New ''power'' system upcoming -- Power Output/Consumers spreadsheet

RainstormRainstorm Montreal (Quebec) Join Date: 2015-12-15 Member: 210003Members
While scourring the Trello i fell on this spreadsheet on what the new power system should look like if not enterely accurate to reflect what base piece will provide/drain in terms of energy. Some of those are already update to reflect this some arent and/or will be in the near future im guessing. This is a WIP spreadsheet i think and may not perfectly depict what it will really be in the end but that gives us a fairly good idea on how it'll work in the near future!

POWER SYSTEM BALANCE

What comes to my attention immediately, personally, is the fact that the moonpool structure will consume more energy than what the filtration system uses/will use .... lol
Also since they are in the process of redoing ALL of the power mechanic visibly i'd profoundly wish that they gave us a way to manually shut down any piece that drain power (thru a control panel buildable in the base for example)
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Comments

  • RainstormRainstorm Montreal (Quebec) Join Date: 2015-12-15 Member: 210003Members
    edited June 2017
    Fathom wrote: »
    What immediately springs to my eye is that a Bioreactor cannot even sustain the room it needs to be build in. Like that, it wouldn't serve any purpose at all, not even as a night time backup.

    Both fuel based reactors look like they are in dire need of reevaluation.

    Agreed, also i think that 10p/minute for a single room is a bit pushed, compared to 1p/m for a single corridor ....
  • HiSaZuLHiSaZuL N.Y. Join Date: 2016-11-11 Member: 223803Members
    edited June 2017
    This is exactly what people were criticizing and said would happen if they went this way.

    Nope... Not touching the game until they get their ducks back. Still making tank threads and then attaching them to a skateboard. This is the same garbage that bethesda pulls, ala settlements ala just about everything they did in past decade tbh. Half baked unfinished ideas that never really get finished, hell they don't even try to put bandaids on them anymore, they don't fix anything tbh but that is a different topic entirely. No amount of promises that things will get "fixed" and "balanced" LATER can convince me of anything. It's one thing when that kind of promise is given by a dev studio that has 20 years of patching their products to perfection even decades later and always keeping their word and never going with the sheep flow... and another thing entirely when it's done by an indie studio.

    I want to believe. I really do... but that has to be earned first. Not later, maybe.

    Spotlights are not cities, turning H20 into oxygen doesn't require a nuclear reactor can be done with a damn car battery, turning water with excess sodium(sea water) into drinkable water only requires heat, 1 pot, 1 cover and one god damn glass... again not a damn nuclear reactor.
  • WiirlakWiirlak Blaton Join Date: 2017-05-26 Member: 230772Members
    I don't mind passive draining energy for room but adjust accordingly the power output ..

    And the prawn walk faster than the cyclops in slow !? o.0
    It is ridiculous, boost the cyclops speed (except silent running, this one make sense)
  • HiguideHiguide NJ Join Date: 2017-04-03 Member: 229385Members
    this needed to happen, thermal makes all other sources obsolete really.
  • gamer1000kgamer1000k Join Date: 2017-04-29 Member: 230121Members
    edited June 2017
    I've seen self-sustaining fusion reactors mentioned a few times as an idea for an end-game power source. The idea is that they would extract hydrogen fuel from seawater, so they would be an unlimited power source. This could potentially be the top-tier reactor for deep bases not near a thermal vent.

    Nuclear reactors also need a huge buff in stored energy, and by extension, runtime. IMHO, it should be able to run for a bare minimum of a year of game time at 100% load. Lighter loads would let it last longer (real reactors can be similarly throttled using control rods), but there should be some degradation over time regardless of whether the reactor is in use or not (or even if the rods are just sitting in storage).

    Power output also needs to be significantly higher, the PDA describes them as one being able to power a colony, so by that logic one nuclear reactor should be enough to power all but the largest of seabases.

    Random Trivia: Animal/vegetable fat (roughly what the bioreactor runs off of) has about 37 MJ/kg, but uranium in a reactor has about 80,000,000 MJ/kg. The game's energy values are off by many, many orders of magnitude.
  • Sam_StarfallSam_Starfall Join Date: 2017-05-21 Member: 230665Members
    I don't think they can fail something as straightforward as balancing production/consumption value.
    I'm more worried about them keeping the game-design of "power source = storage" approach we have now, I wish the powercell was the basis of all energy storage, seabase included.

    (shameless link to my recent suggestion)
    https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/151993/using-the-powercells-charger-as-the-main-base-battery/p1?new=1
  • zetachronzetachron Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
    Let's see where this is going. I have a big base with about 30 MP rooms and lots of corridors and 2 moonpools. Not to forget the other devices. So an estimated 500 energy per minute drain, but also about 40 thermal plants giving me an output of 4000 energy per minute, so thermal plants definitively work.

    My minibases would have only have a 25-50 energy per minute output and a drain of 15-40 energy per minute, but run out of energy after some time as I rarely visit them and then it depends what happens to the life inside a dead base. Will my fish and plants die? If they do, the bioreactor has a small problem.

    And now even more why should I built a nuclear reactor with these values. The nuclear reactor will be the worst reactor in the game then. Longevity of the rods should be drastically increased by factor 100, but compensated by needing dozens more of uranite to build.
  • zetachronzetachron Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
    Maybe we just need a robot drone to auto refill the bioreactor and nuclear reactor from a nearby storage container. Or even easier a simple container or plant pot link to the reactors.
  • gamer1000kgamer1000k Join Date: 2017-04-29 Member: 230121Members
    zetachron wrote: »
    Maybe we just need a robot drone to auto refill the bioreactor and nuclear reactor from a nearby storage container. Or even easier a simple container or plant pot link to the reactors.

    Peeper pipe from alien containment to bioreactor.
  • RalijRalij US Join Date: 2016-05-20 Member: 217092Members
    HiSaZuL wrote: »
    This is exactly what people were criticizing and said would happen if they went this way.

    Nope... Not touching the game until they get their ducks back. Still making tank threads and then attaching them to a skateboard. This is the same garbage that bethesda pulls, ala settlements ala just about everything they did in past decade tbh. Half baked unfinished ideas that never really get finished, hell they don't even try to put bandaids on them anymore, they don't fix anything tbh but that is a different topic entirely. No amount of promises that things will get "fixed" and "balanced" LATER can convince me of anything. It's one thing when that kind of promise is given by a dev studio that has 20 years of patching their products to perfection even decades later and always keeping their word and never going with the sheep flow... and another thing entirely when it's done by an indie studio.

    I want to believe. I really do... but that has to be earned first. Not later, maybe.

    Spotlights are not cities, turning H20 into oxygen doesn't require a nuclear reactor can be done with a damn car battery, turning water with excess sodium(sea water) into drinkable water only requires heat, 1 pot, 1 cover and one god damn glass... again not a damn nuclear reactor.

    Dude, deep breaths. This is not a 1.2 update where the changes are final. They're fiddling with it and it'll swing back in another direction in the next update or two. Critical feedback is important, but you seem to be freaking out a bit on us. Woosa, woosa.

  • zetachronzetachron Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
    gamer1000k wrote: »
    zetachron wrote: »
    Maybe we just need a robot drone to auto refill the bioreactor and nuclear reactor from a nearby storage container. Or even easier a simple container or plant pot link to the reactors.

    Peeper pipe from alien containment to bioreactor.

    Unfortunately I can't put those fish into the bioreactor. I tried but simply couldn't. I can eat them, but not that.
  • MalsqueekMalsqueek United States Join Date: 2016-05-17 Member: 216835Members
    gamer1000k wrote: »
    Nuclear reactors also need a huge buff in stored energy, and by extension, runtime. IMHO, it should be able to run for a bare minimum of a year of game time at 100% load. Lighter loads would let it last longer (real reactors can be similarly throttled using control rods), but there should be some degradation over time regardless of whether the reactor is in use or not (or even if the rods are just sitting in storage).

    I do agree that some sort of late-game fusion reactor would be a good idea, but realistically, the Nuclear Reactor might make more sense handled as an expensive base battery with tens of thousands of stored units on install, and a maximum output rate of something like 50 units a second.

    Make it run off a single rod at a time, make the rods expensive to refine, and make them last a long long time unless you are going buck wild with the fabricator. It really ought to be the last power thing you build except for maybe right before making a rocket to get off the planet.

  • ThePassionateGamerThePassionateGamer Germany Join Date: 2016-06-07 Member: 218219Members
    gamer1000k wrote: »
    Random Trivia: Animal/vegetable fat (roughly what the bioreactor runs off of) has about 37 MJ/kg, but uranium in a reactor has about 80,000,000 MJ/kg. The game's energy values are off by many, many orders of magnitude.

    Thank you for putting that info up here. I wanted to do this search myself but forgot about it. It further backs the argument that even with the tenfold output uranium rods should hold way longer then 16 fish. :wink:
  • william1134william1134 Join Date: 2017-01-09 Member: 226439Members
    Do we have batteries or energy storage? I don't really want my solar powered base to go dark and flood during the night.
  • ThePassionateGamerThePassionateGamer Germany Join Date: 2016-06-07 Member: 218219Members
    Do we have batteries or energy storage? I don't really want my solar powered base to go dark and flood during the night.

    No, at this point we have nothing alike for our bases. Just the batteries and power cells the tools and vehicles use. Some people including me, ask and hope for a buildable power storage- module/locker/capacitator to add to the base total energy. In addition to that I think it would be good if you would have a single energy pool instead of several seperate pools (on for each power generating device).
  • zetachronzetachron Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
    Do we have batteries or energy storage? I don't really want my solar powered base to go dark and flood during the night.

    Each reactor has its own capacity differing from energy output. So if it gets night the solar panels capacity discharges until depleted. If you have enough panels and therefore enough capacity the panels will recharge the next day before getting depleted.
  • RedDirtTrooperRedDirtTrooper USA Join Date: 2016-12-02 Member: 224437Members
    This games resource use, in general, is retarded and getting more so. A nuclear generator should basically solve energy concerns forever as far as I'm concerned. I've basically reached the conclusion that short of the massive use of the command console or the release of 3rd party mod support that Subnautica is just aimed at a totally different market than me. The constant pressure for resources and way they keep increasing difficulty is just not my thing, and they have no happy medium. It's either unforgiving and ridiculous or completely turned off. I find it a little sad than an awesome, open world, exploration game has slowly turned into a story driven survival horror game that's all about constant and tedious resource management.
  • nocommonsensenocommonsense Join Date: 2016-08-16 Member: 221427Members
    I find it annoying that they would keep the spotlights as a power hog. They're mostly decoration so it's not gameplay breaking. With LEDs those little spotlights would be consuming about 10 watts of power, less than a typical coffee maker (which they treat as free). Lets keep going, it takes most reverse osmosis plants about three to 10 kilowatt-hours of energy to produce one cubic meter of freshwater from seawater. Ours takes about 15mins which is about half a day/night cycle so we can infer about 12 hours, so 250W to give you 1000 liters of which a human needs 3 per day. So for personal use a RO filter costs about as much energy as a coffee machine (assuming it drips out at the same rate as your typical drip coffer maker). But that's game breaking so I can forgive that. Meanwhile the scanner room is treated as cheap when their energy consumption would be measured in kilowatts. A square meter of solar above water at 20% efficiency assuming similar radiation as our sun gives roughly 200W, so I want 10 spotlights per solar generator. Also worth considering is that a seamoth would probably use close to a kilowatt hour of energy per km. With a range of about 38 km it should take 5 solar panels about 3 game-days (because daylight) to fully recharge a seamoth. In contrast a smaller naval nuclear power generator gives you around 50MW, about the same amount of power as if the entirety of the safe shallows were completely covered in solar panels, in daytime.

    Also, some of the faster ships in the US Navy are also the biggest (ask any sailor who's served on one), having 2 nuclear reactors (each significantly bigger than the puny example I used earlier) means being able to literally twist their steel drive shafts on themselves like a candycane. With full up Ion power cells the cyclops should be allowed to do ludicrous speed.
  • HerugrimHerugrim The Poconos Join Date: 2016-08-15 Member: 221402Members
    edited June 2017
    Ugh, last time they reworked the power systems it damn near broke the game to me. Not looking forward to this.

    And no I don't think the moon pool power consumption needed to be buffed, at all. As it is parking my seamoth when it is low on power will typically shut down my base, especially if I have a filtration machine running. Granted I don't farm for extra generators so my power supply isn't in the thousand as apparently everybody else does (along with swimming around with six air tanks. The Hell is wrong with you people?) But buffing it further just means I won't use it outside of crafting mods. Why bother when you can charge two power cells in a power cell charger for a fraction of the consumption rate? It's just bad economics. Pack the extra cells, fuck the moon pool.
  • JackeJacke Calgary Join Date: 2017-03-20 Member: 229061Members
    Herugrim wrote: »
    Ugh, last time they reworked the power systems it damn near broke the game to me. Not looking forward to this.
    Well, it's something that still needs to be addressed, so we'll have to wait for it to come out, test it, and then provide constructive criticism.

    Herugrim wrote: »
    And no I don't think the moon pool power consumption needed to be buffed, at all. As it is parking my seamoth when it is low on power will typically shut down my base, especially if I have a filtration machine running. Granted I don't farm for extra generators so my power supply isn't in the thousand as apparently everybody else does
    Don't quite understand you at all here. I get by with 12-16 Solar Panels and 3+ Thermal Plants and that gives me a reserve of about 600-800 and enough output to supply a triple Alien Isolation, 2 Water Filtration Plants, and enough beyond that to power a Fabricator as well as a Battery Charger and some Powercell Chargers. Docking a Seamoth in a Moonpool didn't break anything either.

    Herugrim wrote: »
    ...along with swimming around with six air tanks. The Hell is wrong with you people?
    We don't want to asphyxiate exploring large wrecks. But that's the old tank system and has already been replaced in Experimental.

    Now can only draw from the tank in the paperdoll. But there's a new tank, High Capacity Oxygen Tank, which can be made with the Fabricator from the Standard Oxygen Tank with more Glass, Titanium, and Silver, that has a 90s supply. Still need to swap but only need 1 or 2 spares. Still needs a readout of how much oxygen is in a tank with mouse-hover (like batteries and tools) and you need to swap tanks before swimming out to ensure they're filled.

    Herugrim wrote: »
    But buffing it further just means I won't use it outside of crafting mods. Why bother when you can charge two power cells in a power cell charger for a fraction of the consumption rate? It's just bad economics. Pack the extra cells, fuck the moon pool.
    You need the Moonpool to build a Vehicle Modification Station to craft Seamoth and PRAWN mods. And there's no problem recharging either in a good base, at least before Ion Powercells. After is another case I've not yet tested.
  • DaveyNYDaveyNY Schenectady, NY Join Date: 2016-08-30 Member: 221903Members
    edited June 2017
    Their new O2 tank usage plan has killed the game for me.

    Ah well...

    I guess I already got my $15 dollars worth.
  • WiirlakWiirlak Blaton Join Date: 2017-05-26 Member: 230772Members
    What !? 6 .. Wait .. how the .. I always played with 1 .. latest stable or experimental ..

    Seriously, you need more air ? Get back to surface, brain coral, subs, base ..
    The game would not be fun if i have air for 5 min, no worries to have ..
  • Sam_StarfallSam_Starfall Join Date: 2017-05-21 Member: 230665Members
    Herugrim wrote: »
    Ugh, last time they reworked the power systems it damn near broke the game to me. Not looking forward to this.

    I haven't been on that game for long, can someone tell me how important was said rework? I want to know if there was a major change of space/gameplay that went with it.
  • JackeJacke Calgary Join Date: 2017-03-20 Member: 229061Members
    DaveyNY wrote: »
    Their new O2 tank usage plan has killed the game for me.

    I've not yet played a game from start with it, so I've not tested it thoroughly, now that I have all the vessels. It's likely to be a challenge but I think it's worth trying.

    I used to run with up to 6 extra tanks and now I can get more oxygen with the Ultra Capacity Tanks very soon in a game with 2 spare tanks. However, we still don't have a way to see how much oxygen is in a tank by mouse-hover.

    And we really need to prep for a dive by swapping all the tanks so that they fill and we can see they're filled.

    So, a couple of irritants I wish were fixed.
  • Sam_StarfallSam_Starfall Join Date: 2017-05-21 Member: 230665Members
    It is wrong for me to have never carried more than 3 UCT (including the one I wore) ?
    To me the planned change and the new Double Ultra Capacity tank is very generous. I always used to carry a Seaglide on me, several battery and tools, so this change will greatly increase what I can carry
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