Have a low power output engine set up and working at round start but give engineers the tools to upgrade/build a better engine

[Zundy]

As the title says. Have a low power output engine set up and already outputting power at round start but give engineers the tools to build better, more powerful engines/power generators. This prevents the dreaded power death on low pop and frees up engineers to do other projects on station whilst still requiring engineers to set up a more powerful engine on high pop (to avoid inevitable brown outs). Engineers will have more freedom to experiment with engines without causing round ending damage as we'd already have the round start baby generator.

[Naelynn]

a.k.a: have solars [some of them at least] wired and active at round start?

[Zundy]

Could be, I'm easy as to what it is so long as the output is extremely minimal.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Zundy

[BurgerBB]

It's better not to touch the SM but rather touch the solars. Wiring solars is a pain in the ass and literally takes more effort to do than the SM, and also has a lower payoff. It also doesn't make sense that every round, the solars aren't wired.

[Skull132]

4 hours ago, Zundy said:

This prevents the dreaded power death on low pop and frees up engineers to do other projects on station whilst still requiring engineers to set up a more powerful engine on high pop...

Setup of the SM does not take a significant amount of time. It requires almost no maintenance. So there's nothing about it which "binds" engineers, ergo, there's nothing to "free" the engineers from, sans 15 minutes or less of round start setup. Which is inconsequential.

Second, the powerdraw of the station doesn't really depend on the size of the crew. Most of it is static. Unless you start actively shutting down departments, but hey, then you're spending the initial 15 minutes shutting down departments vs setting up the engine. And if you choose to do that, and happen to be in a transition round, you have to set up the engine later anyways. Ergo, there's nothing to win by NOT setting up the engine.

[Aphelion]

Powerdraw mostly depends on the crew doing dumb things, like turning on the holodeck, charging lots of powercells or in the case of toxins, cooling gasses to near absolute zero.

 

+1 for having solars already up, since it will make idiots a bit less harmful

Edited January 28, 2020 by Aphelion

[geeves]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/8137

I tried my best.

[Screemers]

I'll vote for solar to be pre-wired too, but maybe only those around Tcomms and not the roof.

To run the station with basic systems you need around 800 KW (You might experience light closing and low power in some rooms, but it will run the station in idle state) so with Tcomm solar you would be a bit under that limit. The main reason I want one solar array to not be wired there is that doing it is still a good way to introduce new engineer players to wiring principles, how to set an EVA gear and power management.

An other alternative could be to have more power generators around the station for people to use. Not enough to run the whole station, but they could run some vital systems in a department for a while without too much issues.

I know that low pop can be painful, but there should not be too much automatisation on the station, making main station systems set themselves up would give even less reason to people to play engineers, which can have long down times when things are not blowing up left and right. As they are actually it's not that hard, I can set everything up except solar in less than 20 minutes when I am alone (SM, Rcon, Shield and Atmos) So when we arrive with a full department, it takes a bit longer, but having less to do would hurt engineering I'm pretty sure.

 

[geeves]

Updated it. The roof solars now work automatically, kicks in at around 2.5 minutes into the round.

[Zundy]

Nailed it