Module capacity exceeded?

[Shadowma]

Hi just curious if something has changed, usually when I am a dogfight & start losing I can escape by jumping away by either hyper drive or super cruise. But recently experienced message stating module capacity exceeded? And was subsequently destroyed. I understand when I am outfitting if I try to mount a item that uses more power than my power plant puts out this can happen, but have never ran into this as a result of combat damage. Is this a glitch or something that I have been lucky not to have to had happen yet? Thanks for any info for advice.

Shadowma

 

[NeoTron]

If your power plant is damaged, it can lose power. That's why it's best to utilize all priority levels (or at least more than two). What I do:

Priority 1:

• Thrusters

Priority 2:

• Shields
• Sensors
• Power Distributor
• Life Support
• Shield Boosters

Priority 3:

• Weapons
• Shield Cells
• + Other combat only items
• Chaff etc.

Priority 4:

• Combat scanners

Priority 5

• FSD
• Cargo Scope
• Frameshift Interdictor
• Non-combat scanners, auto repair units etc

this way if you lose power, you first lose ability to scan, then offensive capabiltiies, finally shields (and you're unlikely to lose power if you have shields), but you're highly unlikely to lose thrusters. Once weapons are stowed, FSD will power up (you might want to put combat scanners on 3, FSD on 4, just so it outweighs other non-combat modules).

TLDR: Use all 5 priorities to make you more resilient to power drops.

 

[Shadowma]

Hey good info, thanks I did not know we could set those like that, I will be going through & correcting that asap.
Thanks again.

Shadowma

 

[GammaZ]

IMO setting shield to high priority is somewhat pointless, you need to loose shield to get powerplant damaged, and if you already lost shield it does not matter if it is powered or not in most cases as it will take forever to restart/recharge.

 

[NeoTron]

Well, imagine the scenario where the shields went down, power supply was damaged enough to lose some power. Shields being level 2 means they will still recharge even if I lost offensive capabiltiies. If they were on the same level as the weapons, they just wouldn't recharge.

 

[GammaZ]

In theory you are right.
But in practice... you will either die, flee, or win the fight before you shield can be restored. It is best to assume that once shield is offline it is gone until the end of the fight - you need to act accordingly. Probably giving higher priority to weapons, instead of shield/shield boosters. IMO.
Posible exception is small ships with really weak shields, like sidewinder.

 

[eugval]

One trick is to put shield boosters on a lower priority than the generator itself - that way when they lose power your shield will regenerate quicker, as regen speed is based on the total shield value, which will become less.

 

[Morbad]

Rarely do I bother with utilizing all priority levels, though I can see situations where it would help. Normally, I disengage well before my power plant is at risk.

But in practice... you will either die, flee, or win the fight before you shield can be restored.

More than once I've lost shields, disengaged, disabled boosters, waited for shields to be restored, renabled boosters, used an SCB charge, returned to the same fight in the same instance, without entering SC or jumping, and prevailed over at least some of those CMDRs responsible for dropping my shields.