@arran said in Sparky overcharge:
How can you say no to E-storage with guns, buildpower and mobility?
Because it's more expensive and it's barely any e storage, only 200. Because if you actually use the sparkies you put them at risk of being sniped, which is a lot more likely than a snipe of an e storage back home.
How many Sparkies would you need in order to have enough energy in the bank to one-shot a full-health no-vet Rhino?
1900 HP means it would take 7600 energy invested to overcharge it (because, against normal units, it's 4 energy per 1 damage). Since you can only put up to 90% of your stored E into an overcharge (except when your overcharge is costing 5k E, then you're allowed to go up to 100% of your stored energy), you would need to have 8445 E in storage.
To meet that target normally, you only need to make 1 e storage (4k for the ACU + 5k for the storage = 9k total storage) which costs 250 mass.
To meet that target with Sparkies, you would need to make 23 of them (4k + 200 * 23 = 8600), which costs 5175 mass. You can do a lot of things with 5k mass.
If you made the bare minimum to enable overcharge, which is 5 sparkies, that would cost 1125 mass compared to just 250 mass to make 1 e storage, and it's a lot more awkward to throw OCs around with only 5k in storage than 9k in storage. You're more likely to power stall, even if it's just briefly, and anything that puts you slightly negative on power would prevent an OC. If you have 5k energy in the bank and you suddenly go -10 energy, you won't be able to overcharge until you resolve the power situation. But with 9k in storage you can still do it.