I think abstracting ship engine/general ship power use is a good thing, I wouldn't be caught dead having to design/fit a reactor for each and every commercial design. It makes sense that a nuclear/fusion/AM engine would come with an integrated power plant capable of powering the rest of the subsystems anyway.
Now, I'm definitely not the first one to suggest this, but it does occur to me that shields drawing power would be a nice addition. They're massive and relatively cheap for their size, the opposite of power plants, and it would make sense that just as one needs power (via reactors or missile volatiles) to inflict damage, one would need some sort of power (and definitely not the fuel kind 
) to prevent it. Such a change would also provide an additional vulnerability to the heavily shielded ships that are very strong in mid-to-late game.
Additionally, this could pave the way for implementation of a simple ship power management system, whereas a vessel lacking power due to sustained damage or purposeful design could be toggled to prefer fully powering either weapons or shields. Not only that would offer an interesting gameplay decision (should a fleet suffering damage try to cut its losses or retain its maximum firepower to the bitter end?), the whole "full power to weapons" schtick is a massive sci-fi cliche and doing it in Aurora would feel very appropriate.
As for balancing it out, I reckon charging 3-4 power per a point of recharge rate would be appropriate? Shields are (usually) more massive than any given weapon on a ship, and their recharge rate tech scales far slower than capacitor recharge.
Here is the changes in respect to VB6
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg102769#msg102769I would also start by saying:
Personally, I like how shields workI was never a fan of having shields consuming fuel, mostly because it was so easy to have a ship dead in the water because we forgot to turn them off.
Perhaps a way I would be in favor of revamping the current model adding energy (instead if fuel this time) requirements will be the following:
- Shields should account for tonnage: meaning the greater the tonnage, the greater should be the amount of energy required to protect the ship
- Based on the above shields will have a fixed tonnage with a "desired" level of protection being the driver for the energy required
This would work on a similar way we have the small ships module for fighter/FACs
I.E.Normal Shields for instance 500 tons: max energy output XXX and a formula to determine how much energy is required
Small Ships Shields for instance 50 tons: max energy output limited or reduced against original formula to avoid OP and to determine how much energy is required
the current shields techs will ensure that
- A: less energy is required for higher coverages at higher techs
- B: higher levels of protections are possible to be reached due to higher techs
The rationale is that a 20,000 tons ship would require way more energy to provide the same amount of coverage for the double of tonnage, currently this is not true but is artificially created by requiring a smaller or larger unit to fit the ship tonnage limitation or intended displacement, which as I stated previously, I think is fine giving the current model. However, higher tonnage would result in higher shield protection anyway, which is and unrealistic result of the current model limitations.
Please Note: All the above is to be considered only if we were actively discussing adding energy as requirement to the
current model
