Subset Games Forum

Let's say my ship is at [System: Power]
Engine: 0
Weapons: 3 [Zoltan]
Shields: 2 [Zoltan]
Cloak: 1 [Zoltan Jones]
Reserve: 0

Zoltan Jones leaves the cloaking device and heads to the engine. What should happen is whatever system the Zoltan is on should be de-powered and everything else on the ship should remain powered exactly as it was before. This seems obvious to me: the Zoltan is a battery. He's powering something, when you remove him, it removes one energy unit from that system.

So, here is what should happen while he's in transit:
Engine: 0
Weapons: 3 green [Zoltan]
Shields: 2 [Zoltan]
Cloak: 0
Reserve: 0

But here is what does happen:
Engine: 0
Weapons: 2 [Zoltan]
Shields: 2 [Zoltan]
Cloak: 1
Reserve: 0

I understand that this could be intuitively different to someone else, but I can't understand the justification. The ship's AI attempts to keep powering all systems...at the expense of weapons?

Let's assume this is a feature and not a bug: I'd rather it depower everything else before it depowers the weapons. It's far more crushing to watch a 22 second weapon 1 second from firing go dark because it dropped one energy level than watching any other system (even shields) lose one level.

But I think it's more likely that this is a bug (or a non-optimized process, if you prefer). It might be related to ion damage (when things go blue, stuff happens to power) but most likely it has something to with him adding power to every single room he is passing through. When he passes through the weapons room, I assume it shifts power from the weapon to reserve and adds a yellow bar to the weapon. But then when the Zoltan leaves, that one yellow bar (which used to be a green bar) goes away and the useless green bar stays in the reserve.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well. I'll edit.

For the time he's walking through the weapons room:
Engine: 0
Weapons: 2 greenand 1 yellow [Zoltan][Zoltan Jones]
Shields: 2 [Zoltan]
Cloak: 1
Reserve: 1

Then when he leaves the weapons room:
Engine: 0
Weapons: 2 [Zoltan] <-- no longer powered, thanks to Zoltan Jones. Should be 3 green.
Shields: 2 [Zoltan]
Cloak: 1
Reserve: 1 <-- Still at 1. Should be 0.


Edit, obviously at the end of his journey it should look like this:
Engine: 1 [Zoltan Jones]
Weapons: 3 [Zoltan]
Shields: 2 [Zoltan]
Cloak: 0
Reserve: 0

There can be some confusion with Zoltan and Weapon Systems. Zoltan provide power for the 1st weapon only. The weapon in the left-most slot will receive the Zoltan Energy boost. This weapon less likely to be affected by your system taking damage, but other weapons get no extra power.

I'm not sure this is related to your problem, and i'm not sure i undersatnd it well. The problem is that the Cloak stays powered beyond normal (as if a Zoltan was present) and the Weapons are not getting the expected bonus? Like the Zoltan left his 'battery' in the Cloak room when he left, right?

Could you reproduce this bug, or record it?

I get his problem -- and have experienced. In short, Zoltan power supply should only be updated when they start moving and when they stop moving. When passing through rooms, power should not be updated at all.

What happens if the weapons room gets an extra Zoltan power when he enters, returning one "to the pool" (which may or may not be allocated automagically to another system). Then, when he's done passing through the room, his point of power he provided the room vanishes from it and might not be replenished automatically from the pool (especially not if the pool point was allocated, such as being put into the room he previously left), leading to you having a weapons system shut down due to insufficient power.

I've said it before and seen others say it: Keep Zoltans out of your weapons rooms unless absolutely unavoidable. Have them power engines, shields or even drones or oxygen -- but let your ship power weapons. Don't even let them move through the room.

Is your weapon room adjacent to the cloak? If so, leaving the cloaking room will not cause a loss of any system power as it can still keep it powered without de-powering anything. Only when a zoltan leaves a room that is powered and enters a room that is not previously recieving power will a system de-power, and it will always be the last room the zoltan was in.