Can we expand on electricity please?

The real life applications for a battery would be:

  1. to cover for an intermittent power source like solar or wind
  2. to cover for unanticipated peak demand
  3. to cover for an unanticipated loss of power from another source
  4. to be the sole source of power for some mobile solution (like a cell phone)

We see batteries drive data centers and be backfilled from the grid or a generator, or even a mix of other direct sources (solar, wind, nuclear). We can't really do this in the game beyond having solar lead to batteries OR a generator lead to batteries even though there are signs that parts of the world still have grid power.

We see generators be the primary source, but when demand peaks beyond the capacity of the generator or when demand fluctuates quickly then batteries cover and smooth everything out because the generators respond too slowly. We don't see those generator limitations in game and those limitations don't usually make sense in small portable generator-like circuits. The grid operators have to worry about that stuff though.

The game also doesn't bother to let somebody with something like a car act like a generator. Cars charge batteries. We're even headed into a world where people with electric cars can use their car as a battery backup system for their house. There are no electric vehicles in the game which is set in the future. How odd. :)

I don't know why I felt like writing this. I guess it was on my mind.

 
Riamus said:
As far as solar goes, it has always been a waste for most players.
Click to expand...
As far as i remember, solar was much easier available - outside of the special stash - long ago, perhaps back around A16? I do not remember, but i do remember having solar power being more useful than now :D

Riamus said:
Just a thought - you can always set up a trigger plate at each electric fence and tie that to a turret.  When the zombie gets electrified, your turret kills them.  Otherwise, the turret is disabled until the next one is there.  That can save you a lot of ammo and probably allow that turret to work all horde night.  Maybe not ideal, but it provides an option you can already use, regardless what they might eventually do to improve electricity.  Trigger plates add more power usage, but the turret uses no power until triggered, so you are also generally using less power at any given time unless you trigger all the turrets at the same time (if we're talking about using a trigger plate or other sensor to activate turrets).
Click to expand...
Yeah, i could. But to make it even slightly effecient, i would have to place the fence-turret pairs very close to the zed walkway. Close enough that they'd probably get destroyed by random rage hits (see screenshot of sledge pit, notice a single block on the slide-away-from-pillar siding missing from the same source, everything is in steel btw).

If i place them slightly further out, the effect would be more or less the same as now, as their sensor view would be large and unconcentrated. At my current gamestage, the turrets are just tickling the zeds like damage over time versus me killing 2-3 zeds a shot with T6 sniper and AP bullets.

Another problem with always on (even if by pressure plate) tickling damage is less control over cops accidentally exploding on the walkway. The only way i see to scale up the low turret damage output vs the current strength (health) of the incoming zeds, is more turrets and or traps etc. Which brings us back to needing more power than a single parent-consumer circuit can provide :)

zztong said:
Cars charge batteries.
Click to expand...
Taking this slightly out of context, battery tier also mattered once for crafted vehicles (or vehicle as there was only the minibike). Now, the recipes just specify a battery, and you can use a T1 or waste a perfectly good T6 for no difference in the end product.

 
Oh yeah, i remember that. They contributed nicely to screamer farming haha. They also made quite a lot more noise than they do now :D

 
Btw, @Riamus, just for fun i tried your suggestion and set up a single shotgun turret 3 blocks outside one of the first fences the zeds encounter, triggered by a plate in the corresponding area. It ran for about 1/3 of the horde night (day 154, horde night 22, gamestage ~360) then it had used all 450 shots. Sure, it got a kill here and there on already weakened (dismembered) zeds, but for the most part i didn't notice much difference.

The turret didn't take any damage, but the trigger plate got wrecked shortly after the turret itself ran dry, so there is another issue.

Anyway, as i suspected, although the idea is sound i would need a LOT more to make an actual impact at this point = more total power :)

Edit:

Also, as we are now on V1.3 b9, it seems there has been a small change to zed AI. During the horde night, vultures actually broke down 9 steel bars in the pathway between my two buildings. Normally they only try to get in by the shortest route, which is almost directly above where i am sniping during horde night. This part wasn't covered by top shotgun turret, so i installed one more up top so that both sections are covered. Again, more power usage.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top