Disable electric devices

[Sean_Mirrsen]

If you want to make a charcoal forge to make nails from scrap, you need a welder. If you want to make a charcoal kiln in order to start making charcoal, you again need a welder. This means that charcoal and electric paths both have the same prerequisites, and electrics get you far further.

[halberdsturgeon]

Point taken. I don’t see why you should be able to get as far with low technology as with high technology, but no matter.

[Sean_Mirrsen]

A great many electric powerplants run on coal. Trains ran on coal not so long ago. Ultimately, coal and gasoline are simply alternate sources of energy - anything that doesn’t involve electricity should be doable with fire and carbon fuels.

And charcoal can also be made using basic dirt-sealed kilns.

I think that basic steam engines should be possible to construct. We’d need some manner of more complex interactions between parts of such an engine. The “steam engine” itself is the engine, but its power would be influenced by the boiler, which is a combination furnace and water tank. The boiler would need fuel put into it, and would need a source of fire to activate, and as long as there is a burning fuel in it, it will consume water from an installed water tank. And while the boiler is fired up and there is still water, the steam engine will run.

[PoeSalesman]

[quote=“Blackopsman9999, post:77, topic:5561”]Well currently you are kinda forced to play electronicly… want a forge to make nails and start making a house? Need a welder! Want to keep some food preserved? Nope, use electricity.
Everything right now revolves electricity and it kinda removes the CATACLYSM from the game, it is more like “Meh they all died, I’m going to drive my electric car that drives perfectly down the road that I made my self in four hours.”[/quote]

Cata isn’t about being stuck with nothing and everything destroyed forever, you’re supposed to be picking up the scrap and trying to build a sort of life for yourself, high or low tech, depending on what you find and what you can do.

To the first bit, I think this is a bit of a problem, though it’s a little unrelated to the main part of this topic. You should be able to make nails and forges, of probably low quality but still, solely through primitive means, and you should also be able to preserve food the old fashion way with salt, smoking, and/or a simple drying stone out in the sun to make jerky. That doesn’t involve forcing you not to use tech though, but adding new items and recipes so you can live the tribal or medieval lifestyles without needing to use electronics at any point. It doesn’t hurt players for playing differently, it lets them play the way they want while also making other playstyles more viable.

[JimQuaid]

There’s no mitigating it, there’s no resource manage element, you can’t use your tech at all, period, no matter what you do, because you dared to move past using your nailbat as your primary weapon.

[quote=“JimQuaid, post:73, topic:5561”]Quote from: JimQuaid on March 25, 2014, 03:53:55 PM
That or drag your stuff deep underground to use it without failure.[/quote]

200 years ago we didn’t have widespread use of electricity. So what kind of weapons were used for example in the war of indepence? More than 200 years ago that means… No electricity = caveman times = they were using clubs! No other possibility! You either have electricity or you are cavemanlike! Guns? What are those?
There are places in the world where people don’t have access to electricity but have bicycles, ovens and newspapers. Do you label these people Neanderthals because they don’t cook with hotplates?

[quote=“KA101, post:74, topic:5561”]Yeah, fixing that formatting would make it much more legible. Ease up on the colors, please.

(Especially as red is action, whether RPing outside the Rec Room or moderation/devspeak.)

Regarding the bionics, thanks for pointing that out. Unfortunately, that’s still open as “powered” bionics has two definitions: bionics that you formally activate and pay bionic power for, and bionics that are passive but would involve electronics. (They’ve negligible drain, possibly powered by piezoelectricity or internal batteries.)

For example, take the fingertip razors. They don’t require power to use, unlike the claws or blade, but they do specify that they retract. Will they jam in one position (perhaps on?), or be defaulted away?

That page has a handy table of augs. How about the Internal Chronometer? That’s electronic, most likely. Diamond Cornea and the Anti-Glare Compensators aren’t electronic, though. Internal Storage doesn’t define how it operates.
If my power systems are acting up, I don’t even want to think about what Metabolic Interchange, Expanded Digestive System, or the Recycler Unit would do. Muscle Augmentation would stick around, but Wired Reflexes might or might not.

That’s a lot of if-statements there, and even simply disabling active augs invalidates a lot of people’s work. (Getting and installing augs isn’t a joke.) 5 days is easily enough for a fungal infection to incap or kill if you can’t get royal jelly and someone turned off your Blood Filter. (IIRC, 5 hours is almost to the arm-breaker stage, and you’ll be spawning fungaloids in the process.)

I’m gonna stand by my opinion: this would be an interesting localized obstacle, and could work as another Annoying Weather Pattern similar to acid rain, but as a routine, long-duration global event, it causes far more problem than it solves.

Speaking in my dev capacity: The original idea is way overkill, but can be refined. We’re trying to work with you here. Help us help you.

Thanks for your time and consideration.[/quote]

Hm, I would imagine those fingertip razors would be muscle controlled? Like cats can retract their claws (without electricity :)) moving your hand in a certain way would make them come out or go back. Similar to the Fusion Blaster Arm: It doesn’t drain power continously so presumably you can wave it around using what’s left of your muscles and sinews. You just can’t fire it though.
Basically if it can be explained using mechanical means (Recycler units for example could be very small machines powered by the movement of your stomach walls or just your breathing expanding your body) or small amounts of bioelectricity (which would have to work, otherwise it would be silly) you can still use it. Internal storage I thought was a Bender(Futurama)-like door in your chest.
Bio Power Sources: No energy generation or consumption so they would do nothing.
When this localized feature gets to a serious consideration stage I would be happy to help with figuring out which bionics work and which not.

I’ve given up on the initial and afterwards slightly improved suggestions a few pages ago since there are other things in planning and, presumably, have already been thought more about it. So yeah. If I have given someone another idea that resonates more wiith the community and more importantly those who actually will do the coding I’m happy.
I was hoping that Sean Mirrsen would open up a separate thread so that the title could attract more people.
I think I will do that now myself. (here it is)

On the whole I kinda felt I was misunderstood in my intentions but I’m very glad that neither of the two people I argued with most suggested that “if you don’t like electronics just don’t use them, duh” or that I should “just play another game if you don’t like it”, which I would usually expect when some suggest a game idea people don’t like.
So just for that Thank You, halberdsturgeon and PoeSalesman

[halberdsturgeon]

On the whole I kinda felt I was misunderstood in my intentions but I’m very glad that neither of the two people I argued with most suggested that “if you don’t like electronics just don’t use them, duh” or that I should “just play another game if you don’t like it”, which I would usually expect when some suggest a game idea people don’t like.

That’s alright. Pardon me if I seem overly aggressive, that’s just me. As I said, I can agree that things like bottomless solar power supplies are over the top, I just strongly dislike the idea of an anti-electricity field as a means of mitigating it.

[PoeSalesman]

[quote=“JimQuaid, post:73, topic:5561”]Quote from: JimQuaid on March 25, 2014, 03:53:55 PM
That or drag your stuff deep underground to use it without failure.[/quote]
I went over this too. There’s no wiring so no power supplies from above, and this would force you into using a lab as the only viable base.

[quote=“JimQuaid, post:83, topic:5561”]200 years ago we didn’t have widespread use of electricity. So what kind of weapons were used for example in the war of indepence? More than 200 years ago that means… No electricity = caveman times = they were using clubs! No other possibility! You either have electricity or you are cavemanlike! Guns? What are those?
There are places in the world where people don’t have access to electricity but have bicycles, ovens and newspapers. Do you label these people Neanderthals because they don’t cook with hotplates?[/quote]
Missing the point for the sake of hating the terminology I used, honestly.

[quote=“JimQuaid, post:83, topic:5561”]On the whole I kinda felt I was misunderstood in my intentions but I’m very glad that neither of the two people I argued with most suggested that “if you don’t like electronics just don’t use them, duh” or that I should “just play another game if you don’t like it”, which I would usually expect when some suggest a game idea people don’t like.
So just for that Thank You, halberdsturgeon and PoeSalesman[/quote]
To a point I did understand what you meant. I don’t disagree entirely with everything that ended up being said, I just don’t like the idea of a cosmic event aligning to hurt a type of play. I really don’t like just telling people to go away during an argument, that’s basically like throwing a tantrum.

[Belteshazzar]

I went over this too. There’s no wiring so no power supplies from above, and this would force you into using a lab as the only viable base.

You seriously don’t haul car parts downstairs to build ‘generators’ with? Hell I don’t even understand what you mean by ‘wiring’ and ‘power supplies’ there are no currently functional power networks… anywhere. Unless you mean solar and that stuff is literally and figuratively a’ fair weather friend.’ Even then, just because there is no underground equivalent of solar doesn’t mean we couldn’t be rigging up steam engines in later versions (geothermal, nuclear, or waste burning.)

This fear of random events disabling electronic reliant playstyles, even temporarily, is beyond hilarious to me. Why do you cling to a playstyle that entirely relies on only one or two aspects of what is available to you? Cataclysm is a rougelike mercifully gracious enough to not restrict what you ‘may’ learn, and you complain that you may be forced to use every ounce of it to survive?

This isn’t a class based game… you arn’t a DnD wizard who cannot use armor… or a priest who cannot use edged weapons. USE EVERYTHING YOU CAN, BECAUSE YOU MUST.

The goal here I see is to further encourage diversity in tactics. If you cannot adapt you deserve to die repeatedly in the same way I deserve to die repeatedly if I refuse to use modern weapons, tools, and medications when they are available to me just because I wanted to play an Amish technophobe.

[Robik]

[quote=“Sean Mirrsen, post:11, topic:5561”]I think low-tech options simply should be made to run longer, and easier to acquire.

This, coupled with making it easier to create charcoal, should be pretty good, I think. As it is, charcoal is a scarce commodity. You need a charcoal kiln to make charcoal, and even though 3 levels of fabrication isn’t too high and a metal tank can be taken from a vehicle, the need for a welder instantly pushes this into not-entirely-likely territory.

Charcoal needs to be made more accessible. The wiki (that is, the Wiki) says that you can make charcoal inside basically a dirt-sealed chimney. Make it a basic (skill 1) Survival/Construction item, using a log or a pile of sticks/2x4s on a dirt pile to create a “wood charring pile” that one can use a source of fire on to turn it into a lump of charcoal. I think this will basically require that items/terrain tiles can, upon burning through, turn into some other item that is not on fire. Everything else is basically already covered by construction.[/quote]

Yes, yes, I completely agree. The obnoxious way of charcoal crafting in this game makes me angry sometimes… It should be in construction menu to make a wood pile covered in dirt. Start the fire and make charcoal in bulk.

Also, I was wondering why the hell I have to stare in the kiln for entire hour to make a charcoal… yes, it takes time, but you really don’t help the process by sitting on your ass and staring on the kiln.

[i2amroy]

As I mentioned earlier, charcoal making is definitely something we want to move into a “start and walk away” form of crafting, which should do a lot towards making it easier to acquire.
Adding more ways to make makeshift forges/kilns is also something worth looking into.

[Robik]

[quote=“i2amroy, post:88, topic:5561”]As I mentioned earlier, charcoal making is definitely something we want to move into a “start and walk away” form of crafting, which should do a lot towards making it easier to acquire.
Adding more ways to make makeshift forges/kilns is also something worth looking into.[/quote]

I am guilty of responding to Sean’s post before I got to yours.

It will be epic once it is done, I made some fruit wine and some yeast already, which is using this way of crafting and I love it. Easier way to obtain low tech forges and kilns would be most welcome.

[halberdsturgeon]

This fear of random events disabling electronic reliant playstyles, even temporarily, is beyond hilarious to me. Why do you cling to a playstyle that entirely relies on only one or two aspects of what is available to you?

I’d touched on it before now only in passing, but I usually don’t rely heavily on electronics when I play. Most of my characters carry a flashlight, a hotplate, and on some characters I’ll install some bionics. Most of the time my characters move around on foot rather than driving a vehicle. Again: I just hate the idea of a solution that backhands people for using anything remotely electronic at all by means of an out-of-place in-game phenomenon. If the problem is that high technology is too powerful, then this is the solution equivalent of driving a nail in with a sledgehammer.

[KA101]

[quote=“Belteshazzar, post:86, topic:5561”]This fear of random events disabling electronic reliant playstyles, even temporarily, is beyond hilarious to me. Why do you cling to a playstyle that entirely relies on only one or two aspects of what is available to you? Cataclysm is a rougelike mercifully gracious enough to not restrict what you ‘may’ learn, and you complain that you may be forced to use every ounce of it to survive?

(snipped-KA101)[/quote]

DDA has a shitload of stuff involved. I was fortunate to get in early, when the wiki was still a fairly reliable source and updates were slow enough that you could not update for a month and not miss too much. Even then, I got into Martial Arts first, then into vehicles around May or so, and just finished building my first Custom Vehicle in time to join That RP. Never made a seriously all-ranged character.

Nowadays, the wiki’s outdated (though I’m grateful to the folks who just stepped up, and I hope they continue!) and progress goes even faster. If you try to learn everything, all at once, chances are you won’t do very well. Focusing on a set of related things and getting good at them, then branching out, is entirely acceptable character and player development. So I’m not averse to letting folks go at their own pace, rather than force them and possibly force them out of the game.

Hence, electronic-disabler fields work fine as a mid- to late-game obstacle. I’m not going to drop them on the whole planet.

[secretfire]

Honestly, I can’t believe I’m saying this…especially with how much I LOOOOVE the lovecraftian elements, but…

I think the game should just be as realistic as possible in as many ways as possible. Not to the point of hurting gameplay, but in general. I think its starting to accomplish that quite well; as well as Dwarf Fortress. DF may involve goblins and demons, but everything -else- is…amazingly realistic. CATA works the same way, to a lesser extent. Sure, you have unrealistic acid rain (its never literally burned me, at least), and zombies/etc… but its meticulous in its realism everywhere it isn’t fantastical.

Pie in the sky here, but…though I agree with the gameplay arguments against it, I think a more interesting concern is…well, what if you turn on classic zombie mode, and let the world run? Would you see, in game, whats most likely to happen in reality? Some things may be bugs, and others may be unintended features. Perhaps people really would -not- tend towards the primitive items. Personally, I think that boat has sailed for Western Civilization. I could be wrong - but I think we’d reconstruct technological civilization, even if at a lower level of technology, long before we’d learn how to use nature. But both are options; both within the game and within the genre. But the idea of the game as a …predictive element, due to how well the coders have coded it…is intruiging. I mean, it could easily have ended up that everyone uses charcoal. But they didn’t. And I don’t think they set out to do that. Its a behavior that arose within the game as a result of its emergent complexity. It will continue to get more complex, and more things will surprise us.

But I don’t think that, as a matter of design, that realism should be tinkered with to achieve a specific end. I think inserting fantastical elements is OK, but much like writing good science fiction, everything -not- fantastical should be as realistic as possible, while maintaining the overall history, theme, and flavor of the world, as well as the game’s basic design goals.

[Worldmaster27]

Just throwing my ideas in:

To counter the ion storm, there would need to be a somewhat common, creatable mod (not unlike the rechargeable battery mod) that would negate or largely reduce the effects of the storm on electronics that it is applied too. The mod would probably require decent electronics skill and minor resources to make. To resolves the CBM problem, something along the lines of ‘CBM: Electrical Shielding’ would need to be added.

Alternatively, instead of completely disabling every electronics device, the ion storm would increase the rate at which power is used. Something like during the storm, the battery consumption rate of a flashlight is 25 or 50 percent higher than normal. Similarly, active bionics could require one or two more power and the power gained from your CBM: Internal Furnace (or other) is halved. That way you wouldn’t be completely of of luck, but you’d still have to be careful with your resource management during that time. As for electric weapons, ones that have charge times should take a turn or two longer. And fire time(if that exists currently)/reload time should also take longer.

Or, of course, a combination of those two.

(I usually go the melee route so I’m not too familiar with electric weaponry, apologies if I failed at that.
Let me know if I missed anything.)

[Hyena_Grin]

I’m sure someone has already suggested this, since it seems kind of obvious, but what about areas where electronic items stop working, but only as long as you are in that area?

It’d be a bit of an electronics dead zone. Flashlights won’t work, hotplates, certain weapons, NVGs, etc. Once you leave they function fine again, but while you’re inside the dead zone you’re pretty much stuck exploring with fire and your basic tools.

It’d need to be a pretty huge area to make it interesting (at least capable of encompassing an entire town), and could include some kind of special area/event at its epicenter, perhaps with a unique mob of some sort.

[Worldmaster27]

[quote=“Hyena Grin, post:94, topic:5561”]I’m sure someone has already suggested this, since it seems kind of obvious, but what about areas where electronic items stop working, but only as long as you are in that area?

It’d be a bit of an electronics dead zone. Flashlights won’t work, hotplates, certain weapons, NVGs, etc. Once you leave they function fine again, but while you’re inside the dead zone you’re pretty much stuck exploring with fire and your basic tools.

It’d need to be a pretty huge area to make it interesting (at least capable of encompassing an entire town), and could include some kind of special area/event at its epicenter, perhaps with a unique mob of some sort.[/quote]
Perhaps a special kind of lab?

[vache]

I could see something like that being used in a lab. For example, they were doing super duper mega ultra secret research, so whenever you enter, you pass through a device that deactivates any electronic devices you may be carrying, so that you cannot record any information while you’re there. The only issue is if you somehow looted an electronic item related to the lab, you would expect it to work.

[Blackopsman9999]

I am all for increased battery drain, but the zone, people will bitch “I drove my electric car 200KPH down the road at night and slid into an ion area and I am stuck, GAME BROKE!”

[kevin.granade]

Just FYI really, here’s what I’m taking away from the discussion:

1. Localized power-disabling sounds like a neat idea, I’m thinking attacked to some particular monster incursion area. New monster faction perhaps, maybe a special lab type, or even some cthuloid hive.
2. Anti-electricity monsters sound like a good idea to me too, either as a localized EMP generation attack, or some kind of electricity-cancelling field around the monster.
3. Both of these would be late-game, and highly visible/avoidable.
4. Anti-electricity stuff would be limited to anti-circuitry, and disabling things only. Circuitry-destroying EMPs are a thing in reality, but that’s just unnecessarily harsh in my opinion. Battery draining is also needlessly harsh, and additionally doesn’t make sense physically.
5. Possible exception, equipment-destroying EMP zone around a nuclear explosion, because come on, you’re asking for it.

Re: car getting stuck in a no-circuitry field, yea I could see that happening, which leaves you with several options:

1. Go blow up the electricity cancelling thing.
2. Install a gasoline engine, even a tiny one (welders wouldn’t be affected, they’re just a raw arc of DC, however a integrated toolkit would be.