Spiral Knights - Discussion Thread: Skylark Generator

Discussion Thread: Skylark Generator

4 replies [Last post]

Sun, 05/22/2016 - 17:25

Umbra-Lunatis

Now, through observation of the Lab's secondary Tearium generator, I have come to determine several things:
1) The energy emitted by the Generator is roughly the same coloration as CE.
2) Its size is minimal compared to what I assume to be a spaceship of immense proportions--like a D-cell battery to an aircraft carrier.

So, due to these observations, I have several questions:
1) Was the secondary generator useful after the first one was torn through? To what extent? Was the secondary Generator just meant to provide a few extra seconds of landing-prep?
2) How powerful is Tearium? How much less powerful is Crystal Energy than Tearium?
3) How big was the primary generator? How big is/was the Skylark?
4) Were there multiple backup generators throughout the Skylark?
5) Could a community-wide campaign to "fix" the Skylark using Crystal Energy, Crowns, Materials, etc. be plausible?

Mon, 05/23/2016 - 03:48

Vohtarak-Forum

there are no real answers to the other questions

But if you look at the prologue, the lights along the side of the skylark might be windows
that could be used as a size reference

Mon, 05/23/2016 - 05:35

Ironianknight

Error: Axe Required for Process

This is right up my alley... From what I can gather based on my engineering-friendly mind, the Lab's generator is much too small for backup power. In order to understand the structure we must look to what we have in front of us. The generator was said to be a secondary system, it is damaged but still functional, and in its present state it is only capable of powering a single room full of high tech research and computational equipment. Now the damage the generator sustained is definitely a bit of a wild card in this situation, as it means the energy efficiency of the thing could have been compromised. But one thing that's definitely implied is that the primary generator is made of a massive amount of Tearium. One of the leaders in Haven says this much when explaining the situation on Cradle, talking about how the Spiral Order is grounded unless they can find.. some huge number of tons of the stuff. So I think it's safe enough to say that the Lab's generator is significantly smaller than the Skylark's main power source, unless Tearium is super dense.

So what does the secondary generator do, then? I think judging by the fact it can only just power a large room full of power-hungry computers, this was probably an emergency power supply intended to maintain life support, emergency lighting, and one or two important computers on the ship in the event of the main generator failing. Air scrubbers and lights would take a fair amount less power than an entire computer, so it'd make sense that the generator meant mostly for powering those would be much smaller than that meant to run the entire ship. We have to understand that the Skylark was a huge vessel, and most likely never meant to leave the vacuum of space... crashing was likely not on the engineering team's list of probable issues, so they wouldn't have built the Skylark's systems around that specific problem.

That's just assuming that there was only one secondary generator, of course. The knight in the Lab that talks about the thing seems to imply that this is the case through their wording, but we can't be 100% sure I don't think. Maybe I'll think up another theory another time.

Mon, 05/23/2016 - 08:08

Neueragon

I agree with Ironianknight in most points.

if I recall correctly, it is directly said at one point that the lab is running on a backup generator. I dont want to make a new knight and play for who knows how long to reread all the dialogue though.

and about the generator being the same colour as CE, it kind of makes sense. let me explain why.
first of all, there are three currencies. the first is RL money, which you can consider as the original currency before crashing. then there are crowns, the currency of cradle. the last is crystal energy.
what I suggest is that the research team is producing CE with their generator, of which most isnt used in the machines. the surplus is sold to the knights for RL money, which the knights make from certain tasks such as doing rescue missions (what, you really think we did that for free?) and general work like construction in haven. knights spend RL money on CE for various uses such as running machinery (like keeping the lights on in their homes and using the coffee maker). because the spiral order in general also needs energy, a lot of it actually, it offers the knights various items and services in the supply depot for energy.
CE is produced by the generator because it is much easier to handle than tearium and can simply be inserted into whatever needs to be powered instead of requiring you to carry a whole generator around.

Mon, 05/23/2016 - 11:09

Vohtarak-Forum

oh right

I think the exact words were "one of the auxiliary generators", so it probably wasn't the only one on the ship, but its likely the only one that survived

About landing: from another engineering perspective, the skylark does NOT look like its designed to land, its literally a sword that would stand on one edge then tip over

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Discussion Thread: Skylark Generator