tl;dr version: With the upcoming changes to powerplant damage, the very least we need is more power priorities so that losing some megawatts leads to more gradual ship failure, not sweeping shutdowns of a whole range of subsystems.
So 1.4 will change how damage to the power plant affects the ship:
The gist of it:
- Power plant at 0% only has a small chance to cause ship destruction.
- Power plant taking damage reduced power output.
All I read here is that power plant sniping is still the preferred tactic, instead of guaranteeing a faster kill, it now makes the killing easier with the added chance for a fast kill. Why easier?
- Lower power output means some modules will auto-shutdown, according to power priorities.
- Assuming decent power priority settings, the opponent's ship will lose active systems, and more likely than not, and rather sooner than later, something combat-critical will have to give. Especially the combat ships are starving for power all the time already. Just losing a few percent of maximum power could cripple and Eagle, Viper, Vulture and FDL.
- Ships like the Courier, Python and Anaconda will (relatively) benefit from this change because they can be set up to have a few MW spare power that they can lose without causing any trouble.
- Generally, not just for combat builds but anyone who faces the risk of being attacked regularly (= all but the most dedicated explorers who see the ubble once in a while only), the power plant won't be a place to make compromises any more. Like, an efficient multi-purpose Python build with a 6A/7C power plant that just has enough power for everything? Forget it, 7A or gt-eff-o. A trader with a 2A/3A power plant for weight savings and heat efficiency? You already have little more than engines and shields that needs power, losing any of those precious megawatts would could spell an immediate death sentence; instead of just blowing up at powerplant 0%, you end up as a unshielded sitting duck at, say powerplant = 50%.
- This is why I said, instead of faster kills, they will be easier with power plant sniping (as opposed to targetting the ship hull). In the best case, the target still explodes at 0% power plant, in the worse case, it may be a defenseless husk waiting to be destroyed/plundered.
- In a sense, this is a boon to pirates. Their target will now be, 100% of the time, the power plant. Forget about the engines, or the FSD. Just destroy the power plant and thereby turn off all their systems, and shrug of the rare random kill resulting from that.
- Targetting the power plant now becomes the de factor standard for everything that doesn't die in a few hits. Even against a Viper, you'd be better off doing so, because you're likely to force its weapons to shut down, for example, or prevent it from engaging the FSD if it decides to escape.
- Against pilots who have not set any power priorities, it could shut down the entire ship at some point. This will massively exaggerate the disadvantage of inexperienced player in this regard. At the very least, I say this change mandates some form of sensible automatic power priority when a module is bought, i.e. instead of them all starting at priority 1, they would start at a priority according to their importance for survival (e.g. guns > cargo hatch). I am not sure whether or how players are normally educated about power priorities and what to use them for at the moment, but this is a topic that would need emphasize and detailed explanation in the manual.
- Against NPCs, well. I hope they will use power priorities, too. Considering that it is not something that takes lots of practice, and can basically done by anyone mechanically following a simple list (for example engines: 1. shields: 2. guns: 3. KWS: 4. FSD: 5), I would say that power priorities should not be something reserved for the best NPCs only. Maybe Harmless and Mostly Harmless NPCs could still do without, but beyond that, they should all employ decent power priority setups.
- What this change does not address at all, still, is that armour and hull packages still won't help you. The power plant will still receive damage from all directions not blocked off by other modules, and still not benefit from a tougher ship. Shield tanking, SCB spam and power plant sniping will still be king.
In conclusion, I am not sure whether this change may not actually be detrimental to the overall game. You now have to worry about your power output all the time, where the dedicated fighters already have no wiggle room whatsoever. For PvP, things stay mostly the same, except that piracy receives an indirect buff, beyond that, the same tactics will be employed. What will change, mostly, is which ships and loadouts remain viable,
For PvE, it will reduce kill speed against NPCs, which coupled with their better AI in the next update, means that bounties, combat bonds and combat missions would need yet another increase to compensate, lest trading once again becomes the one and only way to decent money.
I would like to state, however, that I do like the idea of power plant damage reducing power output. What I don't like is that we have no way to immediately assess our situation (power output vs consumption, powerplant health) without fiddling with the modules panel, no way to plan ahead or mitigate the effects in the combat ships, and only little possibilities on the ships more generous with power (besides taking the biggest power plant and the least power-hungry guns).
I've got some ideas what could/should be done in addition, to make the situation much better, the gameplay more interesting and more loadouts viable, all the while retaining the upcoming change, which again, is a good idea in principle, but bad for gameplay when done on its own:
- Armour and hull packages shall buff all internal modules (i.e. anything except weapons and utilities) to the same extent they affect the hull.
- The body of all ships becomes able to block damage to modules. Only from specific angles should modules be able to hit, i.e. that one angle where the path through the hull to the module is the shortest, and from anywhere else a laser beam or bullet would only strike the hull. Splash damage from cannons, plasma weapons etc. of course would still apply according to where the projectile hit, how the damage falls off away from the point of impact etc.
- Every ship gets looked at and the power plant (or any other module) moved away from the center of the ship. I don't know whether this is the geometric center or the center of mass, or a manually chosen fixed location, but it is the point where NPCs, gimbals and turrets aim at. Some ships currently have their power plants at this very location, so that it does not even require intentional aiming at the power plant to damage it.*
- The output of power plants and/or consumption of all modules needs to be revisited, so that generally the situation is significantly relaxed in some cases. Power starving cannot be the default mode for combat ships when you must be prepared to lose some of those megawatts when you get damaged.
- We need more than 5 power priorities. Given the upcoming changes, I would like to define more complex setups than we are able to do now. At the moment, there is little more to it than the difference between weapons deployed and not deployed. In the future, there will be a gradual wear on the power output according to power plant damage, and therefore, I want to prepare my power priorities for an equally gradual reaction. I am thinking of something like 100 power priority levels here (technically, the number of individual power consumers would suffice, but 100 will work for everyone and is a nice, round number), so that every weapon, every utility, every single thing that consumes power, can be put into its own priority. For example, atm I have all weapons at priority 3. In the future that would mean I lose all weapons as soon as my power drops below the level required to support them all. Therefore, I want them each on their own priority that when the power drops, at first only a single weapon shuts down, then as further power plant damage is accrued, another weapon is toggled off, then maybe one of the shield boosters, etc.
I understand from a UI perspective, lots of power priorities might be awkward to set up when you only have the arrows, but you don't have to set this up all the time anyway, so spending a few minutes getting everything just right can save your life when due to your planning, even when badly damaged you still have that one multi-cannon running and may be able to grab victory from the jaws of defeat...
(*That said, NPCs, gimbals and turrets should stop aiming for that spot at all times anyway. If a big ship is in my view, but somewhat above me, and the gimbals can't move all the way up to hit that spot, but could still hit some other part of the enemy, more distant from its center - the gimbals often prefer to just disengage and aim forward, because they don't regard the entire bulk of the target, just that one unfortunate coordinate. But just changing the location of the affected modules would already help immensely, and is easier to implement.)
So 1.4 will change how damage to the power plant affects the ship:
The gist of it:
- Power plant at 0% only has a small chance to cause ship destruction.
- Power plant taking damage reduced power output.
All I read here is that power plant sniping is still the preferred tactic, instead of guaranteeing a faster kill, it now makes the killing easier with the added chance for a fast kill. Why easier?
- Lower power output means some modules will auto-shutdown, according to power priorities.
- Assuming decent power priority settings, the opponent's ship will lose active systems, and more likely than not, and rather sooner than later, something combat-critical will have to give. Especially the combat ships are starving for power all the time already. Just losing a few percent of maximum power could cripple and Eagle, Viper, Vulture and FDL.
- Ships like the Courier, Python and Anaconda will (relatively) benefit from this change because they can be set up to have a few MW spare power that they can lose without causing any trouble.
- Generally, not just for combat builds but anyone who faces the risk of being attacked regularly (= all but the most dedicated explorers who see the ubble once in a while only), the power plant won't be a place to make compromises any more. Like, an efficient multi-purpose Python build with a 6A/7C power plant that just has enough power for everything? Forget it, 7A or gt-eff-o. A trader with a 2A/3A power plant for weight savings and heat efficiency? You already have little more than engines and shields that needs power, losing any of those precious megawatts would could spell an immediate death sentence; instead of just blowing up at powerplant 0%, you end up as a unshielded sitting duck at, say powerplant = 50%.
- This is why I said, instead of faster kills, they will be easier with power plant sniping (as opposed to targetting the ship hull). In the best case, the target still explodes at 0% power plant, in the worse case, it may be a defenseless husk waiting to be destroyed/plundered.
- In a sense, this is a boon to pirates. Their target will now be, 100% of the time, the power plant. Forget about the engines, or the FSD. Just destroy the power plant and thereby turn off all their systems, and shrug of the rare random kill resulting from that.
- Targetting the power plant now becomes the de factor standard for everything that doesn't die in a few hits. Even against a Viper, you'd be better off doing so, because you're likely to force its weapons to shut down, for example, or prevent it from engaging the FSD if it decides to escape.
- Against pilots who have not set any power priorities, it could shut down the entire ship at some point. This will massively exaggerate the disadvantage of inexperienced player in this regard. At the very least, I say this change mandates some form of sensible automatic power priority when a module is bought, i.e. instead of them all starting at priority 1, they would start at a priority according to their importance for survival (e.g. guns > cargo hatch). I am not sure whether or how players are normally educated about power priorities and what to use them for at the moment, but this is a topic that would need emphasize and detailed explanation in the manual.
- Against NPCs, well. I hope they will use power priorities, too. Considering that it is not something that takes lots of practice, and can basically done by anyone mechanically following a simple list (for example engines: 1. shields: 2. guns: 3. KWS: 4. FSD: 5), I would say that power priorities should not be something reserved for the best NPCs only. Maybe Harmless and Mostly Harmless NPCs could still do without, but beyond that, they should all employ decent power priority setups.
- What this change does not address at all, still, is that armour and hull packages still won't help you. The power plant will still receive damage from all directions not blocked off by other modules, and still not benefit from a tougher ship. Shield tanking, SCB spam and power plant sniping will still be king.
In conclusion, I am not sure whether this change may not actually be detrimental to the overall game. You now have to worry about your power output all the time, where the dedicated fighters already have no wiggle room whatsoever. For PvP, things stay mostly the same, except that piracy receives an indirect buff, beyond that, the same tactics will be employed. What will change, mostly, is which ships and loadouts remain viable,
For PvE, it will reduce kill speed against NPCs, which coupled with their better AI in the next update, means that bounties, combat bonds and combat missions would need yet another increase to compensate, lest trading once again becomes the one and only way to decent money.
I would like to state, however, that I do like the idea of power plant damage reducing power output. What I don't like is that we have no way to immediately assess our situation (power output vs consumption, powerplant health) without fiddling with the modules panel, no way to plan ahead or mitigate the effects in the combat ships, and only little possibilities on the ships more generous with power (besides taking the biggest power plant and the least power-hungry guns).
I've got some ideas what could/should be done in addition, to make the situation much better, the gameplay more interesting and more loadouts viable, all the while retaining the upcoming change, which again, is a good idea in principle, but bad for gameplay when done on its own:
- Armour and hull packages shall buff all internal modules (i.e. anything except weapons and utilities) to the same extent they affect the hull.
- The body of all ships becomes able to block damage to modules. Only from specific angles should modules be able to hit, i.e. that one angle where the path through the hull to the module is the shortest, and from anywhere else a laser beam or bullet would only strike the hull. Splash damage from cannons, plasma weapons etc. of course would still apply according to where the projectile hit, how the damage falls off away from the point of impact etc.
- Every ship gets looked at and the power plant (or any other module) moved away from the center of the ship. I don't know whether this is the geometric center or the center of mass, or a manually chosen fixed location, but it is the point where NPCs, gimbals and turrets aim at. Some ships currently have their power plants at this very location, so that it does not even require intentional aiming at the power plant to damage it.*
- The output of power plants and/or consumption of all modules needs to be revisited, so that generally the situation is significantly relaxed in some cases. Power starving cannot be the default mode for combat ships when you must be prepared to lose some of those megawatts when you get damaged.
- We need more than 5 power priorities. Given the upcoming changes, I would like to define more complex setups than we are able to do now. At the moment, there is little more to it than the difference between weapons deployed and not deployed. In the future, there will be a gradual wear on the power output according to power plant damage, and therefore, I want to prepare my power priorities for an equally gradual reaction. I am thinking of something like 100 power priority levels here (technically, the number of individual power consumers would suffice, but 100 will work for everyone and is a nice, round number), so that every weapon, every utility, every single thing that consumes power, can be put into its own priority. For example, atm I have all weapons at priority 3. In the future that would mean I lose all weapons as soon as my power drops below the level required to support them all. Therefore, I want them each on their own priority that when the power drops, at first only a single weapon shuts down, then as further power plant damage is accrued, another weapon is toggled off, then maybe one of the shield boosters, etc.
I understand from a UI perspective, lots of power priorities might be awkward to set up when you only have the arrows, but you don't have to set this up all the time anyway, so spending a few minutes getting everything just right can save your life when due to your planning, even when badly damaged you still have that one multi-cannon running and may be able to grab victory from the jaws of defeat...
(*That said, NPCs, gimbals and turrets should stop aiming for that spot at all times anyway. If a big ship is in my view, but somewhat above me, and the gimbals can't move all the way up to hit that spot, but could still hit some other part of the enemy, more distant from its center - the gimbals often prefer to just disengage and aim forward, because they don't regard the entire bulk of the target, just that one unfortunate coordinate. But just changing the location of the affected modules would already help immensely, and is easier to implement.)
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