What if X4 had ship energy rather than heat limitations?

[Falcrack]

X3 had lasers limited by ship energy consumption. X4 has weapons limited by heat buildup. I rather prefer the X3 method than X4. In addition, I would want to see energy usage expanded.

In Tie Fighter, and many other space games, you can adjust the power dedicated to different ship subsystems, such as shields, weapons, and engines. I would prefer something like this in X4 as well. If our shields are getting quickly drained, we could shunt power from engines and weapons so shields recharge faster. Or shunt power to weapons when we need sustained fire. If we want to go faster, then more power gets transferred to the engines.

Ships could be upgraded to have different levels of powerplants and different levels of energy capacitors.

As a final note, I would prefer boost energy does not drain shields, but a separate boost energy reserve, which slowly recharges, or more quickly recharges when extra power is dedicated to engines.

All of this would add an interesting extra layer of tactics to consider when piloting a fighter, other than simply pointing the nose of your ship at the enemy and firing. It would also add an extra reason to use missiles, which would not require energy to sustain them.

[Manawydn]

I'll do you one better

Why use solar power when you can harvest the power of the universe it's self with nuclear power?

Idk man, but it seems to me like having (seemingly) unlimited power for your ship's systems is an improvement over the previously listed system, which was used in X3. The shield-boost thing I think also comes from an X3 script, I think it was called TurboBoost. If I remember correctly, it would allow you to boost using energy cells, or if none were available, then shield energy. I have a like/dislike with the shield boost in that it does make it so that you can't just simply boost your way to safety if you start taking hull damage. You can only do so before shields go down, making it more handy for escape than combat. But at the same time, it is a severe limitation from a design perspective to rig your boost to your shielding. The real question is whether or not the races in X4 really have much choice as far as their technology is concerned, and that one's just gonna be pretty simple because lore is whatever the devs make of it.

[Diroc]

Heat management is a critical skill in X4.
Deliberate fire groups based on getting as much effect out of the heat you produce as possible puts the responsibility on the player rather than the output of the powerplant. Ships with more guns can have a better burst or a better mix to capitalize on situations. It doesn't directly imply a better total damage. Heat is a pretty good equalizer for ships with different numbers of gun slots. The tradeoffs for the guns are found elsewhere.
High Burst comes at a high cost. Monocultures of weapons are thus, discouraged in extended combat encounters.

Heat changes the equipment dynamic to situational mashups that work best together for the player rather than focusing on a burst and a variable charge mechanic based on a weapons/shields drag bar.
Damage efficiency (Both shield and Hull), range, heat, fire rate, accuracy, projectile speed all have a place.
Experimenting with weapons and finding good combinations that strike a balance covering individual limitations is rather useful, interesting and multi-faceted.

The whole point of the heat mechanic is that the weapons systems are all interconnected by it in ways that energy would not address.

Your ship drains a certian amount of heat from the weapons systems containing heat equally. Is 4 of a weapon better than 2 or 1? Maybe in burst. Is it worth more than 2 fire groups of 2 weapon types with different properties? First you have to know the different properties and where and when they are useful.
I think the energy basis for weapons would make combat much less nuanced.
The heat mechanic forces you to be much more mindful of the tradeoffs. I believe that is the point.

[adeine]

X3 had lasers limited by ship energy consumption. X4 has weapons limited by heat buildup. I rather prefer the X3 method than X4. In addition, I would want to see energy usage expanded.

In Tie Fighter, and many other space games, you can adjust the power dedicated to different ship subsystems, such as shields, weapons, and engines. I would prefer something like this in X4 as well. If our shields are getting quickly drained, we could shunt power from engines and weapons so shields recharge faster. Or shunt power to weapons when we need sustained fire. If we want to go faster, then more power gets transferred to the engines.

Ships could be upgraded to have different levels of powerplants and different levels of energy capacitors.

As a final note, I would prefer boost energy does not drain shields, but a separate boost energy reserve, which slowly recharges, or more quickly recharges when extra power is dedicated to engines.

All of this would add an interesting extra layer of tactics to consider when piloting a fighter, other than simply pointing the nose of your ship at the enemy and firing. It would also add an extra reason to use missiles, which would not require energy to sustain them.

Agree with most of this and have suggested this in the past, with the exception of generator/energy capacity upgrades.

If something like that were to be implemented, it'd be best to do so in a similar way to how X3 did cargo bay extensions - still tied to a specific ship with hard limits to how far things can be upgraded as a percentage over base values. Varying energy output and capacity was a large part of making individual ships distinct and suitable for different roles, and having generic upgrades a la X4 shields/weapons would remove that aspect entirely (in my opinion the primary reason to implement it in the first place).

[jlehtone]

Rather not. And.

Limit by heat and by energy. That yields more combinations that either alone. Then get the AI act efficiently.

[Axeface]

Personally I think power draw and capacity would add an immense amount of depth to this game. Each ship could have its own powerplant which adds a lot of opportunity for variety in stats across factions or races. I think it would be great, alongside heat management, perhaps even mass management and other large changes to the game - I think these changes would be massive though and probably not feasible for a patch in x4, and require game design changes, like for example allowing us to put more shields on a ship at the expense of weapons or acceleration/agility.
A simplified version of power capacity alone I think is doable in x4 and could add a lot to it.

Oh, and boost should definitely not drain shields - devs were open to this idea before x4 even dropped and stated they wernt sure about the shield drain. Give it its own fuel that regenerates. Say its nuclear batteries or something so it doesnt need to be refueled manually.

[Falcrack]

Okay, I think it would be good to have both heat and energy management. For the AI, you can either have it so that all ships merely maintain a balanced energy profile so you don't have to worry about writing code for them to intelligently manage it, or you could make it so that only high star pilots effectively manage their power under different circumstances.

[Axeface]

Okay, I think it would be good to have both heat and energy management. For the AI, you can either have it so that all ships merely maintain a balanced energy profile so you don't have to worry about writing code for them to intelligently manage it, or you could make it so that only high star pilots effectively manage their power under different circumstances.

Heat just makes sense for a space game, obviously what x4 currently calls heat just isnt. Its just a word they put on cooldown. At a most basic level a heat mechanic could incorporate incoming fire, a laser weapon for example could add heat and not just damage. I know the X games are not realistic, but heat is something that can be used to add limitation (and limitation is the core of fun in games) gameplay AND a tiny bit of realism, just enough to make things a little bit more plausible. Heat is going to be one of the main considerations in space warfare after all.

[Flippi]

Oh, and boost should definitely not drain shields - devs were open to this idea before x4 even dropped and stated they wernt sure about the shield drain. Give it its own fuel that regenerates. Say its nuclear batteries or something so it doesnt need to be refueled manually.

I mean, Freelancer used special energy for the afterburner. I don't know why Egosoft didn't add something like that alongside their iteration.

Personally I think power draw and capacity would add an immense amount of depth to this game.

I think that too. In X3, I remember a script from, I think K.O.S.H. which let me reroute energy from weapons to shields and vice versa. I found that really great, but a bit OP due to the AI not really capable of using it.

Adding another type of energy, like 'emergency power' which the afterburner use, would let us have quite a more sophisticated system in terms of gameplay depth. And it shouldn't be that hard for Egosoft to do. It's literally just another float value for every ship, only this time the afterburner lower that value, instead of the shields.

Additionally, weapon energy systems would allow for a useful comeback of ammunition based weapons like mass drivers, the EBC and such. Currently with the 'heat' mechanic, it doesn't make any sense to add them. Because ammo based weapons also generate heat, so the sustained fire advantage by using ammo is null and void. I really liked the old X3 system, even if it wasn't perfect, it allowed for much greater distinction between ship types and factions.

Heat just makes sense for a space game, obviously what x4 currently calls heat just isnt. Its just a word they put on cooldown. At a most basic level a heat mechanic could incorporate incoming fire, a laser weapon for example could add heat and not just damage. I know the X games are not realistic, but heat is something that can be used to add limitation (and limitation is the core of fun in games) gameplay AND a tiny bit of realism, just enough to make things a little bit more plausible. Heat is going to be one of the main considerations in space warfare after all.

You just described StarSector's combat system. Well, apart from the Armour. StarSector ships do have those too, besides shields and hull integrity. It's an interesting system for sure, but Egosoft would need to completely revamp X4 to accommodate for that. Not that I am against it. StarSector is a fun game after all.

[Matthew94]

In Tie Fighter, and many other space games, you can adjust the power dedicated to different ship subsystems, such as shields, weapons, and engines. I would prefer something like this in X4 as well. If our shields are getting quickly drained, we could shunt power from engines and weapons so shields recharge faster. Or shunt power to weapons when we need sustained fire. If we want to go faster, then more power gets transferred to the engines.

You can't expect Egosoft to make space combat as good as Tie FIghter. They've only been in business for (checks wikipedia) 33 years and Tie Fighter is only 27 years old. That's not enough time to reach parity!

[A5PECT]

I miss each ship having its own weapon energy capacity. It's a valid way to differentiate ships' capabilites from one another. Along with making weapons universally compatible with any ship, all the different offensive characteristics you'd have to consider when selecting combat ships in X3 have been reduced to nothing but gun count in X4