Has muscle-based power generation been nerfed/removed?

[redxlaser15]

A bunch of you guys are saying a bunch of numbers and stuff I do not understand.
I’m confuzzled.
Don’t try to explain it better to me though. It’s just be a waste of time.

I didn’t actually know this was a thing in the first place so that’s interesting.

[Trigon]

I actually think I can help you here redlaser.

Basically it’s the difference between a helicopter and you’re ceiling fan. The hardware isn’t built to really handle the power of the other. So your ceiling fan would break if attached to a helicopter motor, and a helicopter rotor wouldn’t turn if it was attached to your ceiling fan motor.

[Daeros13]

I may be missing the point, but i feel like i need to throw out something we use in the auto field: underdrive pulleys. They allow turning of pulley driven accessories (such as an alternator) to allow the same nominal performance of the accessory at lower hp draw to the engine. (Or legs if applied to the human driven object)

Which actually is essentially what a transmission could do as well. But all of this is above the scope of the discussion i assume, correct?

[kevin.granade]

I would be 100% fine with a recipe that adds parts to an alternator that allows it to be driven with lower mechanical power and lower output.

[mlangsdorf]

I am a little confused on the underdrive pulleys: I’ve got an alternator that takes 1.5 kW of kinetic power to drive and outputs 0.8 kW of electrical power. I might be able to drive it with less kinetic power, but it’s going to output less electrical power, too, right? 2nd law of thermo and all that.

That’s what we’re talking about here, driving a 1.5 kW alternator with a pair of foot pedals that are realistically putting out 0.1 kW. So we need the sliding scale stuff I mentioned upthread. Which I looked at doing today while I was fixing another bug in that part of the code, and it’s modestly complex bit of code to cover a rare corner case. Or we can do what we do now, which is a 1.5 kW alternator stops the engine if you try to drive with a 1.2 kW input - which isn’t totally realistic but isn’t absurd, either.

[Daeros13]

Yes. Using underdrive pulleys can be tricky, its a balancing act, but there is that sweet spot.

The basic idea was to use less power to drive the alternator but still create enough useable electricty from said alternator for it to be a viable option.

I had a thought of using pulleys/gears set up to basically overdrive the alternator (like a transmission) but that may be too complex for a survivor.

Kevin seemed to like the first option. So that alone can add some options and flavor for power production via human legs. It is the simplest option and easiest for a survivor to pull of succeasfully.

Edit so i guess I added little to the convo then, LOL i apologize.

[mlangsdorf]

I think adding a crafting recipe to let people reduce the input and output power of alternators is a perfectly fine solution. It’s kind of niche but people could do it.

[Trigon]

Agreed. Though I will miss the classic exercise bike reading light of early game CDDA.

[Mantar]

Hey, I get that you’re unhappy that your favorite exploit was closed, but that’s no reason for name calling. The guy’s putting in a lot of work to make vehicles less stupidly unrealistic, and let’s be honest here: they really were busted.

And yeah, giving you 1600 watts output is generous, because that’s about four times the world record output for a human being, as was covered earlier in the thread.

[Daeros13]

It seems that since he is responsible for the code, he could nerf it to 200 watts if he chose. I would think a good course of action would be to explain your side and reasoning to try to persuade others, or better yet, learn scripting and modding the game to change it how you like, instead of responding with text that could be considered offensive.

[mlangsdorf]

Bicycle alternators are still a thing, and only require 75 W of input power. Go find an electric bike, take its alternator, and you can continue to pedal your way to electrical power, just much more slowly.

[Unawares]

What I would really like to see is the ability to put a low end alternator on a cart. But with the way the system is structured, I guess a special “generator” part would be required? Call it a cart alternator adapter or something?

Is it possible to maybe have a part like that check if a) the vehicle is grabbed on to, and b) the player just moved? If both true power = x, else power = 0?

[kevin.granade]

If we added a generator to drug vehicles, it would just make it harder to drag and generate power with each step.
We’d also revisit ability to drag csrts, and probably nerf it, so there’s that too

[Unawares]

Lol. I think it will just fill in an obvious gap in the game, no nerfing necessary.

I have great faith you will find plenty of other evil ways to complicate things for our survivors, oh great Grinch Granade.

[Trigon]

Isn’t there already a “generator” part? Basically acts as an alternator by attaching an engine but more or less completely consumes all the power output? Or was that removed?

[darktoes]

I’m still quite interested in wind power. It would only require amateur to intermediate electronic/fabrication skill, and extremely common parts (an alternator and some 2x4s at it’s simplest). Then you could just toss it on some vehicle and get continuous free power from it. It could really soften up that early-midgame scrabble for solar panels.

[Unawares]

There is an alternator sort of like that, but I wasn’t aware of it consuming all power. You can find a stationary gas generator sometimes in a garage that has that part.

Because an alternator is required to attach to an “engine”, it’s easy enough to call a foot crank or hand rims an engine and go from there, but we don’t have an equivalent for just pushing / dragging a vehicle. Thus my “adapter” idea, to fit into the way vehicles in the game are designed to work.

[mlangsdorf]

There’s a 7.5 kW generator, which is just a really big alternator. You still need to attach it to an engine.

At some point I’m going to rework reactors to work like other engines, mostly so I can estimate fuel consumption from them, and at that point I’ll probably add true gasoline/diesel generators that will be self-contained engines + alternators + fuel tank parts that only provide electrical power, not motive power.

[Trigon]

Yeah the 7.5kw generator, I know it had to still be attached to an engine. That’s exactly what I was referring to. Thanks.

[Cynicus26]

Which one still works? I just learned that this was a thing and I’m pretty bummed that it was potentially removed before I even got a chance to try it hehe.

Edit: Should have done some research on my own before asking. I see there’s an item in-game called bicycle generator. It’s probably that one.