Reactor Suggestion

[5thHorseman]

Every time I've done well, previous versions or now, I've had problems with power management.

It's part of the endgame. If you can power everything, you haven't upgraded enough

[The Captain]

Yes, I do thanks for implying that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Sorry, but when you say things like "it's basically useless" and "don't even think about"

And I get that it's about micromanagement, but it's basically useless to have more than one or 2 power-requiring systems at max and still be able to have good weapons, don't even think about having max shields or engines if you're gonna have any weapons and/or drones that are actually useful end-game :/

but leave out clarifiers like

Pre AE I didn't have a power issue with 25 power bars.

WITH AE and the addition of mind control, hacking, cloning, and the amount of various new weapons and drones, 25 isn't enough anymore, 30 or 35 power bars would be great. It'd let you have your level 3 hacking, mind control, and still be able to power the end-game weapons and drones. (By the way, shield drones are amazing).

is it any wonder it seems like you don't know what you're talking about?

[Nukeknockout]

Every time I've done well, previous versions or now, I've had problems with power management.

It's part of the endgame. If you can power everything, you haven't upgraded enough

I tend to agree with this. Beginning of Sector 8:



(Accidentally launched an Anti-drone, good thing I had the recovery arm. Those things are amazing in round two). Note that even with just 25 power, it can be decently allocated to be "rough and ready" at the beginning of any given fight. Lots of unpowered systems is not the same thing as lots of useless systems - rather, there's no particular reason for power to be sitting in teleporter, mind control, cloak, hacking, drones, or medbay/clonebay when it could be in shields, engines or weapons unless the aforementioned systems are needed.

Conclusion of final round with the flagship:



(Put anti-drone away in favor of system repair once the combat drone threat was over. I had two Defense Drone Mk. I's in there with it, really lucky in that regard that run.) Note that as the threat of the opponent's weapons became less, power was shunted from pure defense systems to specialty and aggressive systems. It's where a lot of the tension of these fights comes from - knowing you have to make judgment calls and never knowing if you made the right one.

In that second photo, I can spot at least two mistakes I am making in that battle - why does Cloak have power when I could get an Evade boost, and why is that Lanius repairing the sensors that don't work against the boss when it could be fighting boarders in the shield generator or helping the Repair Drone if it absolutely has to fix something?

My point is that without power management, we lose a lot of what makes these fights so addicting. Besides, your limit isn't really 25 Power. It's 37. 25 Reactor power, 8 Zoltan power, +4 Battery power. Sure, there's tradeoffs, but such an overwhelming energy advantage would surely counterbalance the weaknesses in boarding, x.8 Evade, and so forth.