I'm a bit confused by energy consumption. If my warrant scanner isn't in my current fire group, does it use energy if my hardpoints are deployed? Or anything else for that matter.
Do weapons not in the current fire group use energy?
- Thread starter grantcurell
- Start date
Power? Yes. If it's online, it's using juice deployed or not.
Energy as in Distributor? No, unless recharging (for example, if you have lasers on a separate firegroup that are overheated or guns reloading, they are impacting - or rather, being impacted by - WEP energy).
But for your main question: yes, if it is 'online' it is using power. If you've too many modules online, you may get a power warning and modules will automatically offline based on their preferences set in your systems panel with 5's going offline first and 1's going offline last.
Weapons and certain modules do use less or more power depending on whether or not they are deployed, hence the two power displays at bottom of systems panel - one for deployed, one for not.
Energy as in Distributor? No, unless recharging (for example, if you have lasers on a separate firegroup that are overheated or guns reloading, they are impacting - or rather, being impacted by - WEP energy).
But for your main question: yes, if it is 'online' it is using power. If you've too many modules online, you may get a power warning and modules will automatically offline based on their preferences set in your systems panel with 5's going offline first and 1's going offline last.
Weapons and certain modules do use less or more power depending on whether or not they are deployed, hence the two power displays at bottom of systems panel - one for deployed, one for not.
Ah I think I phrased my question poorly. Say I have currently deployed - as in could actively fire just my weapons and I would have to cycle to next fire group to get to the warrant scanner. That still counts as deployed right?
Yep. The whole ship is deployed, regardless of firegroup up.
Anything not disabled or turned off consumes power from the power plant ( right hand panel ). Think of it as turned on and ready for use.
The capacitor ( PIPs ) is another power tool. This is how much you can use the powered on devices. If you're not firing your weapons, they still draw power, but not from the WEP cap.
In your scenario : The warrant scanner is drawing power, but not from the capacitor until you activate it. Once you're done scanning a target, it stops drawing from the cap and goes to a ready and waiting state.
The capacitor ( PIPs ) is another power tool. This is how much you can use the powered on devices. If you're not firing your weapons, they still draw power, but not from the WEP cap.
In your scenario : The warrant scanner is drawing power, but not from the capacitor until you activate it. Once you're done scanning a target, it stops drawing from the cap and goes to a ready and waiting state.
Depending on what you have equipped, some basic pointers on managing power (without engineering)...
1. Upgrade your powerplant to A-rated, this helps both power and heat management
2. Offline the Cargo Scoop, Planetary Hangar, and other auxiliaries you don't need except in 'non combat' situations
3. Change the priority of all your modules so that, even if all online with too little power, the stuff you 'don't need' offlines first. You'll still get an error message, but in the event of module failure the other stuff will online automatically in its place.
1. Upgrade your powerplant to A-rated, this helps both power and heat management
2. Offline the Cargo Scoop, Planetary Hangar, and other auxiliaries you don't need except in 'non combat' situations
3. Change the priority of all your modules so that, even if all online with too little power, the stuff you 'don't need' offlines first. You'll still get an error message, but in the event of module failure the other stuff will online automatically in its place.
How do you calculate these numbers?
Don't deactivate anything, just set your power priorities properly. The only modules that don't use power while not deployed is your weapons. But if you have your cargo hatch and fuel scoop set to a lower priority than everything else, and you're slightly overdrawn on power, the scoop and hatch will deactivate when you deploy hardpoints.
You can build your ship using this website.
Here's one of my ships already built and if you scroll down to the bottom you will see how much power I'm using and how I have my power priorities set.
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone
![[VR] Orodruin](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/237/237188.jpg?1614840532){kind=avatar}
Use power priorities instead. For example, the SRV bay should always be on lowest priority. It does not matter at all when flying and since your thrusters (that are typically your main power consumers) turn themselves off when you land, the SRV bay will always be available when you need it anyway.
To do all of the above things which are well advised, go to the "modules" tab on the right-hand interface.
There you can switch them on or off, and on the right-hand side of the screen you'll see what power priority is given for each module. At the bottom is a bar showing power draw respective to your output and so on. Changing priorities there will give you a sectioned bar so you can see what will turn off if you go over your max.
The posts above this are excellent though and don't need me to go over again - check the page in the manual again if you need a visual reference to any of these things. Once you've done it once though, it makes sense!
There you can switch them on or off, and on the right-hand side of the screen you'll see what power priority is given for each module. At the bottom is a bar showing power draw respective to your output and so on. Changing priorities there will give you a sectioned bar so you can see what will turn off if you go over your max.
The posts above this are excellent though and don't need me to go over again - check the page in the manual again if you need a visual reference to any of these things. Once you've done it once though, it makes sense!
Aye, that was #3 on the list. Personally, I offline stuff because I don't like the power warning message.
I'm OCD like that.
As you can imagine, I love the "change mode" error that frequently pops up if I have scanners and weapons in the same firegroup.
Because you'd think the ship knows I know the modes are different.
Oh well.
If I don’t misremember you can turn that off in the audio settings. I may be wrong but worth checking out.
Oh no, you don't understand.
Like...severe OCD gamerness...the flashing message, not just the audio. Anything that implies my perfect ship is not perfect is a problem.
Nevermind I fly a DBX regularly.
The most perfect ship.
You can imagine what I'm like in combat when five different lights are blipping because of engineered weapons.
It's why I fly Lakon - a blown canopy can't display error messages.
Glorious.