Yesterday I built an important component. More precisely, a whole set of mechanics: accounting for a ship's energy resources; shutting down modules in order of priority when power is scarce; connecting, charging, and discharging batteries; and timing transitions between different module activity states while accounting for possible damage and the experience of officers and crew. What's especially pleasing is that this isn't built for just one little ship. It's a system that can process any number of modules, in any configuration, on any ship.
The photo shows about a quarter of the entire Blueprint that processes the ship. Much more has already been put "in the background": minimized into functions, macros, and nodes containing code.
In the center is the group of logic that handles the ship's energy system. At the bottom right is the basic firing algorithm, which correctly calculates lead and accounts for the weapon's condition and ammunition quality. At the bottom center is the system that receives module commands from the interface when a player is in control. It runs exclusively on the server, so there can be no cheats. AI commands will go there too. The ship doesn't care who controls it; the mechanics are the same.
