How exactly does the engineering work? (repairing ships)

[yngvef]

I've been wondering about this, but the manual only explains it half-way.

The engineering station in capital ships is a wonderful place, but I still don't understand everything in there.

How do you know how much power a specific system requires? Also, what does the * symbol mean on the power allocation selector for a specific system? Is that the maximum recommended power for the system as it has sustained damage? Sometimes it's only at one-quarter of full power, and sometimes even lower (after a battle, that is. When starting the mission, there are no * symbols)

I also noticed one thing, shields don't seem to work when assigned to get power from the battery. Is there a way to see how many watts the different systems require, and how many watts are being used by the reactor/aux reac/battery?. Can the fusion reactor support ALL the systems in the ship alone, or should you disperse the systems between the different power sources? I started wondering if I could get more power out of the main engine by moving power for all systems to fusion reactor, except plasma drive that I put on the aux reac. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to see if it accelerates any faster.

Which leads me to another question, will the battery run out of power and need recharging? If so... how?

What I'm basically asking for is a "Dummies guide to Engineering", so if anyone has some knowledge about this that isn't covered in the game's PDF manual, please tell me.

Thanks in advance

yngvef

[wdboyd]

Salutations,

There are various modding aids available at www.starshattermods.com .

Check out "Thadeaus Tweens Tech Notes."

One can also post questions on the modding starshatter forum section.

Keep em flying commanders. [;)]