PP sniping useless now

[Crimson Kaim]

A Powerplant undergoing malfunction (at any % health) gives 40% power.

A Powerplant reduced to 0% health gives about 20% power during an initial stabilisation period, then after a few seconds gives 50% power.

It will continue to give 50% power indefinitely, without reboot/repair.

For the above reasons every careful pilot should configure their power priorities with full regard to the consequences of both 40% and 50% power.

NPCs are still unaffected though. I've tested it and there is no way a Vulture can run its thrusters, shields and plasmas with a pp at 0%

 

[Old Duck]

The latter. Just imagine your PP power output goes 100% => 20% => 50%.

If more than 50% power use is one priority one, everything goes down. If you have a group one using less than 50% of the total base power,
these modules will keep working out fine with the PP at 0%.

That's actually very good to know! I usually just assign power priorities based on sharing power with hungry modules / weapons. I never thought about configuring it for PP failure. That explains why there are so many levels of power management. Huh!! I'll have to take some time and redo my PM schemes based on this new knowledge

 

[Ouberos]

It is a bug. Whether it gets fixed or not is anyone's guess. Until its fixed diamond Piracy is pretty much a zero skill occupation.

 

[Mohrgan]

Take an assassination mission. You'll most likely be up against a Dangerous or Deadly Anaconda. Shoot it's PP to 0%. Guaranteed it will continue to act as normal.

I personally was undecided as to whether this is more likely to be a bug or good power priorities. However, given that's in the 'Known Issues' list it appears likely to be a bug.

Separately but linked: has anyone else noticed that the RNG destruction check upon shooting the 0% PP again appears to have been vastly reduced, ie, many more hits typically needed to kill...?

I have certainly noticed that. It may be just coincidence, but it seems that the higher the rank, and the bigger the ship, the less chance of touching off the PP. I see this when you compare std. RES targets v. Assassination missions. I kind took it as a bit of realism baked in.

 

[sqzbox1]

I take it you have never had your PP shot out.

Indeed - I have never had the pleasure. But given yours and Truesilvers comments I guess I have to stand corrected. But it does seem bizarre to me that previously, once a PP was shot out and after a short time while caps were drained, they would become effectively a sitting duck. This would seem to me to be the whole point of potshotting the PP. If it only goes to 40% production rather than zero then why don't they do something? fly away, supercruise out, get shields, or something. but no, they just sit there - which was what I was after of course. So there would seem to be an inconsistency surely - if they have power, even 40%, why don't they at least move. They act like they have zero power. Well - they used to. So which is it? If they have 40% power why aren't they at least moving? If they are dead in the water then surely they must have zero power? Doesn't quite add up somehow.

 

[Truesilver]

Indeed - I have never had the pleasure. But given yours and Truesilvers comments I guess I have to stand corrected. But it does seem bizarre to me that previously, once a PP was shot out and after a short time while caps were drained, they would become effectively a sitting duck. This would seem to me to be the whole point of potshotting the PP. If it only goes to 40% production rather than zero then why don't they do something? fly away, supercruise out, get shields, or something. but no, they just sit there - which was what I was after of course. So there would seem to be an inconsistency surely - if they have power, even 40%, why don't they at least move. They act like they have zero power. Well - they used to. So which is it? If they have 40% power why aren't they at least moving? If they are dead in the water then surely they must have zero power? Doesn't quite add up somehow.

Sorry just to be pedantically accurate, it's actually 50% power if PP at 0%. The 40% output is reserved to malfunctions (counter-intuitive, perhaps).

But yeah, I agree. NPC behaviour at 0% PP seems somewhat binary. I don't do much PvE but the following seems to be a rough sequence, by versions of ED, starting with older:

- Originally, blown up (because 0% PP was death, same for players)

- Then, stopped dead, did nothing

- Then, programmed to reboot/repair asap

- Now, completely ignore but also sometimes reboot/repair

Anyway, like I said, roughly.

But ideally NPC behaviour and power priorities should scale by rank. I have no problem with a low-rank NPC basically having useless priorities so the whole ship shuts down.

An Elite NPC, imo, should immediately retract hardpoints and attempt to wake out (with priorities permitting this).

Others, somewhere inbetween.

I never have, so forgive this noob question - if PP is taken out, do you continue as normal until your distributor empties, or is it akin to when deploying hardpoints on a maxed PP and modules start powering down regardless of distributor status?

A distributor that is at 0% health, or even deactivated deliberately, does not lose its pips. Rather, the pips remain locked in their prior distribution.

So, if you have your distributor at 4-0-2 pips and switch it off, your Wep cap will still charge at 2 pips. You just can't move pips.

Where the problem comes in is that a Distro reduced to 0% health will almost certainly have suffered prior malfunction. Malfunction randomly re-distributes the pips. In other words, if your Distro goes to 0%, probably your pips will not only be locked but also locked in a random/useless config.

But answering your question directly, loss of PP does not directly affect the Distributor. It may switch it off via de-powering as above, but that is all.