Trying to understand excess energy And shield capacitors

[soth007]

Did a forum search, but can't figure this out.

Is there every a problem designing a ship that has just +1 power? Will this cause a problem with shield capacitors for example? Trying to figure out how much extra power I need for capacitors. And do I need extra power for anything else? Weapons and whatnot?

I guess I'm trying to figure out if I design my main cruiser to have only +1 energy will that cause me problems?

Cheers

 

[dskod1]

Hmm, I think I understand what your asking.

As far as I know, could be wrong here, if you do not have enough energy production on the ship, you can't save the design. I use this to get as little energy as I need onto the ship to sustain all the systems on it.

I don't think there is any bonus to have extra energy on a ship then what is required. Perhaps someone else will be able to chime in on this.

 

[GamingHUD]

So long as power isn't negative, you'll be fine and as Dskod1 said, you can't save designs with negative power anyway.

There is a very minor bonus for having excess power; slight increases to combat speed and weapon DPS.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

To be clear: when you add the shield capacitors, they will take up power, just like weapons, shields, and other components. You don't need to leave surplus power on the cruiser, so long as the complete design is not negative on power, you're good. You can redesign ships at any time; if you're designing before you have shield capacitors and intending to add them later, you don't need to worry about their power requirements now. Just redesign your cruiser to ensure adequate power when you add the capacitors.

 

[soth007]

Thanks for the info all - I thought maybe extra power was needed to make the capacitors work, but sounds like as long as my power is not negative I'm good.

 

[Secret Master]

There is a very minor bonus for having excess power; slight increases to combat speed and weapon DPS.

There is? Is it possible to see in the interface how much of a boost excess power is giving you?

 

[smellymummy]

There is? Is it possible to see in the interface how much of a boost excess power is giving you?

When you hover over the damage value on the right it will show it

 

[lief1]

If you want to really maximize the benefit of shield regen always use 2 smaller shield slots over 1 larger one as you get more shield regen for the 2 smaller ones than the 1 larger one.

 

[Talanic]

I'm told your shield regen does not function inside of combat unless you have shield capacitors.

Also, take a corvette at the start of the game. It'll have two power plants in it if I remember right, enough to run its engines and weaponry, but five spaces for generators. Watch the numbers on the right as you fill the remaining slots with more generators; you'll see several of its attributes rise - like evasion and damage per second.

 

[KopiG]

I'm told your shield regen does not function inside of combat unless you have shield capacitors.

This is correct.

 

[The Founder]

Excess power gives a minor buff to Damage and Evasion. Both are mentioned in the proper Tooltips for the ship design. They do not affect Shield Capacitors as far as I know.
That was introduced with 1.3 I think.
Unless you go for a dodgy corvette or glass cannon BB that does not gain anything from shields/defenses, I doubt it is worth focussing on that. It may happen, but pushing for excess power is mostly useless.

Shield capacitors have two effects:
- (hidden)They allow shields to recover in combat. That is a huge buff to how much damage shields will mitigate. Indeed it makes very bursty anti-shield weapons (energy torpedoes) kind of useles.
- they also buff the shield regeneration rate. By a percentage instead of a flat amount now. Not that big actually compared to the other effet.
If you got even 1 shield, do not need that slot for anything else and the enemy can not one- or two-shoot you, you can put in one Shield Capacitor no questions asked.

 

[iniudan]

So long as power isn't negative, you'll be fine and as Dskod1 said, you can't save designs with negative power anyway.

There is a very minor bonus for having excess power; slight increases to combat speed and weapon DPS.

There is indeed minor bonus but they are so not worth it, as power is by far the most expensive component you can put on a ship, which is one of the reason I don't like all shield ship design, until I hit grand fleet naval capacity, as I prefer cheaper armor based or mixed design, which let me have more parallel construction going on.

At least unless I get a game like last week, where I got capacitor early, along basically no armor (by the time I abandoned the game in like 2350, I only had armor 2) and hull tech (was in a bunch of pirate systems with basically no space alien, so only ever got regenerative hull due to A.I. using it on their ship and never got crystal hull to simply appear in my research)