• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

GOLANX

General
20 Badges
Mar 17, 2021
1.905
1.569
  • Surviving Mars: Digital Deluxe Edition
  • Stellaris: Nemesis
  • Stellaris: Necroids
  • Stellaris: Federations
  • Stellaris: Lithoids
  • Stellaris: Ancient Relics
  • Surviving Mars: First Colony Edition
  • Stellaris: Megacorp
  • Surviving Mars: First Colony Edition
  • Stellaris: Distant Stars
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Stellaris: Apocalypse
  • Stellaris: Humanoids Species Pack
  • Age of Wonders III
  • Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn
  • Surviving Mars
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Stellaris: Digital Anniversary Edition
  • Stellaris
The power provided by Auxiliary Reactors falls off quickly on larger Ship designs. I think what you Should do is make them increase reactor power by a % say 20% for level 1, 40% for level 2, 60% for level 3. This way Auxiliary Reactors scale their output properly for larger warships and are an option to consider at every stage in the game.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Your suggestion is such that a Battleship should be able to afford all of the most power-hungry components across the board, by using only one Aux Slot and 15 Alloys on top of the 2nd best reactor:
  • Zero-Point Reactor, +1550 Power
  • Advanced Reactor Booster, +930 Power, 2480 available
  • Jump Drive, -30 Power, 2450 available
  • Sapient Artillery Computer, -25 Power, 2425 available
  • Dark Matter Thrusters, -240 Power, 2185 available
  • Tachyon Sensors, -20 Power, 2165 available
  • Giga Cannon, -250 Power, 1915 available
  • Matter Disintegrators x4, -400 Power, 1515 available (yes, you could go Neutron Launchers here, but those are actually 10 Power each cheaper)
  • Psionic Shields x6, -1440 Power, 75 available
  • Shield Capacitor, -20 Power, 55 available
  • Advanced Afterburner, -20 Power, 35 available
  • Enigmatic Decoder, -20 Power, 15 available
Where's the trade-off? I'll grant you that having to use all four Aux Slots on vanilla Adv Reactor Boosters (+100 Power each) on top of the best reactor (Dark Matter Reactor, +2000 Power) still has you 5 Power short of the above (minus the other Aux components) - maybe there should be an improvement to the way those should be figured, but I think you've significantly overshot.
 
Your suggestion is such that a Battleship should be able to afford all of the most power-hungry components across the board, by using only one Aux Slot and 15 Alloys on top of the 2nd best reactor:
  • Zero-Point Reactor, +1550 Power
  • Advanced Reactor Booster, +930 Power, 2480 available
  • Jump Drive, -30 Power, 2450 available
  • Sapient Artillery Computer, -25 Power, 2425 available
  • Dark Matter Thrusters, -240 Power, 2185 available
  • Tachyon Sensors, -20 Power, 2165 available
  • Giga Cannon, -250 Power, 1915 available
  • Matter Disintegrators x4, -400 Power, 1515 available (yes, you could go Neutron Launchers here, but those are actually 10 Power each cheaper)
  • Psionic Shields x6, -1440 Power, 75 available
  • Shield Capacitor, -20 Power, 55 available
  • Advanced Afterburner, -20 Power, 35 available
  • Enigmatic Decoder, -20 Power, 15 available
Where's the trade-off? I'll grant you that having to use all four Aux Slots on vanilla Adv Reactor Boosters (+100 Power each) on top of the best reactor (Dark Matter Reactor, +2000 Power) still has you 5 Power short of the above (minus the other Aux components) - maybe there should be an improvement to the way those should be figured, but I think you've significantly overshot.
You could be right it could be scaled to ship size rather than reactor power. Either way +100 reactor power is a drop in the bucket on a Battleship
 
You could be right it could be scaled to ship size rather than reactor power. Either way +100 reactor power is a drop in the bucket on a Battleship
My preference with Aux Slots is to start each class with one Aux Slot (put with the Core Components, rather than hull sections) and then increase through techs, while making nearly all Aux Slot utilities either percentile bonuses or scaled to hull size. Costs would either also scale to hull size or not (only if the thing they improve doesn't itself scale to hull size, like perhaps a sensor effect improvement). I would also look at costs for FTL Drives to be scaled to hull size, as these move larger hulls, versus Sensors or Computers.

For Reactor Boosters in particular, it's odd that they improve by 100% (Tier-1 tech) and then another 100% (basically T3) over the base unit (T0). It would make more more sense if the techs were at T2 and T4, compound 50% increases (like weapons are compound 30%) for effect, and just be x2/x3 for base cost (since they're basically insignificant). So T0 Reactor Booster is +20% Power for 5/10/20/40, T2 Improved RB is +30% for 10/20/40/80, and T4 Advanced RB is +45% for 15/30/60/120.

For the max usage situation above, with these changes applied, the Jump Drive goes up from -30 Power to -240 Power, the Shield Capacitor goes from -20 to -160, and the Adv Afterburner goes from -20 to -160, but the Adv RB is +900 per on a Zero-Point Reactor. So with just one Aux Slot for an Adv RB, you'd be 55 power short (or just 15 short if you went with Neutron Launchers instead of Matter Disintegrators) on the most extreme Power usage. More likely at least one of the Psionic Shields would be armor or hull plating and make it easy to reach.

It's still a bit overpowered (bah-dumb-bum-TSSH!), as I'd prefer more of a sacrifice to get the ultimate power-hungry build. Compound +30% increases over 20% base would be just 26% and 34% - certainly more sacrificial, as just dropping one Psionic Shield isn't enough to offset the shortfall- while +40% increases would be 28% and 39/40%, and still reachable with just one armor or hull plating. Changing the base bonus is probably better for making the sacrifice more meaningful, with 15% base being compounded to 300/400/520 at 30%, 300/420/600 at 40%, and 300/460/700 at 50% (Adv RB still only takes dropping two Psionic Shields or swapping out the Enigmatic Decoder for a 2nd Adv RB), or with 10% base being compounded to 200/260/340 at 30%, 200/280/400 at 40%, and 200/300/460 at 50% (one Adv RB only works with just three Psionic Shields at any increase rate, two Adv RB (plus dropping the Decoder) are still short by two Shields at 30% and by one at 40/50%).
 
Last edited: