I've seen several posts asking about ships power today so I thought I'd put together a quick guide.
The Reactor
Your ships reactor outputs a maximum amount of power. That's it. Nothing special. It has no impact on how fast anything charges, how much you can fire, how far you jump, anything. The only consideration to this is the mass as mass effects your jump range.
The reactor effectively sets how many modules you can have running at the same time, depending on how much they need. You can certainly equip a module or weapon that exceeds the maximum output providing you take that excess into account, something I will explain further on. Once you've upgraded/gotten all your other components as you want and enough power there is no reason to upgrade your reactor any further, excepting tonnage concerns. If the next rating up weighs less then definitely consider the upgrade, but if you don't need the power and it weighs more, pass on it.
Power Distributor
The Power Distributor has more functions than the obvious one of placing pips in subsystems, but I will explain that as well.
The power distributor functions as both a power relay and as a capacitor. The better it is the more power is available to a given system at once, it's charge, and the faster that charge is replenished. This is regardless of how much energy your reactor supplies. You can see the differences between the various classes and grades when comparing them in the outfitting menu. The numbers shown are an expression of the maximum output possible rather than a constant, and they are effected by the power allocations.
Power allocation works like this:
It is extremely important to adjust your settings frequently if you wish to be effective in combat. Power in Systems has little effect if you aren't taking shield hits or are using shield boosters. Likewise you don't need max Engines if you are following a slower ship that isn't trying to out turn you, or Weapons if you are just scanning for warrants. It has been reported that placing more pips in Sys will increase your survivability from impacts, but the reasons still appear to be speculative.
Module Prioritization
If you fit equipment that uses more than the maximum available or your reactor becomes damaged your ship may begin to shut components down. Most players experience this the first time when they attempt to deploy hardpoints in battle with their shiny new laser beams. This is preventable and easily controlled and planned for.
On the modules tab you will notice a priority setting that usually has all '1's and '2's. If the ship exceeds it's maximum output it will begin shutting down systems with the lowest priority. Despite only seeing 1 and 2's you can go as far as 5, providing you use each intervening number, meaning you can go to 3 only if you have 1 and 2, 4 only if 1-3 etc. These numbers are set via left and right.
Since you will most commonly see power issues in combat with weapons deployed it is obvious that you will want to put your non-combat items lower, ESPECIALLY you frame-shift drive. You cannot use your frame-shift drive with your weapons deployed so it should not be the same priority as your weapons. Similarly you are unlikely to need a discovery scanner while fighting, or picking up cargo while being shot at...hopefully.
I recommend thrusters, sensors, and shields be set to 1, life support and weapons to 2, combat relevant modules 3, and everything else 4/5 - including frame shift drive. As mentioned above, you cannot frame shift with weapons deployed anyway. I should mention that I have gotten strong feedback from Commanders suggesting that life support be priority 1 instead of 2 so keep that in mind when deciding your priorities.
Experiment and adapt this to your play style. By setting priorities you will be able to get more out of your ship than you have the juice for, and you won't have to sweat the previously dreaded 'Power limit exceeded, modules shutting down' message. I recommend the life support at 2 rather than 1 because even if it shuts down, you have at least 5 minutes to get out of the situation, retract your hardpoints for a moment to reset the clock, or get blown up. Given the trade between a cool on screen and audio effect and not being able to shoot I choose the life support down effect. That said, it is very unlikely that priority 2 will go down if you place them as I've described.
Once again, I hope that this has been helpful. If you have any comments, questions, or corrections please feel free to let me know so that I can address them.
See you in the black!
*I'd like to thank everyone for the feedback and corrections submitted. Keep em coming and I'll keep +reping and updating
The Reactor
Your ships reactor outputs a maximum amount of power. That's it. Nothing special. It has no impact on how fast anything charges, how much you can fire, how far you jump, anything. The only consideration to this is the mass as mass effects your jump range.
The reactor effectively sets how many modules you can have running at the same time, depending on how much they need. You can certainly equip a module or weapon that exceeds the maximum output providing you take that excess into account, something I will explain further on. Once you've upgraded/gotten all your other components as you want and enough power there is no reason to upgrade your reactor any further, excepting tonnage concerns. If the next rating up weighs less then definitely consider the upgrade, but if you don't need the power and it weighs more, pass on it.
Power Distributor
The Power Distributor has more functions than the obvious one of placing pips in subsystems, but I will explain that as well.
The power distributor functions as both a power relay and as a capacitor. The better it is the more power is available to a given system at once, it's charge, and the faster that charge is replenished. This is regardless of how much energy your reactor supplies. You can see the differences between the various classes and grades when comparing them in the outfitting menu. The numbers shown are an expression of the maximum output possible rather than a constant, and they are effected by the power allocations.
Power allocation works like this:
- Sys: You can increase your systems capacitor more quickly by putting more power in here. This effects your shields and some modules.
- Eng: You can increase your maximum speed, maneuverability, and the frequency with which you can boost
- Wep: This increases you weapons recharge and heat dissipation. To my knowledge this does not effect ammunition reload speed. Some utility modules use this as well, such as point defense.
It is extremely important to adjust your settings frequently if you wish to be effective in combat. Power in Systems has little effect if you aren't taking shield hits or are using shield boosters. Likewise you don't need max Engines if you are following a slower ship that isn't trying to out turn you, or Weapons if you are just scanning for warrants. It has been reported that placing more pips in Sys will increase your survivability from impacts, but the reasons still appear to be speculative.
Module Prioritization
If you fit equipment that uses more than the maximum available or your reactor becomes damaged your ship may begin to shut components down. Most players experience this the first time when they attempt to deploy hardpoints in battle with their shiny new laser beams. This is preventable and easily controlled and planned for.
On the modules tab you will notice a priority setting that usually has all '1's and '2's. If the ship exceeds it's maximum output it will begin shutting down systems with the lowest priority. Despite only seeing 1 and 2's you can go as far as 5, providing you use each intervening number, meaning you can go to 3 only if you have 1 and 2, 4 only if 1-3 etc. These numbers are set via left and right.
Since you will most commonly see power issues in combat with weapons deployed it is obvious that you will want to put your non-combat items lower, ESPECIALLY you frame-shift drive. You cannot use your frame-shift drive with your weapons deployed so it should not be the same priority as your weapons. Similarly you are unlikely to need a discovery scanner while fighting, or picking up cargo while being shot at...hopefully.
I recommend thrusters, sensors, and shields be set to 1, life support and weapons to 2, combat relevant modules 3, and everything else 4/5 - including frame shift drive. As mentioned above, you cannot frame shift with weapons deployed anyway. I should mention that I have gotten strong feedback from Commanders suggesting that life support be priority 1 instead of 2 so keep that in mind when deciding your priorities.
Experiment and adapt this to your play style. By setting priorities you will be able to get more out of your ship than you have the juice for, and you won't have to sweat the previously dreaded 'Power limit exceeded, modules shutting down' message. I recommend the life support at 2 rather than 1 because even if it shuts down, you have at least 5 minutes to get out of the situation, retract your hardpoints for a moment to reset the clock, or get blown up. Given the trade between a cool on screen and audio effect and not being able to shoot I choose the life support down effect. That said, it is very unlikely that priority 2 will go down if you place them as I've described.
Once again, I hope that this has been helpful. If you have any comments, questions, or corrections please feel free to let me know so that I can address them.
See you in the black!
*I'd like to thank everyone for the feedback and corrections submitted. Keep em coming and I'll keep +reping and updating
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