i've made some thoughts about energy management and came to the conclusion that something like my Pipelines UI could be used as well for energy management (i assume that everyone read the linked thread, to get some basic idea of how the details should look)

albeit with small changes
this first image shows the basic types of nodes.

• Reactors
  the core elements of all energy management.
  they create power that is then distributed along power lines.
  if power is input to a reactor, it distributes this surplus to its connected systems according to their settings
• capacitors
  capacitors store energy that can be released on command into connected systems
  release can be triggered by hotkeys or the specialised "trigger" input connector
• systems
  systems are everything that needs energy.
  weapons, drives, shields etc.
  they only have inputs for energy but outputs for "trigger" signals that go into capacitors.
  these tiggers are caused by actions on the system
  a weapon might cause its trigger signal when fired, a drive when the player presses the "afterburner" key, a shield when it gets below a treshhold etc.
  this trigger is shown by the red line in the first image
• groups
  groups are "black box" constructs without any physical manifestation that just serve the purpose of making management easier.
  so one might create 2 groups containing different weapons, to allocate energy independently to them
  groups are also collapsible, to reduce interface clutter

all systems are nodes in a graph.
all nodes can receive and send out power along power lines.
power lines are defined by a common drag-a-line style interface, so you start creating a power line by dragging from a connector on one node to another connector
connectors are either input or output, so that the direction of energy/command flow is always defined between 2 connectors.

parametrisation of connectors (how much energy) should look like the comfort zone settings for Pipelines

when one drags a node over another one the dragged one gets added as "child" to the static node.
causing all connections to go from the static to the dragged one.
this makes setting up hierarchies very fast, as you just drag things onto each other.

nodes that cannot have children, because they only support ingoing connections will form groups when dragged over each other
this shows a basic group structure.
the reactor feeds the different groups (weapons, drives, shields) which feed their respective sub-groups
in this case weapon group 1-3.
if one of the super-groups gets more energy allocation, the sub-groups automatically get more energy.
according to their settings.
this can also be used for generating different subnets.

in this example weapons have an independent energy supply that is different from drive and shield supply.

this is interesting for big military ships, which may mount multiple smaller generators instead of one bigger one.

to provide redundancy for their weapon systens, that they can stay combat worthy even if their main reactor is damaged / destroyed





(gosh... how i hate writing!)

some things i forgot to mention at 2 AM yesterday (today ._.)

command / trigger signals can also be routed from group nodes to other group nodes or systems.

this issues the command authority of the connected nodes to the node from which the signal comes from

this way multiple turrets can be controlled as one (like multi-turret assemblies in X3)

or multiple turret assemblies can be ordered from a single control node.
(imagine turret command in EVE online, but with more fine control)

so you might slave the control of a few turrets to good gunner NPC's and slave them to the command of a good commander, coordinating their fire.



another thing was:

this hierarchial gouped nodes are also present in the simple energy control interface (like the one that was included in the prototype)

so instead of having directly energy management -> weapon 1, weapon 2, weapon 3, weapon 4
you have energy management -> weapons -> weapon group 1 -> weapon 1, weapon 3

allowing a very fine but still quick control over energy assignments

from the simple interface one cannot change the groupings or routing, but can make much quicker adjustments to specific groups/systems

So, to put it in simpler terms so people like me can understand, this is a system that allows you to group things up so as to control a group of one thing as opposed to controlling one thing at a time?

Did I get it right?

Idunno wrote:So, to put it in simpler terms so people like me can understand, this is a system that allows you to group things up so as to control a group of one thing as opposed to controlling one thing at a time?

Did I get it right?

well, yes.

And it allows you to define from where systems get their energy and which way the energy takes to the systems.

You can also define which weapons and turrets get controlled as one, as weapon banks

I like it. A way to group hardpoint controls in any way I like for various reasons and redundancies sounds great. How will the AI know what to do though?

I'm with Hyperion on this one . It's a great idea .

Hyperion wrote:How will the AI know what to do though?

The AI would need a way of detemining energy allocations nevertheless, so it can still use its normal routines.

For the trigger controlled caps it only needs to know where the energy ends up when it uses them.
Which it would need to know already.

Trigger controlled caps only apply to player-owned ships tough

So long as the reactors produce actual power, and the systems use actual power, I'll be happy.

Down with magic energy teleported in from the aether! A ship is its own little micro economy, every action should have a power cost, paid for from the ships total power budget.

CutterJohn wrote: Down with magic energy teleported in from the aether! A ship is its own little micro economy, every action should have a power cost, paid for from the ships total power budget.

Now! The new and improved magic aether reactors!
You ever run out of hydrogen on the way to alpha centauri and had to limp to the next overpriced fuel station?
Not anymore!
The new magic aether reactor uses a patented array of unicorn horns to turn the energy of child laughter into megawatts of electrical energy!
never run out of power again with the magic aether reactor!



besides my little joke im on your side cutterjohn ^^

bump because of interface month

You convinced me to login and post from an iPhone. This idea is obviously superb.
If you could edit the power through some kind of modular system that would be pretty cool. For example, I could use the reserve resources of the ship to install a new secondary reactor and capacitor that seperately fuels the left side of the ship, so that now the right side weapons don't steal the power of the left research part of my super carrier.

I will clarify this if no one understands once I reach my computer..

Black--Snow wrote:You convinced me to login and post from an iPhone. This idea is obviously superb.
If you could edit the power through some kind of modular system that would be pretty cool. For example, I could use the reserve resources of the ship to install a new secondary reactor and capacitor that seperately fuels the left side of the ship, so that now the right side weapons don't steal the power of the left research part of my super carrier.

I will clarify this if no one understands once I reach my computer..

i understand you and that was more or less the intention why i proposed this system.

to enable multiple energy nets aboard a ship (for example left weapon banks and right weapon banks)

Just a thought on capacitors. I would love to see being able to route my energy into a capacitor, and release it all at once into my lazors when the target is locked.

The AI should also sometimes choose this, going between a few strong hits or many weak hits depending on the situation and target (many weak lasers firing at those darting fighters, but firing the giant laser at the much less maneuverable battleship)

Capacitors when attached to lasers should in my opinion give out their maximum output rate until the capacitor is drained or the laser overheats.

Also for an interesting weakness, if a highly charged capacitor is damaged, it might explode with all the force of the energy inside, perhaps blowing up the whole ship it was on.

Hyperion wrote:Just a thought on capacitors. I would love to see being able to route my energy into a capacitor, and release it all at once into my lazors when the target is locked.

The AI should also sometimes choose this, going between a few strong hits or many weak hits depending on the situation and target (many weak lasers firing at those darting fighters, but firing the giant laser at the much less maneuverable battleship)

Capacitors when attached to lasers should in my opinion give out their maximum output rate until the capacitor is drained or the laser overheats.

Also for an interesting weakness, if a highly charged capacitor is damaged, it might explode with all the force of the energy inside, perhaps blowing up the whole ship it was on.

for this are the "trigger" signals.

attach cap to weapon, link weapon trigger to cap -> automatic overdrive when fired

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