Power Plant (Subsystem)

Module

Power Plant

A power plant is required for all spacecraft. The power plant on a spacecraft consumes hydrogen to keep the spacecraft's electric capacitors charged. The amount of electricity a spacecraft can hold is determined by the amount of power plants the spacecraft has. A basic spacecraft, one with only a helm station, fuel cell, life support, and gravity drive can run off only one power plant even if the spacecraft has over 200 gravity drive modules at full throttle. More than one power plant are required if you want to use FTL drives, sensors, shields, energy weapon turrets, and energy weapon bays. The number of power plants determine how many times a spacecraft turret or weapon bay can fire repeatedly before the capacitors need to recharge. Capacitors recharge constantly even if they are being used, so the number of consecutive shots in the ship specifications may actually be higher in practice.

Placing enough power plants for 6 consecutive shots at full power should allow for "rapid fire" weapon bays. Such bays should be able to fire consecutively can without completely draining the capacitor.

• (Note: recharge rate may be TL dependent)
• (Note: if you are running 2 or more bays at the same time, they will drain the capacitor)

Capacitor gain: 1 + 0.05 * (TL - 1)

Note: In the Spacecraft Update, capacitors and power plant systems are separated. The capacitor stores electricity while the power plant produces it.

Quotes from patch notes

Related patch notes

Update 2017-01-17: Design Analysis Capacitor Module New ship designs now have a capacitor module that is separate from the power plant module. The space for these is allocated separately. Capacitor size determines how much power the capacitor can hold. Power plant size determines the rate at which it can convert fuel to power. This change was also suggested by a player. This change does not affect old-style ship designs. Hydrogen Power Plant Module The current power plant module got a slight name change. It is now a Hydrogen Power Plant Module. This is in preparation for other kinds of power plant modules, as suggested by a player.