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lets see, engines use 14, rcs 4, lasers 8+8+11, (radar 2, grappler 30), shield 12. I have a nullspace generator of power 50, capacity 600. If I am not mistaken, 14+4+8+8+11+12 (no grappler or radar) = 57. This means unless I am actively shooting guns, my energy will not deplete, correct? This also means that while using everything, my energy will deplete at 7 per tick (35/second, with 5 ticks as I expect). However, while shooting lasers and ramming into an asteroid, my energy depletes in about 5 seconds - a rate four times faster than expected.

Testing reactor with minimal engine use, lasers + grappler (grappler is kinetic, listed 30 power use) Grappler+lasers, 30+27, a 57 drain (note: same as expected with shields) seems to slowly drain my energy. Turning on engines increases the speed, but it is nowhere near the drain of the shield generator. As a matter of fact it was so slow, I found it unable to accurately measure. Ballpark figure says approximately 26 seconds of drain with engines+weapons+grappler (14+4 + 8+8+11 + 30), 75 total. 25 of that was drained. This means that *per second* I lost about 25 energy, compared to the shield example of losing ~120 per second.
Second test seems to indicate that everything is pulled once per second.


Outcome seems to indicate that shields are pulling way higher than their expected rate. My estimate is that shields are pulling 5 times a second, and everything else once. In the shield example, this means that engines and lasers (14+4 + 8+8+11), 45 is pulling once per second (net, -5 due to reactor output), where as 12 is being pulled 5 times (-> 60 drain per second), leaving 55/second drain total. But even that does not match the measured drain in energy. That is HALF of the measured drain in energy.

I tested a couple of other shields to very similar results - the draw seems much higher than what I understand from the numbers. Even the civilian shield would cause my ship to lose energy.

Now, depending on if youve used shields before, you may not notice I am somewhat intentionally omitting something that would be important for number crunching. I have 5 ranks in shield power management, meaning that my shield should be pulling *9* energy in place of 12. There is no way this shield draining number makes sense. None at all.

So i picked up the game yesterday, and have been messing around a fair bit in it. However there seems to be some weird things going on.

Primarily, shield energy use seems to be.. very weird. I have a shield that claims 12 energy use(the 1k hp/100% mitigation one). When it recharges, it seems to completely and almost instantly drain all of my ship's energy. I have a reactor of 40 energy,(600? capacity), and the only way I can figure that to be the case is if reactor energy is updated 5 times a second? the math still barely works out and makes no sense when I am not firing my guns (i am 99% sure there is no way the shield *alone* (aka stopped, not firing weapons, not maneuvering, not using radar, no augments) overcomes my reactor's energy flow.

kinda less gamebreakingly, mining seems to be the only real way to make money.. mining fancy blue rocks in easy to get to places buys you pretty much whatever you want. Continuing to mind fancy blue rocks for a little bit longer .. well, lets you buy literally whatever you want. I dont see how early combat lets you progress anywhere near as quickly, at least up until the point where you are xp limited by ships. I spent a little bit of time playing with modding trying to create a basic bounty good that pirates always drop, but the game seems to refuse to launch with that enabled (not really worried about this, im sure I did something dumb wrong somewhere)

I am also wondering if I can do anything for my faction. I ran through the join quests, but it seems that that is the extent of the useful bits of factiony things? Is the command deck supposed to actually exist?

finally, I am not really sure what I am looking to do in what I assume to be the mid-game. I dont really see myself making money through blowing up pirates or whatnot, (am i just missing something here?). Enemy lethality seems pretty high, (to the extent that entering 'pirate' systems is almost an immediate death sentence.. but something I must do to enter alien space due to map layout) Possibly the answer to this is just 'get a bigger ship via mining', which makes me sad.

Oh yeah - is there even a ship capable of mounting the nuclear missile ingame? I dont think ive seen one yet.