(I've tried and failed to find existing threads which touch on this but it's quite possible I missed them, cos this must surely have been done before...)
Although it occasionally bugs me that the PD capacitors have capacities listed in "MW" instead of "MJ" (brings to mind some of my old lecturers who'd give zero marks if an otherwise perfect answer had the wrong units
), I have been trying to put that behind me.
However, having also vaguely noticed in the past that the arithmetic for the power flow around ships didn't seem to stack up, I've now actually looked at it more closely, taking my combat Anaconda as a sample. It made me wince a bit
This particular ship's 8A CE/SC PD can indefinitely provide 10.81 MJ/s (aka MW!!) to the weapons systems. But yet the PD only draws 0.96 MW from the PP, and - plot twist!! - you can actually completely switch it off and yet the power distribution automagically keeps happening. So... OK, let's say that the PD's draw just reflects the amount of power required to um, run the distribution control panel & buttons. A megawatt seems a little generous for that, being enough to power a decent-sized village, but we'll press on.
Each of my weapons draws some constant power from the PP when deployed, and of course they draw from the WEP capacitor to supply the power required for actually firing them.
The total of the draw from WEP when firing is 9.25 MW, so yes indeed - since this is less than the PD's 10.81 MW - I can fire all weapons indefinitely when I have 4 pips to weapons.
The total of the constant power draw from the PP, however, amounts to a mere 4.78 MW... so you have to wonder where the 10.81 MW is coming from to recharge WEP.
But OK, my PP's maximum output ("power capacity") right now is 35.28 MW (7A, OC/Monstered). This means that at least in principle it's able to provide much more than the weapons can consume. But I have lots of other systems also drawing on that power, and the numbers don't appear to stack up, because there's just not all that much left over with everything running.
This leads me down the path of: what happens if the entire output of the PP isn't enough to provide the power that the PD can route to WEP?
Well, obviously once I thought of the question I had to put it to the test.
This build shows how I butchered my lovely ship, with a 2D PP installed (and 5A thrusters so it could still move) and basically everything else turned off. That PP can deliver no more than 7.2 MW...
(I didn't actually remove all of the utilities and optionals for the test, but just disabled them - they're not shown in the linked build to reduce distraction about my odd choices on a ship I built years ago when I was even more of a noob)
Well, at this point you won't be surprised to hear that the test was a success. Deploying the hardpoints obviously cripples the ship (thrusters offline, and even the life support until I remembered that I did have enough spare to run it).
But: the weapons can indeed run indefinitely with 4 pips to WEP, cheerfully consuming more power than the PP can provide.
(You have to turn the PD on to adjust the pips, of course, and then off again to get the thrusters back online. It was fun to get it docked after the test - because enabling sensors to request docking permission also disables the thrusters)
Overall, I'm kinda puzzled that they've chosen the numbers this way.
I can't think of any good reason why power supply/demand figures couldn't have been chosen such that it all would have worked out. It's not like the game wasn't designed and written by people with scientific & engineering leanings, and not like plenty of the game's consumers weren't pretty much the same
Although it occasionally bugs me that the PD capacitors have capacities listed in "MW" instead of "MJ" (brings to mind some of my old lecturers who'd give zero marks if an otherwise perfect answer had the wrong units
), I have been trying to put that behind me.However, having also vaguely noticed in the past that the arithmetic for the power flow around ships didn't seem to stack up, I've now actually looked at it more closely, taking my combat Anaconda as a sample. It made me wince a bit
This particular ship's 8A CE/SC PD can indefinitely provide 10.81 MJ/s (aka MW!!
) to the weapons systems. But yet the PD only draws 0.96 MW from the PP, and - plot twist!! - you can actually completely switch it off and yet the power distribution automagically keeps happening. So... OK, let's say that the PD's draw just reflects the amount of power required to um, run the distribution control panel & buttons. A megawatt seems a little generous for that, being enough to power a decent-sized village, but we'll press on.Each of my weapons draws some constant power from the PP when deployed, and of course they draw from the WEP capacitor to supply the power required for actually firing them.
The total of the draw from WEP when firing is 9.25 MW, so yes indeed - since this is less than the PD's 10.81 MW - I can fire all weapons indefinitely when I have 4 pips to weapons.
The total of the constant power draw from the PP, however, amounts to a mere 4.78 MW... so you have to wonder where the 10.81 MW is coming from to recharge WEP.
But OK, my PP's maximum output ("power capacity") right now is 35.28 MW (7A, OC/Monstered). This means that at least in principle it's able to provide much more than the weapons can consume. But I have lots of other systems also drawing on that power, and the numbers don't appear to stack up, because there's just not all that much left over with everything running.
This leads me down the path of: what happens if the entire output of the PP isn't enough to provide the power that the PD can route to WEP?
Well, obviously once I thought of the question I had to put it to the test.
This build shows how I butchered my lovely ship, with a 2D PP installed (and 5A thrusters so it could still move) and basically everything else turned off. That PP can deliver no more than 7.2 MW...
(I didn't actually remove all of the utilities and optionals for the test, but just disabled them - they're not shown in the linked build to reduce distraction about my odd choices on a ship I built years ago when I was even more of a noob
)Well, at this point you won't be surprised to hear that the test was a success. Deploying the hardpoints obviously cripples the ship (thrusters offline, and even the life support until I remembered that I did have enough spare to run it).
But: the weapons can indeed run indefinitely with 4 pips to WEP, cheerfully consuming more power than the PP can provide.
(You have to turn the PD on to adjust the pips, of course, and then off again to get the thrusters back online. It was fun to get it docked after the test - because enabling sensors to request docking permission also disables the thrusters
)Overall, I'm kinda puzzled that they've chosen the numbers this way.
I can't think of any good reason why power supply/demand figures couldn't have been chosen such that it all would have worked out. It's not like the game wasn't designed and written by people with scientific & engineering leanings, and not like plenty of the game's consumers weren't pretty much the same
). The weapon capacitor determines "how much energy is available to cool weapon systems." If the capacitor runs out; the weapons overheat. If they don't have enough power, the module shuts down completely upon deployement, Firing consumes no power at all, neither from the plant, nor from the capacitor, above what is needed to deploy them and keep them deployed. Find the equation to explain that...