Flux

Neutron flux is the energy in a ship's active pile. Propulsion and several ship systems spend this charge; a carried Flux pod is a separate inventory item that can replace it. The active pile holds up to 65,000 energy units. REPORT SYSTEMS shows its current charge, while REPORT INVENTORY shows how many pods remain.

Energy use

These are stock costs; a configured cloak cost or missile charge can differ. A movement update and a ship-state update are different parts of the game loop, so costs in different rows need not be charged at the same instant.

System or action	Classic GE 3.2e	ge-next
ROTATE command	30 when its energy check succeeds; useenergy() also requires 500 energy to remain afterward.	No separate rotation charge.
Impulse movement	No ordinary movement-energy charge at impulse speed.	1 per powered movement update.
Warp acceleration	120 for a charged acceleration step.	120 for a warp-range acceleration step; entering hyperspace also reserves enough flux for the accompanying movement check.
Warp movement	10 per movement update only above warp 1.00; at exactly 1.00 the classic code skips this charge. The requested speed is cut when the active pile falls below 3,000 during a charged movement update.	10 plus the whole-number warp speed per powered movement update: 11 at warp 1, 20 at warp 10.
Standard phaser firing	Spends stored phaser charge, not flux directly.	Same; the later recharge spends flux.
Phaser recharge	57 per ship-state update while a working phaser is below full charge; the classic useenergy() check requires 500 more than the cost.	57 per recharge update, checked against available active charge or a pod.
Hyper-phaser firing	Spends 5,000 but requires at least 6,000 active energy before firing.	Spends 5,000; the shared loader checks that amount first.
Missile launch	Uses charged missile energy divided by MISENGFC, stock 100: a 50,000-energy missile costs 500 flux.	Uses the entire selected 2,000–20,000-energy charge as flux.
Raised shields	Normally 100 times the installed shield Mark per ship-state update: Mark-5 costs 500.	The same Mark-based upkeep, but checked against available active charge or a pod before charging.
Cloak upkeep	CLENGUSE per ship-state update, stock 7,500.	CLENGUSE per ship-state update, stock 5,000; the shared loader checks for a pod first.

Classic charges for issuing ROTATE, not for the physical turn performed later. IMPULSE and WARP can set a new heading without paying that 30-unit charge, and the subsequent turn also costs no flux. Conversely, ROTATE can charge even when the requested heading is unchanged; in its absolute-heading path, it charges before rejecting an out-of-range value such as ROTATE @360. This command-dependent inconsistency was one reason ge-next removed the separate rotation charge.

Background recharge adds one unit per ship-state update in classic and two in ge-next. This is far slower than the main costs of combat or warp travel. The costs above describe normal player use. In both classic GE and ge-next, an active Cybertron or Droid has its flux set back to 50,000 at the end of each AI behavior callback, rather than depending on carried pods to remain powered. These ships still carry flux pods as inventory and potential salvage; the shared energy check can occasionally consume one between AI callbacks, but the recurring reset keeps an NPC from staying powerless merely because it has run out of pods.

Why spare pods can fail in classic

Classic checks for automatic pod loading once near the start of each ship-state pass, and only if active flux is below 5,000. Other energy-using routines do not call that loader when an action needs more charge. The timing and thresholds can therefore disagree:

• At 5,500 flux, a ship with spare pods cannot fire its hyper-phaser: firing requires 6,000, but the periodic loader will not load a pod until the pile falls below 5,000.
• At 6,000 flux, a successful hyper-phaser shot spends 5,000 and leaves 1,000. If the next movement update runs before the pod-loading status pass, the ship can lose its requested warp speed because its charge is below the 3,000 movement threshold, despite having pods aboard.
• With 8,000 flux and raised Mark-6 shields, the classic status pass skips pod loading, then shield upkeep takes 600. Cloak upkeep later in that pass requires the stock 7,500 and shuts off the cloak at 7,400, although a spare pod is present.
• An immediate rotation or a phaser recharge attempt can also fail or stall at low charge between periodic checks. The pod will not be considered until a later status pass.

Classic can also subtract flux unsafely in some paths when no pod is available; see Classic bug: Flux subtraction underflow. These are separate arithmetic faults from the missed-reload cases above.

ge-next loading

Since ge-next 0.2, fluxstat() receives the amount an operation needs. If the active pile cannot cover it, the routine consumes one available pod and replaces the pile with 65,000 units before the operation proceeds. Movement, phaser recharge, hyper-phaser and missile firing, and shield/cloak upkeep use this shared check. The remaining energy in the old pile is not added to the replacement charge. If there is no pod, the system follows its insufficient-power path instead. This eliminates the classic timing gaps above and makes the manual FLUX command unnecessary for normal operation.

See also

• Flux pod
• Flux command
• Warp travel
• Hyper-phasers
• Missiles
• Shields
• Cloaking

Home · Play · Reference · Versions & history · Sysop · Development · Classic bugs