Fusion Reactors
Fusion reactors are the main source of power on board modern starships when the warp cores are offline. Typically they produce anywhere from between 1 GigaWatt to 1 TerraWatt of power. This is reduced by 5% for every 1% of damage to the reactor. When it drops below 80% health it cannot be used.
This is the first unit to power up when booting up a starship from cold. It provides enough power to get the warp engines online.
The fusion reactors use a boron/proton mix for fuel. The fusion reactors are created with a fixed amount of fuel that provides from 1,000 TerraWatt hours to 100,000 TerraWatt hours of use. Once this fuel is expended the reactor needs to be refueled. This can be carried out by an engineering team and takes a substantial amount of time and resources.
When damage is inflicted on a reactor it only takes one quarter of the damage. This is due to the heavy shielding around it.
The fusion reactors also needs to have regular maintenance carried out on them.
A fusion reactor takes 10 seconds to come online, but can be left online indefinitely.
Upgrading
Researchers working for the player can improve the fusion reactors in a number of ways.
The output of the reactor can be improved.
The efficiency can be improved - resulting in longer times between refueling.