SRV Warning Messages (oxygen depletion/power issues)

[Orion Zendaris]

Hello CMDRs!

I recently started exploring planetary surfaces with my SRV, only to find my Anaconda blow up after a couple minutes and I'm left stranded. Now before anyone makes the sly remark to dismiss one's ship - I'd like to point out that this is precisely the cause of the issue.

To explain: My ship is outfitted for planetary exploration, so to save weight my power plant is a little too small to power all my modules at once. One of my solutions is to deactivate my vehicle hangar while flying about, and only activate it after landing (upon which the thrusters are automatically deactivated). As it turns out, a ship will attempt to dismiss itself after a certain distance (2 Km?) while you drive away in your SRV, or you may decide to dismiss it yourself prior to that. When the ship attempts to leave, the thrusters will be reactivated and the power consumption can exceed the supply. This can cause your life support to deactivate (depending on your module priorities) and thus your ship runs on emergency oxygen until depletion (= self-destruct sequence).

The issue: While driving around in your SRV, you're completely unaware of any of this happening until it's too late (unless you're lucky enough to realise the ship hasn't left when it should have and decide to head back onboard to investigate). After all, the only warning message "Your ship is under attack" appears after the oxygen has already depleted and the ship self-destructs, followed a second later by the "Emergency - Ship destroyed". Got to say the communication in 3303 is superb. LOL

The fix: Of course you can tweak your module priority to circumvent the power consumption issue, buy a bigger power plant, or even just think ahead enough to realise this might happen before experiencing it first hand. Nevertheless, I'd personally feel a whole lot safer within the void if such issues were transmitted to my SRV the same way they are displayed while in my ship:

If module power consumption exceeds supply: "Power limit exceeded. Modules disabled."
If life support is deactivated: "Warning: oxygen depleting."
Followed by the oxygen depletion count down displayed (=self destruct sequence).

Alternatively a message when attempting to dismiss the ship stating "Launch failed. Insufficient power." would also suffice. This would be even better if the thrusters then remained deactivated by failing to initiate instead of causing a complete shutdown of all modules.

Regards,
OZ

 

[Teh Smoo]

Why didn't the shields and everything else go offline when the thrusters spooled up? Did you have any power priorities set? Wasn't the scoop and SRV hangar on lowest priority? Even shields can be lower priority than thrusters and life support.

 

[space voyager]

I agree messages concerning the ship.should be transmitted. I have to say though that I'd never go into such extreme power management as to have thrusters deactivated at any time. Obviously it can lead to problems...

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Messages are good, +1

But you really shouldn't be putting your ship under such tight power constraints that you can barely power the important stuff. -1!
Taking any power plant damage reduces it's output, so you should have a small safety buffer of additional power, just in case.
Not to mention, your life support should be the highest priority (1), so never shuts off.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Orion Zendaris]

Why didn't the shields and everything else go offline when the thrusters spooled up? Did you have any power priorities set? Wasn't the scoop and SRV hangar on lowest priority? Even shields can be lower priority than thrusters and life support.

Of course you can tweak your module priority to circumvent the power consumption issue [...]. Nevertheless, I'd personally feel a whole lot safer within the void if such issues were transmitted to my SRV the same way they are displayed while in my ship.

The fact I had power issues do to my module priority set up is fine (turned out I accidentally left my cargo hold activated prior to deploying in my SRV). That's a learning experience and would have been the simplest thing for me to correct.

The fact that an automated feature in the game - designed to protect your ship - can silently cause a self-destruct is simply irresponsible. To be clear: The self-destruct itself isn't the issue either, however the lack of info about its activation is.

But you really shouldn't be putting your ship under such tight power constraints that you can barely power the important stuff. -1!
Taking any power plant damage reduces it's output, so you should have a small safety buffer of additional power, just in case.
Not to mention, your life support should be the highest priority (1), so never shuts off.

This is true, if you feel like playing it safe.

Personally I prefer a little bit more of a risk and enjoy having to manage all my modules individually to compensate for power limitations in favour of jump range. As for power plant damage - that's why I carry an AFMU! Which requires me to power down my thrusters to use it as well (which is a situation most explorers are familiar with).

As for the risk: that's my responsibility. Transmitting vital messages such as oxygen depletion, should be the least I can ask of my ship's computer (or the NPC crew member onboard considering their life literally depends on it). But thankfully you already agreed to that part.

Regards,
OZ

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

You can't repair a power plant.

 

[Orion Zendaris]

You can't repair a power plant.

You're right. Never noticed that, so thank you.

EDIT: Having done my own research and case studies on the subject of powerplants: Powerplant output isn't reduced until it reaches 0% integrity. At that point it will blow up sooner or later anyways. That being said - a higher class powerplant will have a higher integrity, so it can sustain more damage for a longer time before hiitng zero. Therefore my build above wasn't that wrong.