Reactors

Revision as of 19:52, 11 October 2011

Reactors are a type of ship Module that give a bonus to your total max energy. The max amount that may be equipped at one time is 3.

Example

A Fusion Reactor gives a +10 bonus to energy. By equipping 3 of these to a ship that normally would have 100 MAX energy and no Relays the ship would have 130 MAX energy.

But that's the poor man's example. If you want a REAL example, based around mid-game stats, let's assume that you have a heavy cruiser that has a base energy of 100, with not one, not even two, but THREE Singularity Cores - Mk. IV. Basic energy levels on this ship would be a staggering 469 Energy! However, this would have a nominal recharge rate at the typical 3 minutes per energy (Assuming you haven't gotten the Omicron Injector yet, which would be unlikely). The time to fully charge the energy reserves from 0 to 469 equates to 23 hours and 27 minutes. That's not a fun wait at all. However, if you throw 4 X-Conduits in there, the energy drops down to 269, but the time of recharge spikes to 2 minutes. At this rate, the time to get to 269 energy from 0 energy would be 8 hours and 58 minutes. Significantly faster than before, no? Plus, it's just enough that, if you go to sleep, you should wake up to a full energy bank. :) And if you sleep longer, uninstall one or two conduits. It may not charge fully, but it'll charge more than without any conduits at all. ;)

Engineers vs. Reactors/Cores

Many players feel that building Reactors is a much more productive way to increase your energy reserves than placing your rank points into Engineers because Reactors can be upgraded and removed at will. Engineer's are permanent and a permanent use of rank points that would be better spent in decks or cargo.

To further illustrate this point, 1 Rank Point is equal to 2 Energy points, if placed into an Engineer. At the early levels, this can look very nice (after all, a basic Fusion Reactor has a 1 deck to 1 energy ratio), but at the higher levels, this becomes completely overshadowed by the larger reactors. Using the Singularity Core - Mk. IV example above, 1 Singularity Core - Mk. IV takes up 29 deck slots, but gives 123 energy. This is a ratio of 1 Rank Point to 4.2 energy points. By this logic, while useful at the early levels, an engineer rapidly becomes dated as the tech increases (Generally dated by the Graviton Core Mk. IV, although an argument can still be made for the engineers at this point), making them less useful.

However, higher level players will still have a use for engineers in later stages. Using the example above, 3 Singularity cores give 369 energy, but that is a maximum. While enough deck space needs to be maintained for as high a level of Reactors as a player can research, any additional rank points placed into engineers could be well spent.

Researchable Reactors

These Reactors can be unlocked by performing Energy Research. Every odd-numbered tier of research unlocks a new reactor (Ie. tier 1, tier 3, tier 5, and so on). The other tiers unlock Relays.

Salvageable Reactors

These reactors can be obtained by completing certain objectives, such as defeating certain enemies in combat or as rewards fro completing a specific mission.

¹ If the Genetarr Transmitter is FIRST installed after you reach rank 50, you will instead get the upgraded Mark II version, which grants an additional 35 scanning power. It is therefore strongly recommended that you wait until you are level 50 before you first equip the Genetarr Transmitter.

² Both versions of Zortah's Interface Jack will be displayed in the devices tab of your ship, not in the energy tab. It's listed here because it provides more scanning than energy.

Equipment