Rechargeable batteries and powercells?
Requiemfang
Join Date: 2015-02-22 Member: 201492Members
Join Date: 2015-02-22 Member: 201492Members
Think about it for a moment, you come from an overly polluted/resource drained Earth and as stated in the game intro near the turn of the 22 century. You would think power cells and battery's would be rechargeable. Currently in the EA we have we can't do this yet, but it would be good if we could later down the road be able to do this instead of having to constantly craft and re-craft both of said items. Once they add the ability to build power generators (currently there is with the base power generator), solar cells and other such power generating methods, you'd be able to build a recharging station for said items.
So instead of exchanging new batteries and power cells with old ones and getting nothing back you instead get a drained or empty battery or cell back after exchanging them. These items could be placed into the recharge station and over time are recharged. Rise and repeat and no need to strip mine an area looking for resources constantly. Obviously this would be something meant for mid-game, early game I expect it would be hard to do this.
thoughts?
So instead of exchanging new batteries and power cells with old ones and getting nothing back you instead get a drained or empty battery or cell back after exchanging them. These items could be placed into the recharge station and over time are recharged. Rise and repeat and no need to strip mine an area looking for resources constantly. Obviously this would be something meant for mid-game, early game I expect it would be hard to do this.
thoughts?
Comments
If resources are wholly finite within tight constraints, recycling makes the most sense. If there's only X copper in the world, the gameplay should center around renewability of those resources. Not just batteries, but reprocessing built items as well (like breaking down old storage crates back into titanium). However, if the supply itself is renewable, or available in neigh bottomless/copious amounts (as Mining would suggest), then disposability of the resource is a better mechanic to avoid 'being buried' in things you don't need or having available mechanics that are functionally useless (I already have Y copper that i can reprocess over and over, why would I need a tenfold supply?)
The question remains as to whether the base/mining mechanic is meant to be a long-term replacement for the scavenging mechanic we're playing with now, or suppliant to it? If the scavengeable supply of copper/titanium is finite, then recycling should be a thing. If scavenging is a holding pattern before farms/mining, then there's no real need for it.
I honestly see the latter happening, in a mixture of player-devices to 'renew' finite resources, while having minimal tools for supplying naturally renewing material. I don't want to see scavenging going away. As much as farms are a 'thing', there's something to be said about the practicality of gravsphere fishing and getting the player out of the base and back into colorful territory. Whether it's through 'recharging/recycling' mechanic or 'drill/farm', is largely up to the devs.
What's important is that a sandboxy game world should not be more finite than the player. The beauty in a game like this is when a player can simply 'coast' without needing to progress. Don't Starve is like that, hell, even Skyrim. You don't need infinite procedural map generation for that, just combinations of naturally renewing and copious finite resources.
AAAAAND somewhere I got philosophical about game design...
Lithium ion rechargeable batteries = NOM. All that's really needed is lithium, carbon, and rusty metal. I'm thinking an item not dissimilar to Skyrim's Azura's Star where it's not fully consumed when you 'change batteries' in a device like the SeaGlide (like the current Shroom-powered cells), but you'd need to take it to a base facility (like the fabricator) to recharge them off a power grid. They should be functionally interchangeable with shroom batteries, but are replaced with 'discharged' versions when used.
Now as far as rechargeable...I agree. Parking the Cyclops in a dock I have suspended on a cliff which is rigged to tidal current generators with power capacitors storing energy, complete with a animated docking sequence with a button to connect or disconnect, and a beacon at the suspended dock, I can see this as a refueling station, one of many I would construct, complete with a base with some sort of automated function. On that note, I want base beacons I can rig, and attach info to, such as the current level of stored energy for that base's particular, linked to beacon, capacitors, which I can access on a sonar map on the Cyclops.
Current:
'Shroom Batteries'/Power Core - first tier environmental power sources and can fuel ships/seabases
Improved Tech:
Lithium Cell - Rechargeable/reusable basic batteries for use with PED's (seaglide, stasis rifle, etc)
Charging Station - Base/Cyclops module that allows recharging of Lithium Cells
Advanced Tech:
Thermoelectric Power/Hydroelectric (water currents) - self explanatory seabase power generators replacing the 'power cell' generator (now just a backup generator)
Lithium Core - Rechargeable/reusable Power Cores for use with the Cyclops. Seamoth, and base generator. Recharged at the Thermo/Hydro plant itself rather than a cyclops/base module.
Small and large power sources would be interchangeable with the only difference being the player receives a 'discharged' item when using the Lithium versions (Similar to how Azura's Star in Skyrim isn't consumed, just charged/discharged). The current power systems wouldn't be obsolete until higher tech levels, meaning that Acid Shroom farms and Copper Mines can be re-purposed once the player has access to Thermo/Hydro power.
There are multiple forms of supercapacitors, but the most interesting ones use carbon electrodes. They. Are. Amazing.
Also, thermal generators are going to be implemented.