You might’ve seen me around before from previous threads such as Blazemod Modernization and Blazemod save-compatibility break incoming. I eventually went full-ham on the re-work and phased out blazemod in its old implementation. Because it only fully hit after the Nested Containers first implementation, it has probably gone unnoticed for the most part.
So what does this mean for blazemod? Well currently, saves that used blazemod are not directly compatible with the new mod, Blaze Industries. For now I’ve hosted a snapshot or “last working version” that is a mirror of the version hosted by TheGoatgod in Mods Unleashed Compilation | E. V 1.0c | Experimental V 0.06 | [GMC] which has continued legacy support for old blazemod as it existed.
In Blaze Industries first iteration, most of the content from blazemod you might’ve known has been gutted. The current feature list is as follows:
Expanded vehicle turret functionality for vanilla guns
Expanded steam engine variants based on vanilla
Cargo shelving part which has a volume of 1000L
Solar arrays remodeled into a 1-part-1-tile foldable vehicle that can be jumper cable’d onto a vehicle to charge its battery storage. The recipe and stats were remodeled to reflect 3 solar panel’s worth.
Blob vehicle parts were moved off-repo to be worked on for a planned re-implementation as a separate mod, as were the sci-fi parts. The blazemod-specific guns were also moved off-repo to be worked on before being re-implemented because they were pretty shocking and modifying them went beyond the scope of simply modernising blazemod (basically a solar array remodel for each gun).
This way, they won’t break anything while I have to change ID’s or anything else, and there was no butting heads with nested containers out of the box. The sci-fi parts and blob parts are available in add-on form in the same manner for those who want them as they were, though they are expected to change at least somewhat drastically when I get around to them. These repos may be found at https://github.com/Soup-de-Loop?tab=repositories.
Moving on however, the current content is hardly reflective of the plans I have for Blaze Industries. Unlike old blazemod, I want Blaze Industries to be properly integrated into the game, not just an assortment of auto-learnt recipes for overpowered and technologically difficult guns and utilities that can be assembled in a very DIY scrap-heap manner that doesn’t match the level of complexity.
Anywho! I have a project detailing my plans: Blaze Industries Better Implementation 1.0 on github. I would love to hear any feedback people have on the ideas on this roadmap, and suggestions or criticisms etcetera. This extends beyond this roadmap- if there’s something you like or don’t like about what I’ve done, let me know!
I haven’t used foldables much and the vehicle part descriptions (“Due to the flimsy nature of the hydraulics and high surface area profile to maximize sunlight, they can’t really be installed onto an existing vehicle.”) aren’t making things clearer, unfortunately. Is this some kind of a specialized vehicle that can’t have certain parts installed? Like wheels, for example.
I guess the concept overall can be made to work (in advanced, sturdier versions with even higher requirements) for proper moving vehicles if drag can be customized or if drag is already calculated from physical parameters correctly.
Basically treat it like a deployable piece of furniture. To initialise it, one has to start a new vehicle with the crafted part, and once the vehicle is made it can’t be modified, but you can interact (( e )xamine) with it to fold it and make it portable in that form. Once it’s in that form, you only need ( a )ctivate it each time to re-deploy it, rather than using the vehicle construction menu each time.
You can still apply jumper cables to it despite actual modification being off-limits, which is why it’s usable.
As for modification, it is simply a limitation within what the engine currently allows- it doesn’t make sense to have multiple arrays next to eachother when they block eachother’s sunlight, nor to have enough solar arrays on top of an electric vehicle to perpetually allow it to drive when there is an absolute of net drain in how they would actually perform. Specially engineered and inbuilt solar panels are the only thing that has a real working analogue in terms of what is installed on land vehicles that can continuously drive on solar energy currently (and they have severe limitations on weight etc), unless someone can provide evidence to the contrary.
Arrays specifically are late midgame-endgame tier in my perception so I wouldn’t see much problem with an average car never needing to stop while sufficient solar irradiation is available (so only clear skies during daytime and so on). An no, having several aftermarket large storage batteries is not something an average car has.
I prefer the slightly-beyond-current-decade sci-fi theme as opposed to hardcore realism. But I guess this new version is closer to present day DDA. Maybe someone will make an in-between variation for those who find Aftershock too fictional for their tastes.
No idea what array system you have in mind. But you can buy an entire rooftop almost flat roll up solar sheet to put onto any vehicle. There isn’t any need to use a huge heavy panel you put out on a front lawn or in a field on top of a roof.
For sake of example(nothing special):
The trick would be putting it onto the hood and sides of the vehicle. But I don’t think that is a thing in game yet. Though it would be a great feature. As in, so it doesn’t require being a roof only item.
There is no “average car” that can run perpetually off of solar, especially if you’re converting the mass majority of cars on the road today. The only solar cars that exist today capable of running consistently under the sun (and perhaps for a bit without) are engineered and built with that in mind from the very beginning, and have severe form factor, aerodynamic and weight requirements. It also takes expensive over-engineered parts to reach the level of efficiency required to overcome how little energy trickles in versus the amount required to drive an electric engine.
If you prefer the sci-fi theme (and deus ex machina levels of “it just works”) that’s fine, but then it has to be a compartmentalised add-on mod, not core content. While original blaze was wacky, often for the sake of it, a lot of users avoided it on the sheer lack of any balance with the game’s content, let alone a lack of realism- which is why I’ve turned it into an interesting feature, rather than a broken vehicle part that is on a tier of its own.
The idea (and explanation) of the original array was a vertical stack of angled solar panels, which “explained” it’s 12-tiles-in-one electrical generation. Obviously this is ridiculous for a moving vehicle, more so to think one could place them next to eachother without blocking shade, etcetera. There is already an analogue of a whole-roof solar panel set, which is simply to put a solar panel on each tile for the vehicle’s roof. You can even do it on the hood and whatnot, because hey the game allows for it. And considering most vehicles have a minimum of 6 tiles, that’s an easy 6x50 for a whopping 300 epower, before even considering upgraded solar panels which double that to 100 per tile. At 16 or even 20 tiles (4*4 or 4*5 form factor), one could easily have 2000 epower coming in to fill a storage battery or two rapidly while not driving in order to be able to drive for quite a while given how efficient electric motors are at the moment. I’d have to test this all again ingame to tell you how efficient, but yeah.
Some time after making that post I’ve got the feeling that I should have reworded “never needing to stop”, even though I added the condition. Turns out the feeling was right.
In that part I only meant that a car would be able to move at all whatsoever (5 km/h? 1 km/h?) under perfect conditions. Otherwise it would have to rely on batteries which would need to be charged for a whole day or two beforehand.
I did not do any math so it may indeed be something like 1 km/h at most under perfect conditions.
Regarding the mass issue I meant the average solar cars, so all the materials and design considerations would be accounted for by manufacturers. I haven’t seen any cars in recent builds so far but previously we didn’t have any vehicle parts unique to solar cars (they were just extra light frame and so on) so I was just used to this being a mental note.
So this mod is hardcore realism then? Sorry, it wasn’t immediately clear because the original mod was anything but that. It was obvious that this one gravitates towards less fictional content but the degree was not apparent, at least to me.
Sorry this is a pretty late response, I’ve had plenty of time to mull over it. The issue at hand isn’t hardcore realism persae, but much of what makes CDDA tick is simulation of real stuff to portray the game in a feature-rich way while trying to harvest a gameplay loop out of it.
The reason that I bring this up is because some parts of what is “normal” in the setting are tweaked for certain conditions- specifically in this case vehicles require fuel to keep going, which means that the player must manage fuel procurement and storage continuously if they want to drive the same vehicle around. This works toward providing a layer of difficulty to maintaining an otherwise extremely valuable mobile home and/or base for the player, or simply having the ability to move far and wide in general.
As it stands, solar energy in regards to the efficiency of electronic motors in CDDA are given some very generous thresholds to be actually useful. However, given that they can be installed on literally every tile of a vehicle, add up neatly and don’t provide any real downside because they are not mutually exclusive with much at all, and making them any more effective than the already-existant upgrade inherent in the “upgraded solar panel” creates a situation in which the layer of difficulty for maintaining the mobile status of a vehicle is rendered null.
By this point they effectively have unlimited free energy, which when coupled with even a few storage batteries means that even in the times that they’re not generating energy, there’s plenty of backup before they return to functional usage again. They’re not especially durable but enemies have to be able to get to them for them to receive damage outside of a crash, and can be reinforced to have considerable resistance as well. And so, the player can move the vehicle around without any fuel costs, as well as power all of the utilities installed, even going as far as mounted energy weapons having unlimited use without need for management.
In a nutshell, using a vehicle becomes trivial, with no downsides.
Such wonderful technology in an otherwise bleak apocalypse in my opinion ruins the atmosphere, and even if amazing solar technology far more powerful in the real world became real I would opt for the world in the setting to change in some manner to downplay their potency in an apocalypse, like being a real target for many enemies or the cataclysm causing large amounts of cloudcover or something similar to thwart use of the sun for most hours of the day.
Specifically, the realism arguments I make against super solar are to counter people who try to use realism as an excuse for solar panels being super efficient in the game, so that no one gets confused as to why I brought it up in the first place.
No worries. I myself have somehow missed your reply. I remember a notification showing up but after I opened the thread I don’t remember this two posts of yours. Most likely I got confused due to a lack of sleep.
I understand your position and for a more grounded (as opposed to more fictional) setting like what DDA seems to be turning into it is a perfectly reasonable stance.
I did have my panels damaged on a non-deathmobile type of vehicles but with sufficiently large and properly armoured ones it should stop being a problem, indeed.
In fact, I’m of a similar mindset with regards to challenges, general mood and convenience. The only difference is that with the more fantastical setting I had in mind the rules would eventually change. I expected the world to evolve to into a much more dangerous one in a finished game. This way both the energy demands and the potential threat to a solar-supplemented “survivor APC” (yes, only supplemented, I would expect the main energy source to be biodisel, steam, wind or more likely a combination thereof over the very long term) would eventually be outpaced by what the world throws at the player.
