Scaling of components

[Whitecold (OP)]

Currently most components that can be designed scale in their research cost with size, which doesn't make much sense. Highly miniaturized components are difficult in design, while very large components are not necessarily difficult. It is particularly absurd for magazines, why should a large magazine be more difficult to design than a small one, especially when they can simply be stacked?

My suggestion is that the RP cost scaling in size for research projects are changed to either a flat constant or a square root function.

A second point is that currently I can't see any advantage for large magazines/power plants, as many small ones can simply be stacked, thus I suggest that they get some sort of small bonus similar to the increased fuel efficiency of large engines to make them more viable.

[Vandermeer]

I agree with that generally.

...There is however advantage for designing bigger powerplants and magazines: They get more hitpoints and are thus less likely to get destroyed or even explode when hit. Also with the magazines you can fish a small rounding advantage. With best tech (99%), the smallest magazine to use space completely is probably cap. 150 or one increment less. ..It's a minor plus, but I try to catch it if I can. Mags are cheap to research.

[alex_brunius]

...There is however advantage for designing bigger powerplants and magazines: They get more hitpoints and are thus less likely to get destroyed or even explode when hit.

That "advantage" works both ways, because when it does get destroyed / explode it's game over. And it's still a random chance so it can happen in the first hit if your unlucky.

[Steve Walmsley]

Larger magazines do have an advantage because when you armour them (by increasing their HTK) you sacrifice less of the overall capacity for the larger versions (because the armour is calculated based on surface area and larger sizes have less surface area per unit of volume)

I agree about the reactors. I'll look at increasing output for larger reactors.

[Whitecold (OP)]

The scaling for the armor on magazines confuses me a bit. With base 75 efficiency a single size 1 magazine with no armor has a capacity of 15, but a size 2 magazine with 2 HTK has capacity 28.
So two small magazines have 2 HTK together and a total capacity of 30 vs 28 for the larger magazine with also 2 HTK? This would be opposite of what is intended, or where do I go wrong?

[MarcAFK]

Maybe rounding should go the other way to make the smaller magazine smaller?
I noticed something similar with power plants, the smallest ones seemed to have less cost per size, but I think that's just the displayed cost rounding up.
So an unboosted gas cooled fast reactor of :
Size 1 produces 4.5 power for 14 cost. and 140 rp
Size .1 produces .045 for 1 cost and 10 rp
Size .2 produces .9 for 3 cost and 30 rp.

This makes sense if size .1 costs 1.4 and 14 rp
size 2 should cost 2.8 and 28 rp.
This rounding and also the extreme cost effectiveness of researching a tiny reactor makes me not want to use big ones at all.
I noticed with jump engines, the cost goes up ridiculously so a size 100 costs almost 10k RP while a size 1000 costs over six hundred thousand research points. I'm sure this makes sense, but so many other components have a cost that scales linearly so it just seems out of place.

[Steve Walmsley]

The scaling for the armor on magazines confuses me a bit. With base 75 efficiency a single size 1 magazine with no armor has a capacity of 15, but a size 2 magazine with 2 HTK has capacity 28.
So two small magazines have 2 HTK together and a total capacity of 30 vs 28 for the larger magazine with also 2 HTK? This would be opposite of what is intended, or where do I go wrong?

A single point hit vs the two small magazines is twice as likely to result in a magazine explosion because 50% of the time the large magazine won't be damaged.

Also, if the two small magazines receive two single points of damage, they will be destroyed 100% of the time. If the larger 2 HTK magazine takes two single points of damage, it will survive 25% of the time.

(of course there is also a chance a single point of damage vs the large magazines will wipe out twice as much ordnance)

[Whitecold (OP)]

On related note, armor does not seem to make a difference in the design of the magazines

[Vandermeer]

You mean armor tech, right? Yeah, it never did anything on magazines, and also not turrets I think.

[Whitecold (OP)]

Yes, I meant the tech line.

[Bgreman]

On related note, armor does not seem to make a difference in the design of the magazines

That dropdown does nothing.  The game always uses your best armor tech when designing magazines.

[letsdance]

i agree that RP cost should also go up when you design smaller components.  it should increase whenever you move away from the default size, in both directions.

[Whitecold (OP)]

Also related to scaling, for large missile launchers reload times are getting ridiculous. The same is for larger beam weapons, damage is proportional to power, and power recharge is directly capacitor tech, so power and therefore damage per HS drops off very quickly. Larger installations should be able to draw more power per piece even if not per HS.

[alex_brunius]

Also related to scaling, for large missile launchers reload times are getting ridiculous. The same is for larger beam weapons, damage is proportional to power, and power recharge is directly capacitor tech, so power and therefore damage per HS drops off very quickly. Larger installations should be able to draw more power per piece even if not per HS.

It's fairly similar to how real weapons work.

A battleship main gun fired maximum twice every minute, alot slower in practice. But a Destroyer gun can fire more then 10 times as fast.
Basically a smaller gun can fire it's own weight in shells in less then half the time.


The advantage from bigger guns is the extra range that means a chance to fire when the enemy can't fire back at all, and for missiles the shock damage and more effective engines ( extra range ).

[Vandermeer]

The advantage from bigger guns is the extra range that means a chance to fire when the enemy can't fire back at all, and for missiles the shock damage and more effective engines ( extra range ).

Don't forget armor penetration. Even once you maxed out range with ~1.5m km, larger guns are still available and viable through this, because scattering around little hits on enemies hulls is quite less effective than some hits that reach deeper (doesn't even have to pierce through entirely). Larger cannons improve your 'critical hit chance' in some sense (as chance for statistical anomalies rise), and that makes them superior sometimes even against other designs with technically higher dps but low penetration. (example: with 100% to hit, a railgun 4x1=4 against smallest laser with 3 -> Both weapons weight the same, consume the same power, but likely the laser will win earlier, even though the railgun delivers 33% more damage)