hah, I like the idea of some kind of kiosk where the easiest way to get at the contents (without risking their destruction at least) is to hook up some kind of power supply and then feed it cash.
Also yea, robots would be a possibility. Smash a window, the eyebots demand you pay a fine, if you do they leave you alone. Hilarious.
As was pointed out though, survivors aren’t going to value money (except for use in the above scenario), so it won’t generally be useful as a currency. We have a rudimentary barter system, but as has been reported it’s EXTREMELY gameable and broken at the moment. Personally I’m all for going pure barter and not having any kind of currency at all, immediately after the cataclysm like this nothing would have stabalized. That means that depending on how bartering goes, you might end up not being able to trade with certain individuals because you don’t have anything they want or vice versa. As far as I’m concerned that’s a feature.
An exception is when we do factions they could have some kind of in-faction fiat currency (and only ever pay you with that, so you have to go to the faction store to buy stuff at outrageous prices, good times)
And regarding powered locations, that’s going to default to no. Things designed to be autonomous (like security robots) are one thing, but stationary kiosks and such aren’t going to go to the additional expense of having an autonomous power supply when there’s cheap grid power available.
In the future we want to have opportunities for you to restore power to some locations, but very few things are going to default to having power.