MMCT rework – power cables and stuff
This is a modified version of yobeefjerky’s MMCT Cosmoteer mod.
Uses art assets and ideas from original mod, with permission from original author.
Warning: This is not exactly a drop-in replacement. Some ships will work, other will require complete redesign, especially if those ships use new features added to original mod since forking.
This mod is all about automatic power transfer and distribution, either supporting crew or completely eliminating need for crew carrying batteries, while trying to not be a magical solution that powers constantly everything on the ship.
In base game, there are power producers (reactors), power storages (capacitors) and power consumers (all parts that need batteries carried by crew to function).
This mod adds new power producer (steam turbine), adds to capacitors capacity to form multi-part blocks, cables to transfer power (instead of crew carrying batteries) and substations that can distribute power (wireless in small radius).
All parts have finite throughput to make things a bit more interesting/complicated. Basically batteries travel along cables same as crew carries them, but much faster (15 batteries per second for most parts, see in-game part stats for details. This stands for cables of infinite lengths as well, they do not loose power or throughput with length, which differs from original mod.).
Some new parts also include steam boilers that use new heat mechanics introduced in Meltdown game update.
Most advanced parts are behind tech tree unlocks.
Cables, substations and pipes all have visual cues how to connect them or highlighting area of effect. Almost all parts contain indicator lights conveying various operational statuses.
– Cables in two variants – corridor (so crew can walk) and armored cables. Cables must touch each other with sides to transfer power between cable segments – there is a connection visualization in game, same as with heatpipes.
– Substations in two variants – powering small area around or projecting power in a straight line on a longer distance. Substation can be either powered by crew carrying batteries, by attached cable or by other substation. Substations can power everything that needs energy to operate and is withing their radius. No other wireless energy transfer is possible.
– Capacitors now can provide power to cables directly – this is a one-way connection, so cable can draw power from capacitor, but cannot charge capacitor.
– Capacitors exchange power with all power_storage parts.
– cable connector a.k.a diode – acts as one-way cable, with two additional features – it can draw power from power producers (reactors, thereby eliminating need for crew to carry batteries) and/or push it into power consumers (acting like substation but with a range of 1, that is it must touch other parts to interact). In most uses can act as a directional power pump.
– Heat resistor – tries to equalize heat level between two connected heatpipe networks, with threshold of 10% heat level difference between networks. Best used between thermal battery and radiators. Has limited throughput, but should be enough to saturate up to 8 radiators.
– Steam boilers – Boilers use heat from heatpipes and convert it into steam that can be used by steam turbine. Available in two variants (2×2 and 3×3 crewed). Larger variant has build-in heat resistor/pump combo, smaller one benefits from external resistor down the line. Boilers delete heat when converting to steam, so can supplement radiators in removing ship heat.
– Reactor core – expensive and overpowered part that produces steam for free. This part might change in the future.
– Steam pipes – for transporting steam obviously. Those pipes loose a tiny-tiny bit of steam each segment.
– Steam turbine and transformers – part of modular reactor system. Steam turbine uses steam to produce vast amounts of electricity that is then converted by attached transformers into plasma battery compatible power. Transformers can output power into cables, capacitors and power consumers directly around its head.
It should work out of the box will all new parts (they need TypeCategory `uses_power` and have BatteryStorage or LocalBatteryStorage Component) and capacitors (with TypeCategory `power_storage` and BatteryStorage Component).
This mod does interact with reactors with new part – connector. It will, among other functions, extract power from reactors and feed power grid without any crew interaction.
If a mod author does not add type category or battery storage is named differently, their part will not be recognized as one that uses power.
Most modded reactors and capacitors should work. If they inherit from base capacitor they will even distribute power between each other (beware of capacitor size differences). I they do not inherit, it will interact with cables in it has `power_storage` TypeCategory.
Most parts that require energy should work, unless their author on purpose or by accident did not made them as outlined above (that is, will not work if it is missing correct type category or has battery storage named differently).
Tested to work with all vanilla parts, ETT, extended capacitors mods, GA (with some exceptions here as GA authors deliberately disables automated power transfers), Star Wars mod, should work with most popular mods. In case of issues – let me know in discussions please.
This system is made less efficient by loops in power grid. It will work, but with lower transfer rates as part of energy will travel back the conduit. Substations tries to prioritize proper flow of power, but same cases will reduce bandwidth – experiment a bit to find out what works. Definitely parallel touching lines of cable will not have twice the bandwidth – separate them to make it work.
To make it efficient, please make sure that there are no loops in cables (including most trivial case of four cables in a square) and no substation is in range of another substation (with some exceptions that can be found by experimentation).
With proper design, a single conduit line can power indefinitely 12 firing ions. With some tinkering and pushing power from both ends of line, there can be up to 24 ions constantly firing on a single line (more ions will simply have no power to operate as it will saturate conduit bandwidth).
Yeah, there is one ship that can be selected as a starter ship in career mode, normal difficulty, available from ship library. More ships (mostly as examples) will be added soon (R).
Maybe in future enemy ships will contain parts from this mod to make them properly hard to beat.
Base game progress is limited by number of crew members you can have. Since this mod remove most of power delivery crew, it is possible to build much bigger and stronger ships with similar crew size, accelerating progression at mid game. Late game, it reduces crew requirements 2 to 5 times, depending on a ship design.
This mod also allows to create almost indestructible shields (think: large shield that receives 48 batteries every second. This is extreme case but possible), however so far I wasn’t able to build something that had no counter (lots of EMP from disruptors or EMP rockets overpower shields quite easily. Also nukes and overclocked railguns – difficult to tank those!).
Some of this is balanced out by additional command point requirements that some parts from this mod have and by logistic requirements (or puzzles) when creating efficient power grids.
Lastly, this mod promotes health among crew members as they no longer need to carry glowing plasma batteries in their bare hands.
Issue tracker if anyone cares is here.[github.com]
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
