steps". So first steps have small increments to the pressure, while the higher tiers have almost exponential. For example, the first four steps are just the overload value added, so +4 overload increases pressure by 4 per second.

Then we get into +5 overload and up goes the pressure by 6-8-12-16-32-64-128 … you get the point. (Values are based on time of writing and may change).

To summarize into useful guidelines:

1-3 overload - this is fiiiine
4-6 overload - you would probably want to stay close
7+ overload - you better rethink your career as engineer

I made a gif showing the quick-breaker-popping - you can see on our discord: https://discord.com/channels/814811296390053888/1150712877817266207/1150712877817266207

Hope this makes sense - We can't wait to hear your thoughts on how this (hopefully) improves the engineering experience without getting too much blame ...

Sincerely,
Daniel from Hutlihut
Creative Director

[lyravega]

Originally posted by HUTLIHUT Daniel:

The bad news is your comment revealed a bug! The good news is it's already fixed and will make it into the next patch 🙂

That's good to hear. I hope power will have more value though, rather than just being a green=good, red=bad thing. The Destroyer has an aux power thing but it doesn't have any relation to the available power as far as I can tell. I liked that Star Trek VR game's power distribution a lot, it gave engineer more to do than just turning knobs or pulling levers.

[>< V ><]

Originally posted by HUTLIHUT Daniel:

Thank you for the feedback!

Well, I got bad news and good news.

The bad news is your comment revealed a bug! The good news is it's already fixed and will make it into the next patch 🙂

How is it supposed to work, you ask?! Well, they should have been popping! The power management gameplay is about pushing your luck under pressure, and trying to mitigate that risk between encounters (by investing in generators or disabling systems) 🙂

The basic concept is that the power grid can overload, and the more strain they are under the faster they break. The circuit breakers have a random threshold somewhere between 50 and 150 - the higher the pressure, the faster it pops. Opposite is also true - go under the safety threshold and the pressure drops. Now the pressure is based on overload "steps". So first steps have small increments to the pressure, while the higher tiers have almost exponential. For example, the first four steps are just the overload value added, so +4 overload increases pressure by 4 per second.

Then we get into +5 overload and up goes the pressure by 6-8-12-16-32-64-128 … you get the point. (Values are based on time of writing and may change).

To summarize into useful guidelines:

1-3 overload - this is fiiiine
4-6 overload - you would probably want to stay close
7+ overload - you better rethink your career as engineer

I made a gif showing the quick-breaker-popping - you can see on our discord: https://discord.com/channels/814811296390053888/1150712877817266207/1150712877817266207

Hope this makes sense - We can't wait to hear your thoughts on how this (hopefully) improves the engineering experience without getting too much blame ...

Sincerely,
Daniel from Hutlihut
Creative Director

Thank you for the response. In a friendly gesture, I also have good and bad news then.

The good news, I really, really, enjoyed your game until this discovery.

The bad news, nothing is going to change if this is your fix.

Sir, the current engineer role has minimal to no impact on game play. Unlike someone specced into pilot or gunner. In my experience, the person that wants to be engineer, is a person that stays in the ship, rarely gets on a gun or goes outside to help with a mission. I've never seen yet, anyone calling themselves an "engineer" go outside during battle with full maneuvering and acting like R2D2 sticking to the ship making repairs with their improved magnetic boots.

In short, a dedicated engineer class doesn't have much to do. In turn, having plenty of time to flip breakers. If anything, that is their primary task. So what changes? All this "fix" will do is give the engineer more to do, but still at the expense of completely destroying the energy economy.

A person already sits there and flips the breakers, sir. Now they will flip it more often? This needs to be decentivized. All this fix will do is further cement the role of needing a breaker flipper. There needs to be a massive penalty for an energy deficit, such that, you don't assign a breaker flipper, because this is a last ditch desperate tactic.

But there lies probably your issue with development in that, you want game mechanics to give people stuff to do, but in all, the current mechanic of flipping breakers should be removed, because it completely destroys power management. You have a mechanic in the game that lets everyone, from day 1, completely ignore another mechanic. Is this not considered, bad design?

Sir, a person already sits there and flips the breakers. Why would an engineer build a power generator when they can put down 3 shields and just stand by the breakers?

Sincerely,
A person that hopes to enjoy your game again.

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Originally posted by HUTLIHUT Daniel:

Thank you for the feedback!

Well, I got bad news and good news.

The bad news is your comment revealed a bug! The good news is it's already fixed and will make it into the next patch 🙂

How is it supposed to work, you ask?! Well, they should have been popping! The power management gameplay is about pushing your luck under pressure, and trying to mitigate that risk between encounters (by investing in generators or disabling systems) 🙂

The basic concept is that the power grid can overload, and the more strain they are under the faster they break. The circuit breakers have a random threshold somewhere between 50 and 150 - the higher the pressure, the faster it pops. Opposite is also true - go under the safety threshold and the pressure drops. Now the pressure is based on overload "steps". So first steps have small increments to the pressure, while the higher tiers have almost exponential. For example, the first four steps are just the overload value added, so +4 overload increases pressure by 4 per second.

Then we get into +5 overload and up goes the pressure by 6-8-12-16-32-64-128 … you get the point. (Values are based on time of writing and may change).

To summarize into useful guidelines:

1-3 overload - this is fiiiine
4-6 overload - you would probably want to stay close
7+ overload - you better rethink your career as engineer

I made a gif showing the quick-breaker-popping - you can see on our discord: https://discord.com/channels/814811296390053888/1150712877817266207/1150712877817266207

Hope this makes sense - We can't wait to hear your thoughts on how this (hopefully) improves the engineering experience without getting too much blame ...

Sincerely,
Daniel from Hutlihut
Creative Director

Thank you for the response. In a friendly gesture, I also have good and bad news then.

The good news, I really, really, enjoyed your game until this discovery.

The bad news, nothing is going to change if this is your fix.

Sir, the current engineer role has minimal to no impact on game play. Unlike someone specced into pilot or gunner. In my experience, the person that wants to be engineer, is a person that stays in the ship, rarely gets on a gun or goes outside to help with a mission. I've never seen yet, anyone calling themselves an "engineer" go outside during battle with full maneuvering and acting like R2D2 sticking to the ship making repairs with their improved magnetic boots.

In short, a dedicated engineer class doesn't have much to do. In turn, having plenty of time to flip breakers. If anything, that is their primary task. So what changes? All this "fix" will do is give the engineer more to do, but still at the expense of completely destroying the energy economy.

A person already sits there and flips the breakers, sir. Now they will flip it more often? This needs to be decentivized. All this fix will do is further cement the role of needing a breaker flipper. There needs to be a massive penalty for an energy deficit, such that, you don't assign a breaker flipper, because this is a last ditch desperate tactic.

But there lies probably your issue with development in that, you want game mechanics to give people stuff to do, but in all, the current mechanic of flipping breakers should be removed, because it completely destroys power management. You have a mechanic in the game that lets everyone, from day 1, completely ignore another mechanic. Is this not considered, bad design?

Sir, a person already sits there and flips the breakers. Why would an engineer build a power generator when they can put down 3 shields and just stand by the breakers?

Sincerely,
A person that hopes to enjoy your game again.

I agree with the "Grease Monkey" traits they are 100% useless and none of our friend group uses these traits we have a pilot, 2 gunners and a scavenger.

Now to your point about someone just "sitting and flipping switches" I guess you could play like that but we don't. Sounds boring.

I'm usually running around making sure the trim is ok, making sure all repairs in the ship are good and then also outside as well as getting on a gun when needed and I do most of the EVA stuff for the missions. If you can honestly spare the man power to have a person sit and flip switches and never move then good on you I guess I just wouldn't play that way.. maybe try to exercise some self control.

[>< V ><]

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Thank you for the response. In a friendly gesture, I also have good and bad news then.

The good news, I really, really, enjoyed your game until this discovery.

The bad news, nothing is going to change if this is your fix.

Sir, the current engineer role has minimal to no impact on game play. Unlike someone specced into pilot or gunner. In my experience, the person that wants to be engineer, is a person that stays in the ship, rarely gets on a gun or goes outside to help with a mission. I've never seen yet, anyone calling themselves an "engineer" go outside during battle with full maneuvering and acting like R2D2 sticking to the ship making repairs with their improved magnetic boots.

In short, a dedicated engineer class doesn't have much to do. In turn, having plenty of time to flip breakers. If anything, that is their primary task. So what changes? All this "fix" will do is give the engineer more to do, but still at the expense of completely destroying the energy economy.

A person already sits there and flips the breakers, sir. Now they will flip it more often? This needs to be decentivized. All this fix will do is further cement the role of needing a breaker flipper. There needs to be a massive penalty for an energy deficit, such that, you don't assign a breaker flipper, because this is a last ditch desperate tactic.

But there lies probably your issue with development in that, you want game mechanics to give people stuff to do, but in all, the current mechanic of flipping breakers should be removed, because it completely destroys power management. You have a mechanic in the game that lets everyone, from day 1, completely ignore another mechanic. Is this not considered, bad design?

Sir, a person already sits there and flips the breakers. Why would an engineer build a power generator when they can put down 3 shields and just stand by the breakers?

Sincerely,
A person that hopes to enjoy your game again.

I agree with the "Grease Monkey" traits they are 100% useless and none of our friend group uses these traits we have a pilot, 2 gunners and a scavenger.

Now to your point about someone just "sitting and flipping switches" I guess you could play like that but we don't. Sounds boring.

I'm usually running around making sure the trim is ok, making sure all repairs in the ship are good and then also outside as well as getting on a gun when needed and I do most of the EVA stuff for the missions. If you can honestly spare the man power to have a person sit and flip switches and never move then good on you I guess I just wouldn't play that way.. maybe try to exercise some self control.

How does exercising my own self control stop randoms from placing 6 shield banks down?

I get it. I had a lot of fun with this game. I tried pretending that energy mattered and get power generators built, but more and more people are learning how to work the mechanics and know that energy is pointless.

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

I agree with the "Grease Monkey" traits they are 100% useless and none of our friend group uses these traits we have a pilot, 2 gunners and a scavenger.

Now to your point about someone just "sitting and flipping switches" I guess you could play like that but we don't. Sounds boring.

I'm usually running around making sure the trim is ok, making sure all repairs in the ship are good and then also outside as well as getting on a gun when needed and I do most of the EVA stuff for the missions. If you can honestly spare the man power to have a person sit and flip switches and never move then good on you I guess I just wouldn't play that way.. maybe try to exercise some self control.

How does exercising my own self control stop randoms from placing 6 shield banks down?

I get it. I had a lot of fun with this game. I tried pretending that energy mattered and get power generators built, but more and more people are learning how to work the mechanics and know that energy is pointless.

I guess I wouldn't know cause I do not play these kinds of games with randoms. I play with people who actually want to play and not just abuse the game mechanics.

[Dr.Vaфе!ь]

I don't own the game, just reading comments. I think, maybe there is need to be some sort of the reactor? Maybe a slightly more complex power supply mechanic similar to barotrauma(in baro, the reactor is also fairly easy to manage). But it's really sad that. if right now all power managment is only: go and turn it on, also flip the brakers. I wish to be able to be in nearly nuclear disaster situations, but it isn't a simulator genre game...right?

[>< V ><]

Originally posted by Dr.Vaфе!ь:

I don't own the game, just reading comments. I think, maybe there is need to be some sort of the reactor? Maybe a slightly more complex power supply mechanic similar to barotrauma(in baro, the reactor is also fairly easy to manage). But it's really sad that. if right now all power managment is only: go and turn it on, also flip the brakers. I wish to be able to be in nearly nuclear disaster situations, but it isn't a simulator genre game...right?

The small ship starts with 6 units of power. One would think this represents some limit on how much power you generate or consume, but it doesn't. It's a meaningless number. You can easily maintain 16 units of power while only generating 6 units of power, by flipping breakers, which is a mechanic that happens when you have a deficit of power and this mechanic completely makes power management irrelevant.

It takes about 4 minutes for power to actually shut down when you are overloaded and it takes you about 10 seconds to flip breakers. It's trivial to maintain infinite power. Ships have limited build space and as the player base learns about infinite power, few are building generators anymore and just slapping down a bunch of shield banks since there is no penalty, whatsoever, for overloading power.

So unlike in say a typical sci-fi where running a reactor at 110% power is some dangerous move to save yourself, in this game, running your reactor at 250% power is just a common everyday occurrence that will become meta.

[Dr.Vaфе!ь]

Wow, I agree with your statement. Current power is the most braindead feature in the game.

[bonjemon]

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Originally posted by Dr.Vaфе!ь:

I don't own the game, just reading comments. I think, maybe there is need to be some sort of the reactor? Maybe a slightly more complex power supply mechanic similar to barotrauma(in baro, the reactor is also fairly easy to manage). But it's really sad that. if right now all power managment is only: go and turn it on, also flip the brakers. I wish to be able to be in nearly nuclear disaster situations, but it isn't a simulator genre game...right?

The small ship starts with 6 units of power. One would think this represents some limit on how much power you generate or consume, but it doesn't. It's a meaningless number. You can easily maintain 16 units of power while only generating 6 units of power, by flipping breakers, which is a mechanic that happens when you have a deficit of power and this mechanic completely makes power management irrelevant.

It takes about 4 minutes for power to actually shut down when you are overloaded and it takes you about 10 seconds to flip breakers. It's trivial to maintain infinite power. Ships have limited build space and as the player base learns about infinite power, few are building generators anymore and just slapping down a bunch of shield banks since there is no penalty, whatsoever, for overloading power.

So unlike in say a typical sci-fi where running a reactor at 110% power is some dangerous move to save yourself, in this game, running your reactor at 250% power is just a common everyday occurrence that will become meta.

easy fix, if you run the reactor too hot for too long.

boom