Energy storage to energy generation ratio?

[DragonRider]

Whenever I build a ship I always wonder how many batteries and generatiors i should place. Is there a sweet spot?

[fractalgem]

I usually just skip the batteries entirely.

[Mattoropael]

The ideal solution is to have enough generator power to keep your ship fully functional at all time (excluding extended use of booster, which will eventually overload any generator but has no practical use anyway), and skip batteries entirely.

[DragonRider]

If required energy is 10GW, for example, how much would a good generated energy number be?
20WG? 40WG? 80GW?

[ravien_ff]

Factor in things like system upgrades, energy use from energy weapons, boost, etc. There's no hard rule about things like this since if you're not planning on using energy weapons, you won't need as much energy.

It also depends on how many hyperspace upgrades you have. They can both reduce the energy required to recharge your jump drive AND the time needed to do so. With good enough hyperspace upgrades, you can reduce your hyperspace energy requirement to 0. But without sufficient hyperspace upgrades, your hyperspace engines will take up a LOT of energy after each jump and if your ship does not have enough power, it will take a lot longer to recharge them.

If your ship requires 10GW of energy, having 20GW of available power should normally give you plenty of room to upgrade until you're ready to make a bigger ship, as long as you don't make heavy use of energy weapons.

[DragonRider]

Thanks for the info. Normally I add generators and containers left and right whenever I run out of energy quickly. I was wondering if there was a "established rule", so to speak.

But as you said, alot of factors come into consideration. I think it's best to start off with some level of energy, then add more as you see fit.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by DragonRider:

If required energy is 10GW, for example, how much would a good generated energy number be?
20WG? 40WG? 80GW?

I generally try to have about 20-50% additional generator capacity, but I have to be careful not to boost too long.

That said, by additional generator capacity, I mean my required energy AFTER modules.

If i'm going to use high-energy drain salvage lasers, they'll usually swamp all my other energy requirements anyways, so i'll slap on a large generator block just to run them. I tend to be leery of relying on really high-energy weapons in combat, because it's too easy to back yourself into a corner. (ones with <200 drain per second per second aren't too bad by the end-game).

[Grumpy Old Gamer]

Batteries are only ncessary if you have undersized generators. I generally try to have enough generators so y jumpdrive on full recharge dont push power use above 90%. Aside form that I do like to have some smallamount of battery in case I add equipment and jump recharge goes over teh limit.

[CoinSpin]

Originally posted by DragonRider:

Thanks for the info. Normally I add generators and containers left and right whenever I run out of energy quickly. I was wondering if there was a "established rule", so to speak.

But as you said, alot of factors come into consideration. I think it's best to start off with some level of energy, then add more as you see fit.

I tended to do this too, but then realized that I was getting much more efficiency just replacing the batteries with generators (as others above have pointed out). In fact, on a few of my older designs, I went into build mode, showed just batteries, and transformed them into generators just to see what difference it made, and it showed surprising improvement in power management.