Power management

Right now it's infeasible to run multiple modules that you can't exactly power. You can shut them off by hand in the power menu, but that's clunky and not very well-suited to combat.

I propose allowing commanders to hotkey modules' power in the power menu; that way if you're running a ship like the Viper with power management issues, you can quickly toggle your weapons and various bounty hunting equipment with a keypress rather than fishing through menus.
 
I had my power at 124% and still running smoothly without manual toggles. You simply use the Priority Menu and make Thrusters/power/etc 1. , weapons 2. , others 3, and things you can not even use in combat mode e.g. FSD and Fuel Scoop to 4. Now although it says "Power Module Exceeded" it still powers weapons!
If no cargo then switch it OFF.
KWS is very power hungry and you can put that in 4 also and still use it in SC.
Point Defence turrets do not work unless you put it on a Secondary Fire Group and use this to arm them between groups.
 
Last edited:
I'm fully aware of that functionality and I use it to great effect, but that's limited to weapons deployed/not deployed. What if I want to switch between my KWS and my cargo scanner while my hardpoints are deployed? I'd have to do that manually through the menu.
 
Last edited:
Try no weapons on secondary fire group but has KWS. Make KWS Priority 1 if it does not override.
 
Last edited:
Well in that case it'll take more Prioritizing and sacrifice modules in combat. FD are discussing moving the KWS off Weapon Groups for this.
 
My impression is that the limitations we have are part of the balancing put into each ship in relation to the others. I enjoy the puzzle of trying to squeeze as much utility out of a Power Plant as I can. Convenience is not always the best measure of an idea.
 
I'm running my Vulture at 133% power (http://coriolis.io/outfit/vulture/24A5C4A3D5A4D3C0v0v06000l0b4a5d2o664u?bn=Vulture). I use aggressive power management and get great results. But the BEST way to do this is with VoiceAttack. My VA macros are helpful for many things but I have three power management macros that are crucial: "Warrant Scanner", "Cargo Scanner", and "Recharge". The Warrant Scanner macro toggles the Cargo Scanner off and KWS on. The Cargo Scanner does the reverse. The most difficult macro is Recharge. I have two SCBs that I recharge in parallel to get a full recharge to my A5 shield generator. To do this, the macro starts by switching off 1 C3 beam laser, the KWS and the Chaff modules. The SCBs are priority 2 so they switch on after the Laser, KWS and Chaff are off. Then the macro issues the SCB command and waits 7 seconds (5 seconds for the SCB delay and 2 seconds to dump the energy to the shields) before turning on the Chaff, KWS, and Laser in reverse order. The macro needs under 1 sec to do the initial setup. Then I'm free to fight with 1 C3 Beam Laser during the 7 second recharge. Then the macro needs another 0.5 sec to finish up after recharging. Against NPCs, using 1 laser is enough to cause a lot of damage.
.
These macros always leaves the Modules cursor on the first item in the list because the Warrant Scanner, Cargo Scanner, and Recharge macros rely on the cursor being in a fixed starting position. I never touch the Modules menu manually so this isn't an issue. If I ever change my module configuration, I always recheck the order of the items on the Modules page and recheck the module priorities to ensure that my macros will work with the new configuration. If you're going to use this, it works well but you must test it in a safe area because you'll make a mistake somewhere and it will leave the shields and/or life support offline.
.
In case you're wondering, I use VA macros for power management, TrackIR management, landing gear, chaff, SCBs, as well as commands to display all of the menus and maps each with a single word. For the most frequently used menus, I also have some buttons on the HOTAS but I find that I fall back on the voice commands when I'm not in a hurry. For example, in the heat of battle when I need to see the results of the KWS scan, I use the HOTAS button to launch the Contacts macro, but when I'm not in a hurry I just say "Contacts" to launch the same Contacts macro.
.
This game would not be the same without these VA macros. Having a verbal command interface to the ship's computer makes the game extremely efficient and takes some of the tedium out of flying.
.
Here's an excerpt of my Recharge macro. Notice that it is programmed differently based on the ship because only my Vulture requires the power management. My other ship (Python) doesn't need it so the macro is very simple for that case.
Recharge macro.jpg
 
Last edited:
i often wondered how people run multiple scb and toggle them on or off in combat

Leave up the modules menu, with the SCB selected. If you have the disabled SCB at a higher priority than the enabled one, enabling it will automatically disable the old one.

It takes three button presses (hat #2 left, fire, hat #2 left again), and about 0.3 seconds, for me to enable a disabled SCB and return to a combat ready position.

I do agree more hotkeys would be handy, but controls permitting, the current system is quite workable.
 
Back
Top Bottom