Immersive power transport and material logistics
The smaller grid sizes dramatically change how realistic transport logistics can be within the ships. In SE1 the size limitation of the grids meant that basically everything within your ships logistics needed to be able to be transported within 1U^3, otherwise ships would be entirely logistics. Now that the grid is dramatically smaller logistics can now be integrated within walls and floor in a truly immersive way.
Power:
Low Watt Grids - Transported through all blocks in the same way it is now. Make it to where every block can pull from this grid, but there is a maximum wattage that this grid can transport and things start to slow production rate. Suppliers would be small reactors, small solar panels etc. or via transformers from larger grids. You could also make insulator blocks for splitting smaller grids apart.
Medium Watt Grids - Transported by a 25cm conduit (I will call this 1 U in the future). You would supply machines with Medium watt grids to prevent them from pulling from the low watt grid.
High Watt Grids - Large scale transport for massive consumers like stations or capital ships. 2U, probably running down the spine of a ship or a central logistics area. Broken out and fed to machines, and probably extreme power consumers like jump drives.
Fluids:
Fluids could be transferred via 1U pipes and I would recommend pipe purity should be maintained, 1 fluid, 1 pipe. I would keep O2, and H2 from space engineers as well as add liquid water for reactors, steam for reactor product to a turbine, xenon or argon as thruster mass, and N2 and H3 for cryogenics (a low and a high end, low for like scientific research or something and high as a jump drive fuel.)
Material Transfer:
Basically good ol fashion SE1 conveyers for solid material transport. Make a 1U and a 2U Version that can transfer things of a maximum size. I think the giant conveyers of old space engineers is a knee jerk reaction because it is what you are already used to, rather than what is best. They HAD to be at least that big because that was the very smallest they could be, they don't have to be that big anymore. Make them smaller.
The old system existed based on limitations of the old engine, use your new grid size to increase the depth of the game.
I like this feedback
I love most of this idea but I did have a small thought regarding the Low Watt Grids if Im understanding your suggestion right. It seems like you're saying that any block can be powered on this sort of grid but if too many blocks are drawing from it wont be able to power them all even if you add more reactors!
Rather than having a maximum amount of power that the grid can transport have it so that there is a maximum power draw per block that a grid can support. The idea would be that the low-powered grid provides power for lights, doors, control panels, and things like that even on larger ships. Larger machines like grav generators, med bays, and medium thrusters need to have a 1U connection even on smaller ships, and even more power-intensive blocks like production blocks and massive thrusters specifically need to have the 2U connection.
The Benefit of that is that it means you won't need to worry about piping power to individual lights no matter what happens as long as you're producing enough power for them, but you do still need to figure out how to port power for the blocks that are more interesting to port power too, and more interesting if an unlucky shot manages to sever a powerline cutting the power to that block.
If it was done that way there would need to be some thoughts given to what counts as part of a grid and what doesn't. The way I would do it is if a power-producing block is ever placed then it starts a grid, all 1U and 2U conduits connected to that block are part of the same grid. Any power-producing blocks that have a 2U connection to each other count as the same power grid. Once a 2U conduit converts its power to a 1U conduit then any power that's routed through that conduit, even if goes back into a 2U conduit will only ever be able to power 1U blocks. So if you had 2 power grids on your ship that were connected to each other by 1U conduits then both grids would be able to provide power for 1U blocks on both grids but only 2U blocks on their own grid. It would basically be the same as the small conveyor vs regular conveyor on small grid ships from the first game!
I love the fluid and material transfer thoughts though :)
I love most of this idea but I did have a small thought regarding the Low Watt Grids if Im understanding your suggestion right. It seems like you're saying that any block can be powered on this sort of grid but if too many blocks are drawing from it wont be able to power them all even if you add more reactors!
Rather than having a maximum amount of power that the grid can transport have it so that there is a maximum power draw per block that a grid can support. The idea would be that the low-powered grid provides power for lights, doors, control panels, and things like that even on larger ships. Larger machines like grav generators, med bays, and medium thrusters need to have a 1U connection even on smaller ships, and even more power-intensive blocks like production blocks and massive thrusters specifically need to have the 2U connection.
The Benefit of that is that it means you won't need to worry about piping power to individual lights no matter what happens as long as you're producing enough power for them, but you do still need to figure out how to port power for the blocks that are more interesting to port power too, and more interesting if an unlucky shot manages to sever a powerline cutting the power to that block.
If it was done that way there would need to be some thoughts given to what counts as part of a grid and what doesn't. The way I would do it is if a power-producing block is ever placed then it starts a grid, all 1U and 2U conduits connected to that block are part of the same grid. Any power-producing blocks that have a 2U connection to each other count as the same power grid. Once a 2U conduit converts its power to a 1U conduit then any power that's routed through that conduit, even if goes back into a 2U conduit will only ever be able to power 1U blocks. So if you had 2 power grids on your ship that were connected to each other by 1U conduits then both grids would be able to provide power for 1U blocks on both grids but only 2U blocks on their own grid. It would basically be the same as the small conveyor vs regular conveyor on small grid ships from the first game!
I love the fluid and material transfer thoughts though :)
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