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CleverRaven / Cataclysm-DDA

Cataclysm - Dark Days Ahead. A turn-based survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world.
http://cataclysmdda.org
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Idea - craftable vehicle batteries #5859

Closed NaturesWitness closed 10 years ago

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

As was pointed out in #5855, small storage batteries are very hard to come by, and are needed to build rechargeable battery tool mods. My idea to solve this is, have recipes to build (and dismantle) vehicle batteries. The parts of a battery would be: 1 - some scrap (the case) 2 - some cables 3 - a certain amount of "power cores" The power cores would be a new item, basically they're what actually holds the charge. How many a battery has depends on how much power it holds. I think a good ratio would be 1000/1, so the small storage battery would have one power core (has capacity 1000), and a car battery would have 30 (has capacity 30000). So you could go around yanking car batteries out of wrecks, scrap them, and use the power cores to build a nice big storage battery for your ride. I recognize this is has no relation to current battery technology, but this is Cata, and it appears their power storage technology is far superior to ours.

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

Just realized, all the vehicle batteries in Cata seem to be described as lead-acid batteries. So maybe we can have batteries dismantle into scrap, acid, and lead plates? You could use the plates to build a new battery, and you could even build new plates by scrapping ammunition for lead.

KA101 commented 10 years ago

Das Auto! :D

dwarfkoala commented 10 years ago

I really like this power core idea. Power storage in crafting seems to be extremely lackluster and this could go a long way to fixing that.

On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 4:57 PM, KA101 notifications@github.com wrote:

Das Auto! :D

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/5859#issuecomment-33857717 .

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

Okay, I think I'll try to throw something together for this. The question is, should they be built from power cores (which would mean the only way to build batteries would be to salvage parts from other batteries), or should they be built from acid and lead plates (which would probably mean that you could build complete batteries from random salvage, as you can make acid and the plates could be made from scrap)?

KA101 commented 10 years ago

I'm liking the lead-acid route. That way lead has a second role, the Alternate Ammo-Crafting Materials get more use, and you don't have to cannibalize batteries to make larger batteries.

dwarfkoala commented 10 years ago

I also think power cores have a place. After all, you can't really be building super high tech military stuff without really futuristic batteries.

On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 6:35 PM, KA101 notifications@github.com wrote:

I'm liking the lead-acid route. That way lead has a second role, the Alternate Ammo-Crafting Materials get more use, and you don't have to cannibalize batteries to make larger batteries.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/5859#issuecomment-33860998 .

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

Hmm, maybe the lead-acid parts should only be used for building the various smaller vehicle batteries, and the full storage battery should be something else entirely?

KA101 commented 10 years ago

Replied.

ChunkOfMeat commented 10 years ago

I think maybe we should add all car batteries flag [RECHARGE] that they can be recharged at charging stations.

Zireael07 commented 10 years ago

I love the idea of being able to craft vehicle batteries.

illi-kun commented 10 years ago

I prefer the lead-acid way, partially in nostalgia reason: I disassembled some car batteries when I was a child for making some lead fishing sinkers.

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

Would the [RECHARGE] flag work on batteries? I'm not sure if they're compatible with it. If they are, then I definitely think this is a good idea.

I think I will use the lead-acid approach, one question though; How much acid should a battery require? I'm not sure how big a unit of acid is in Cata, although it seems pretty big (a full jug?) it seems like most of them would only need one (if one jug is ~a gallon) but the full storage battery might need more.

Finally, does anyone have any suggestions on recipe ingredients? Especially for the lead plates, I could use some advice. I was going to require lead from bullets, but I saw in recipes.json that lead can be made from scrap metal in Cata, so now I'm thinking just one piece of scrap per plate. After all, standard batteries can be crafted using common tableware for plates, so either; 1 - In Cata, all eating utensils are made of lead (no wonder everyone went crazy) 2 - In the future, everyone has their own personal philosopher's stone 3 - Cata just doesn't care about the difference between steel and lead So I'm thinking I may as well just make the plates from scrap. Any thoughts?

Zireael07 commented 10 years ago

I see two solutions: 1) fix the lead/bullets recipe so that it's not possible any longer or it requires another pseudo-scientific component (leadium catalyst, whatever, I forgot the Latin for lead) 2) fix bullets description/recipe so that they don't require lead because they're not made of lead

Thoughts?

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

The thing is, making regular batteries in Cata doesn't require lead either. And really, modern bullets aren't made of lead anyway, so that doesn't make sense either. That's why I'm considering just using scrap for these, there really isn't a source for lead in Cata that I can think of.

Zireael07 commented 10 years ago

Ah, ok, I misunderstood. Go ahead and use scrap.

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

Did a little more research, turns out most bullets ARE still mostly lead. But still, since normal batteries can be made with steel, I think I'll stick with scrap for the recipe. I do like the catalyst idea, but I'm leery of adding an item with such a limited use. Maybe I could make the plates require scrap and a small amount of lead? It's a bit of circular logic, since lead can be made from scrap. Maybe change the recipe that makes lead to make "metallic dust" that has the same use in bullets as lead, but isn't suitable for batteries? So you could still grind up steel for bullets, but to get lead for batteries you would have to scrap "vintage" ammo?

ChunkOfMeat commented 10 years ago

"Gaston Planté found a way to provide a much larger effective surface area. In Planté's design, the positive and negative plates were formed of two spirals of lead foil, separated with a sheet of cloth and coiled up. The cells initially had low capacity, so a slow process of "forming" was required to corrode the lead foils, creating lead dioxide on the plates and roughening them to increase surface area. Initially this process used electricity from primary batteries; when generators became available after 1870, the cost of production of batteries greatly declined.[7] Planté plates are still used in some stationary applications, where the plates are mechanically grooved to increase their surface area."

++ plastic for corpse

NaturesWitness commented 10 years ago

This is finished and merged, so we can close this.