Note on power and engines

[oranges]

Stage 1
Power generation is totally unbalanced right now. and radiation collectors are memeable thanks to items being irradiated.

Solution: remove radiation collectors, power is generated by the turbines instead, who are fed by the hot gassing from the supermatter, which generates heat in response to heat, and exotic gases, hence being an object of intense research by NT.

Power generation should be organised around two turbines, running from the SM, these two, at peak efficiency, should provide enough power to run the station + 10%

Flowing on from this should be a rebalance of the RnD parts for machines.

A single dept worth of machines i.e (2-3 machines) at t4 parts, should use power up to that entire 10% cap, requiring more turbines to be built to run more than 2 to 3 machines at t4 parts.

Thank you for coming to this TED talk.


FYI yes this makes the other engines redundant, no I'm not sorry about that. I will keep the tesla/singularity as effects from engine meltdown, or as appropriate from other station events, but they will not be containable.


Stage 2
Further more, the heat in the supermatter room should require powered containment. This will require all turf types and wall types get a maximum heat they can endure before being destroyed.

Only powered energy barriers and the energy floors will survive the heat levels reached in the supermatter room and during fusion reactions, losing power generation and Fusion/SM breaking containment should lead to an immediate vent to space and destruction of local environment due to intense heat.

[Jack7D1]

Holy fucking shit.
Yes please.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

I imagine this would result in removing radiation fully to save processing power (I had imsx delete my matter bins once because apparently it lagged the absolute shit out of the server). This would reduce the fun of the engine significantly.

I'm not sure how radiation is coded, but could contaminating objects reduce the actual radiation available in some manner? Obviously steel bins are not fissile material and if they absorb the gamma radiation realistically that would reduce effectiveness of the engine.

As for turbines, this would likely require a full rework of the gas physics relating to the engine (as currently they are all balanced to interact in ways that you don't want to use them in a turbine). Could you elaborate on some of the actual low level details that you would want to use with the crystal?

And the more exciting question - how dangerous are you hoping the end result to be? The single greatest joy I found in engine building was just how spooky and ominous I could get it going without it Tesla delaminating. If the new engine is practically risk free and is just tedious construction of pipes and turbines I imagine many engineers will just ignore setting it up if it isn't enticing enough.

Finally - do be careful with setting up the plumbing required, adding additional pipes to the engine chamber is currently a pain in the ass due to the amount of pipes already running around (like the distro pipe bleck)

[oranges]

This will not result in radiation removal, nowhere does it talk about radiation removal.

Radiation collectors are the problem, because of the new radiation mechanics, the path to fixing the issue is clear as i have laid out.

Getting the heat necessary to run the turbines at anything approaching the level required to run the station should be dangerous, and require constant management of the heat and inputs of the engine.

I doubt our playerbase has the attention span to actually manage that, but at least we can try.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

And I wrote all of that before you added stage 2 (or I just didn't scroll enough). Interesting - as you are keeping the delaminations, are you changing how to unlock them? Singuloth is very hard to attain now (practically, with other people on the station trying to stop you) due to the stupid amount of moles you need in chamber and how easy it is for someone to flush the chamber so it just regular delays.

Also - how easy is it to cut power to containment? If it literally takes a single cable snip to kill the engine that's gonna be really easy to exploit.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Also correct me if I'm wrong, but Tesla isn't based on radiation is it? It's probable you can still keep it comtainable in the game without rad collectors.

[PKPenguin321]

I think the order of the stages should be swapped, fusion can make temperatures get funky as it is now, so powered containment is probably higher priority. If someone were to do stage 1 then leave before stage 2 was completed we'd have very common infinite power builds.

[oranges]

I disagree

[oranges]

Also correct me if I'm wrong, but Tesla isn't based on radiation is it? It's probable you can still keep it comtainable in the game without rad collectors.

Tesla adn singularity will not be used to "generate" power, but will be consequences of failing to generate power.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Tesla adn singularity will not be used to "generate" power, but will be consequences of failing to generate power.

Right so that means removing the tesla rods (which if I recall can be used for bonus power on the more 'fun' co2 SM builds. I don't like it, but it is what it is I suppose.

[Yenwodyah]

I will keep the tesla/singularity as effects from engine meltdown, or as appropriate from other station events, but they will not be containable.

This part makes me sad b/c doing a singulo/tesla in cargo is fun, especially when you get to ship it to centcomm.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

I will keep the tesla/singularity as effects from engine meltdown, or as appropriate from other station events, but they will not be containable.

This part makes me sad b/c doing a singulo/tesla in cargo is fun, especially when you get to ship it to centcomm.

Singuloth has to go since oranges hates rad collectors, and to be fair he is right that rads->MW is a bad system that prevents power actually being a real game mechanic (although I hope he actually plans to make power an actually useful resource rather than the binary power works or everything turns off we have now).

Tesla on the other hand has nothing to do with rad collectors if my memory serves so I see no reason to take it out of the game as well.

[oranges]

I will not accept more than one type of engine, it's splits limited developer and design time.

One engine is sufficient, and makes it easier to flesh out to a real depth.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Eh I guess that's a fair cop - at least keep the coils in code for crystal lightning arcs (because it's metal as hell when you pull it off and strikes fear in both AI and the unrobust)

[oranges]

I'm happy for the lighting collectors to still exist so you can run the SM at high levels for the anomaly research, they just wont' generate power, although maybe they can generate heat instead as something to balance them out a bit.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Honestly barely even care about how much power you get as long as the engine is cool and enjoyable to work on.

The only power milestones currently present are
No power people and the ai cry at you
There's power and everything works
You have so much power you fry anyone that fucks a door without protection

The last one is hard to obtain without exploiting the rad system and balancing power opens up the possibility of tangible rewards for getting extra power in the grid.

[TheFinalPotato]

I'm happy for the lighting collectors to still exist so you can run the SM at high levels for the anomaly research, they just wont' generate power, although maybe they can generate heat instead as something to balance them out a bit.

To be clear, there are 2 types of machines that interface with bolts. Grounding rods, which stop a bolt chain totally, and tesla coils, which siphon off some strength which is then converted to charge.
If we remove the power gain from coils we are left with only rods.

I'd prefer to keep the coils as they allow engis to gain something "tangible" (ha power balance) from the engine. In my view the more interesting outputs the sm has the better. In contrast rads suck. Because rads. I think they could be saved, I'm just not sure how. Could you elaborate on why you dislike these two methods of power gen so I can better code around your view?

Needing to cool grounding rods sounds fun, I've been thinking about how to make them a imperfect solution and that sounds like it'd work.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Rads can't really be saved without removing the contamination mechanic that lets you generate obscene amounts of power by dumping items in the crystal chamber floor.

[MisterPerson]

Stop worrying about irrelevant stupid shit and focus on the real question at hand:

What about the SOLARS?

[TheFinalPotato]

Stop worrying about irrelevant stupid shit and focus on the real question at hand:

What about the SOLARS?

I don't care what you, or anyone else think about solars. They will die by my hand. (Or at least get debuffed a mite)

[CDranzer]

Getting the heat necessary to run the turbines at anything approaching the level required to run the station should be dangerous, and require constant management of the heat and inputs of the engine.

So is the idea that the engine won't be able to be left alone, and that it'll always require people keeping an eye on it?
Be extremely wary of alternatives if you go this route - solars, generators, etc - because if there's one thing people hate doing it's keeping an eye on things, and if you want them to manage the engine, you'd better be prepared to make sure they don't have a choice.

[Nabski]

Can cargo still build and sell Tesla’s and Singularities or not?

I understand the not generating power part but that always seems like a cool dangerous project that people like to do.

If solars go then I assume there would need to be a rework of Charlie station, unless they remain there as an “old” thing.

If there is only 10% more power than the station needs that makes it somewhat harder for stations to be different sizes. Delta with its infinite maintenance comes to mind. I guess the easiest way to fix that would be just don’t have every room powered on by default.

[Tarchonvaagh]

tesla singulo gone

Not cool, we need variety

[peoplearestrange]

Could a way to make SM containtment/cooling require power be done by powered pumps?

I always felt it odd that the movement of gas's is completely "free". So maybe coolant pumps could require power to operate? With more of the gas being moved per sec costing more power?

[Screemonster]

Will there be any change in the power consumption of machines and devices like lights and so on, to allow "basic" station operations to run on solars or a shit engine but require the engine to be set up properly in order for high-tier equipment to function?
Also - are there any plans to allow more detailed power management than "equipment, environmental, lighting", ie. turning individual high-power machines off when you're not using them?

[Flatulent]

Is there any chance turbines may be somehow retooled to generate research power like you could do with radcollectors?

[Nabski]

Is there any chance turbines may be somehow retooled to generate research power like you could do with radcollectors?

Pretty sure he said in the other thread we were going back to a passive point generation only, with specific things unlocking nodes. (I personally disagree with this because higher pop rounds are the ones that end sooner and they would also be the ones that more active research gets turned in.)

I personally would like to see a side grade of research parts that don’t increase efficiency but do take less power, so science still has an excuse to make the rounds.

[Horza]

Will there be any change in the power consumption of machines and devices like lights and so on, to allow "basic" station operations to run on solars or a shit engine but require the engine to be set up properly in order for high-tier equipment to function?
Also - are there any plans to allow more detailed power management than "equipment, environmental, lighting", ie. turning individual high-power machines off when you're not using them?

This is a very real concern given that the target for a stock new SM seems to only barely cover the station's power needs with T4 parts. I've put my opinions as a robust engineer in the thread the last time this was "discussed" by oranges, but right now power shouldn't be balanced around meeting subsistence needs by round-end without custom setups, but rather should reward custom setups handsomely past the ingrained ability to husk assistants trying to hack in to gain insuls.

Then you have the very real case of low-pop or low-RP servers across the entire tg codebase. If nobody sets up the SM or solars on most maps, then the station SMES arrays tend to have just enough power to handle 45 minutes, give or take. That's enough to handle a short round. If solars are on, then they're barely sufficient assuming their attendant SMES are set up properly (which they rarely are) and get fucked in half if a meteor storm or even space dust hits. They're supremely easy to sabotage compared to the SM too.

This can result in situations, like with Kilo due to its powergrid design requiring a good SM setup and upgraded SMES lest the entire station start suffering blackouts within the hour. Whenever Kilo wasn't crashing there'd be power-related shuttle calls 40 minutes in if I wasn't an engineer.

Simply put, it's stupid to require gas-related space-hungry turbine designs for power generation when even the stock goal is to just barely meet roundstart needs. You wouldn't even need to have power sinks anymore, just build random power-hungry machines here and there in maint and now you have your own distributed-grid power sinks without spending any TC.

[Domitius]

With power becoming more of a resource would the captain or chief engineer making calls to save power in interactive ways be fun?

One of the things that comes to mind is the night lighting event that happens. Would that able to be toggled to save power by players? Heck even shutting down gravity to save power in critical moments.

Good luck with the changes! Excited to see all of this.

[oranges]

Will there be any change in the power consumption of machines and devices like lights and so on, to allow "basic" station operations to run on solars or a shit engine but require the engine to be set up properly in order for high-tier equipment to function?
Also - are there any plans to allow more detailed power management than "equipment, environmental, lighting", ie. turning individual high-power machines off when you're not using them?

I would like to see the ability to toggle machines on and off individually easily.

in the mean time, I'd expect enviroment/lighting channels to run on basic solar power, but equipment would not run on that level of power, so you have to active power to do work.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

If you intend on allowing power to be cut to individual machines instead of being done carte blanche by the APC, does that mean potentially an overhaul to the apc interface? I ask because one of the things that always bothered me as AI was you could never bolt->depower doors without killing practically everything else in the room.

[deedubya]

I will not accept more than one type of engine, it's splits limited developer and design time.

One engine is sufficient, and makes it easier to flesh out to a real depth.

This is working on the huge assumption that multiple engines are somehow eating into developer and design time.

We have multiple engine types already, none of which have been touched in years apart from bare bones maintenance. They still see occasional use, have pros/cons to their use, and are well-liked by the playerbase.

What's the real reason to wanting to remove them?

[oranges]

you answered the question in your own response

none of which have been touched in years apart from bare bones maintenance.

Nobody will seriously argue that the Tesla, TEG or singularity even approach the basic simulation depth encountered with the supermatter.

The supermatter has this depth because I have applied a relentless focus and commitment to cementing it as the sole engine.

[TheFinalPotato]

Nobody will seriously argue that the Tesla, TEG or singularity even approach the basic simulation depth encountered with the supermatter.

The supermatter has this depth because I have applied a relentless focus and commitment to cementing it as the sole engine.

This is somewhat true. The main reason the sm keeps getting worked on is because it's used so much, which is a direct result of your decision to keep it alive.
On the other hand the main reason the sm has such depth is because it directly interacts with atmos, our deepest and most complex system.

The current state of the sm is the result of all the work that's been done on atmos over the years, and because it was linked so heavily to it around 3 years ago.
Most of the sm's mechanics, including the singulo and tesla delams, power and molar count directly damaging the engine aside from just heat, gasses more then plasma, o2, and n2 having any effect on the engine, the zaps the engine produces at high power, and the framework of process_atmos are all sourced from one pr. I'd argue that all the work that's been done on the sm's main mechanics since has been a continuation of the work done here. https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/24785.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Yeah I 100% agree that the beauty of the SM is 80% derived from the atmosphere interactions

Nothing beats being the mad engine scientist while anyone with access to the engineering comm channel visibly gets worried when you add the secret green gas into the chamber, or when the engine just glitches into flames roundstart before you've even turned it on and you have mongoloids bitching at you to wizard up the fix.

Except when your engine starts horizontalling people because they got Chernobyl'd/lightning bolted by trespassing without protection.

It would be remarkably disappointing if the new system doesn't have a lot of "engineer secrets" running behind the scenes.

[oranges]

it's the same engine, it just doesn't use the rad collectors

[XivilaiAnaxes]

it's the same engine, it just doesn't use the rad collectors

I mean that objectively can't be entirely true - currently the crystal generates small amounts of gas and engine design is based around keeping the temperature as cold as possible whereas your idea would be inverting this paradigm because you need both heat (fusion has been listed) and pressure (moles*heat) which means you probably need to redo the atmosphere interactions with the crystal and probably redo how trit works (currently it's the apex meme gas but if it ever catches fire (in your design it will) it just dissolves into water.

Also I should add I'm not sure if powered containment is the best idea - if memory serves the main problem with singuloth was that it was incredibly easy to grief, it would depend on how easy it is to quickly break containment on this powered containment system.

[Cobby]

spamming matter bins into a rped and tossing it into the crystal room isn't exactly an engineering secret.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

spamming matter bins into a rped and tossing it into the crystal room isn't exactly an engineering secret.

Nobody was implying that?

[Tamaguen]

Why are teslas going if they have a real purpose outside of power? You can set them to gather research points, it's more than just an engine.

[Cobby]

teslas do not (to my knowledge), the collectors do which have already been mentioned above.

[Cobby]

spamming matter bins into a rped and tossing it into the crystal room isn't exactly an engineering secret.

Nobody was implying that?

I had misread your first post as losing the exploit as a significant decrease in fun rather than the radiation system in general, my apologies.

[TheFinalPotato]

teslas do not (to my knowledge), the collectors do which have already been mentioned above.

Both tesla coils and rad collectors can be modified to gen research points. This is dumb and should be yeeted at some point.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

I suspect research points are being changed at some stage as Oranges isn't a fan of R&D as currently is.

[deedubya]

you answered the question in your own response

none of which have been touched in years apart from bare bones maintenance.

Nobody will seriously argue that the Tesla, TEG or singularity even approach the basic simulation depth encountered with the supermatter.

The supermatter has this depth because I have applied a relentless focus and commitment to cementing it as the sole engine.

That wasn't the point. You said you would only accept one type of engine - implying that you want to remove all the other ones, despite the fact that they require little to no effort to maintain and are well-liked pieces of content that still serve a purpose.

So to be clear: Do you plan on removing the TEG and both PA based engines?

[oranges]

yes I will remove them all.

[deedubya]

great, more shit to clean up downstream

thanks for the clear answer at least

[nianjiilical]

at least keep teg, its non destructive and interacts with atmos

[Cobby]

it's just hot and cold isn't it?

[oranges]

I will not keep the TEG