Power Management

[Scones]

this has some potential but as it stands is pretty fucking boring - if you decide to be the power-manager-engineer your round is always:

>set up solars/sing
>never touch them again
>you are getting huge excess power (upwards of 400k on eff3 solars)
>power fails in an area
>someone cut a wire
>replace wire

i wish there was more you could do, like configure what equipment in an area would lose power first so you can actually cut down nonessentials in contrast to total shutoff. its also influenced by the fact that sing/solars generates huge excess amounts of power to the point where power literally will never be an issue unless large sections of wire are destroyed and 'power management' is really looking at the console to see which APCs aren't charging.

[Snakebutt]

I think the solution to power isn't in the output, but in the usage.

Make equipment use more power. Recharging a mech? Say goodbye to a fuckload of power. Chemist working at maximum output? Add a 'rapid recharge' button that drains the fuck out of the APC to regain power faster. Siphon/flood an area with air/plasma? Running those vents at high output takes a lot of power compared to their usual passive output.

Basically, by default the power usage of the station is pretty low and efficient, but when the round gains momentum and people start working, maaaybe the solars alone just won't cut it. It would lead to monitoring the APCs, increasing their draw from the grid if they're being used heavily (keeping them high by default leads to a shitload of wasted power, as the APCs drain that much power from the grid and make it go poof if the power cell is full, so you want them as low as possible to avoid wasting it.

Also give the singulo 2-3 less collectors, forcing you to make do with less until science makes you a few new boards, and giving time to atmos to spacecool a canister of plasma for the engine.

[callanrockslol]

If coderbus didn't I DED NERF PLS being shocked by doors you might understand how much power is available with just lord singloth.

Also if you were around for when it was never worth recharging a power cell ever you might think there is no power because they did exactly what Snakebutt suggested but waaaaaaaaay faster.

[QuartzCrystal]

Eh, I'm more down for reducing the amount of power solars and the singulo generate (or at least making it harder to maximize the output). Would make being an engineer more interesting.

[dezzmont]

Having power be a currency that engineering could dole out would be interesting.

As is we have mechanical support for it from chemistry, and updating botany, cargo, security, and medical to be a bit more power hungry would be easy. Nominal operations would be fine with just the singulo but power excess from solars would allow chemistry to pump stuff out at ridiculous rates or let botany supercharge a lighting rig to grow stuff fast.

Bonus points: Gives the captain the reason to shout "I need more power" and the CE to shout "I am giving her all she's got captn!"

[Snakebutt]

Oh yeah, dezz reminded me of just how power intensive high order hydroponics can be. IRL, a lot of pot operations are caught by the MASSIVE use of power all those lights take. 5 lights are availible from the machine, and more can be ordered from cargo. Each one uses as much power as the entire room does by default, but increases all positive mutations by an amount and adds 1-3 to yield/growth. This and a pump attached to a tank can allow for low upkeep, high output growth so one botanist can use all the trays without being a slave to them.

[AnonymousNow]

New roundtype - Hostile Takeover.

Crew decides to rebel against Centcom, has to build and maintain a massive tractor beam that drags the Centcom Z-level to immediately (North/South/East/West - whichever direction it's pointed) of the station, whilst being attacked by Deathsquads of various flavours supported by ERTs. Then they have to take over a Centcom filled with people an admin assigns to its defence. Tractor beam has MASSIVE power draws, and part of Centcom's defence strategy is to drain the station's power grid to arrest the pulling, which the crew has to counter.

[Snakebutt]

an engineering mode other than shuttlebuild would be neat, but moving the centcom station is a terrible idea. Have you SEEN that z-level? The area you land in is about all there is to it, everything is in isolated rooms floating in space. It's a mess because it isn't meant to be used.

[AnonymousNow]

an engineering mode other than shuttlebuild would be neat, but moving the centcom station is a terrible idea. Have you SEEN that z-level? The area you land in is about all there is to it, everything is in isolated rooms floating in space. It's a mess because it isn't meant to be used.

I miss old Centcom. The Centcom that had stuff in it.

We have a gateway mission that's an old, abandoned Centcom as we had before. And even a really old Uterus station, if I recall correctly.

[mikecari]

Is it possible to counter a power sink with a fuck-ton of power? Or do you always have to find it yourself? If not then maybe make it so that all four solars + singulo can stop a power sink from completely screwing the system.

[Jalleo]

People do want to make actual power management a thing but currently due to how it was designed and coded for years now it will be difficult

[Malkevin]

Wiring fully loaded singularity engine directly into the grid negates powersink if I remember correctly.

Only problem is that after absorbing x-amount of power it explodes

[kosmos]

This would be awesome. Even a change to singulo's output power amount, so it wouldn't create a huge surplus, would make things more interesting.

Maybe there could be a way for engineers to set up fuses around the station which could be switched on/off from engineering to disable power from station wings, to detect where the powersink is or be a power tyrant.

[Malkevin]

Most of the power systems are set up and forget.

Solars aren't quite optimal, unless you wire them directly to the grid then they're fine - SMESes basically work as a back up power system on a secondary loop.

Singulo though is literally fill up tanks, start up the engine, set power to ON-0 and fuck off for 9 hours