Batteries actually do increase in weight when charged. But the change is so small it can’t really be measured with present technology.
Neat, huh?
I understand reality on the topic of batteries. But not 400lbs bro lol
Reality-wise those proposals make a fair bit of sense. Certainly battery weight should not be significantly affected by their charge, for example.
On the gameplay side, my current playthrough has been the most interesting regarding vehicle dynamics. I’ve gone with a primarily solar vehicle, but its been very dicey keeping it decently powered, as the fridge has enough draw to substantially mute any recharge I get during the day, and driving around pulls power pretty hard, meaning my vehicle is not terribly mobile.
Still, I get decent range out of 5 storage batteries, and given a week or two of low draw, it does gradually recharge them IF the weather holds - and I’m running with a mini-reactor emergency power supply in case I find myself in trouble with lower battery reserves, but that chews through plutonium at a surprisingly brisk clip (I think 1 plutonium only lasts for about 50 in-game minutes or so?!) so I save it strictly for emergencies.
So altogether it feels pretty good game-wise, though the idea of running an ~10mt vehicle primarily via solar power is of course not very realistic.
I quite like the proposal.
I have yet to use a power cable to transfer energy - but i think this should also be considered under the overhaul, to allow creating a simple stationary plug-in charging station.
Thus, a large solar-powered stationary base with lots of batteries could recharge EVs, so long as the owner remembers to plug-in after each trip.
Stationary solar array bases interfacing with plug-in electric vehicles ( or hybrids for that matter ) is a very appealing sort of gameplay that I’m very much in favor of. I haven’t tried this personally, but can’t you currently just have a stationary “vehicle” array of frames, panels and batteries and hook your car up to it by jumper cable? Wouldn’t do much good because if you were ranging in your car the stationary solar wouldn’t charge much while you were out of the reality bubble?
Yes, this is what i had in mind. But since i never tried the jumper cables i’m not sure they can fully cover the needs. For example:
- IIRC jumpers have 75-80% efficiency, correct? This is unrealistic & impractical for charging stations for EVs. 95% is where it should be at.
- Do your lose your cable after use? Not sure, but if so, this is a problem too.
Yeah, jumper cables have poor efficiency. You an reuse them, though. And if you forget and drive away while they’re connected they’ll just pop off and drop to the ground.
Now, a constructable inductive charging station would be fucking amazing, but for realism’s sake that would be even more inefficient.
Solar panels recharge outside of the reality bubble.
A solar changing station that charges up a bunch of batteries, and then discharges them into the empty batteries of another vehicle would be a challenge to code. Not sure if I’m up to it.
But the simple expedient of putting all the storage batteries on swappable mounts and having a forklift armor/pallet lifter/other lift device nearby lets you swap the discharged batteries for the charged batteries. That’s perfectly viable right now.
I’d be all for this change IF the infrastructure of the world likewise rose to meet the challenge - ie, a substantial % of the filling stations also had solar panel arrays and recharging/swapping mounts, in various states of charge and disrepair, much like the petro infrastructure.
Side note: A ‘swappable’ battery is currently one of the hardest things in the game to add/remove to your vehicle, often requiring a full boom crane mount for a heavier vehicle - meanwhile I can just rip huge chunks of the armor, structural frames, or indeed entire engine blocks in and out without breaking a sweat.
A swappable battery should be just that - easily installed and removed with few/no tools and a minimum of time.
It is easily installed and removed with few tools. But it does weigh 400 lbs and you can’t lift it unless you’re superhumanly strong.
Adding a hydraulic lift terrain/furniture to gas stations is a reasonable request.
I’m surprised that solar panels do actually charge outside the bubble, maybe they already were slow enough that I didn’t notice?
That would be fine - and/or the swappable installation mounts could simply use multiple medium storage batteries, which, while heavy, are basically man-handle-able. Pulling out a folding small lift is easy in any case.
As for engine and frame work (the parts that should ACTUALLY require a full lift) all the garages should have built in hydraulic lift stations as a matter of course. It’s unlikely that looters would have made off with multi-ton pieces of fixed heavy machinery. 
As it stands I end up dragging around a boom crane in cargo and just glue it to a stand-alone heavy frame whenever I need to do work, which while functional, is a bit silly unless you were actually broken down in the middle of nowhere.
Right now it’s just really inconsistent which sorts of installation/repair work require jacking (should really only be tires), lifting (should mainly be frame, engine, and other large undercarriages installs, such as tanks, permanent batteries, etc), vs. things which shouldn’t require any assist (internal compartment installs, boards, ceilings, etc).
Frame work, while it SHOULD require a lift realistically, probably shouldn’t just for game-play reasons - but all the undercarriage and engine installs should. I suppose you could forgo a lift for frame installation up to a certain weight limit (say, up to the approximate size of a large ATV) after which you need a lift to go any larger.
Frame removal or repair probably shouldn’t need a lift regardless.
I’ve on several occasions built a steel frame with a boom crane (removed from my vehicle storage usually) to do maintenance on a roving vehicle, and its always been an enjoyable process as far as the narrative of the character I’ve been playing. Clearing out a small town to make sure it is safe, finding a garage somewhere with some tools and, holy shit, there is a solar SUV under repair in this shitty house. Pull the half wreck you’ve been driving into the bay, close it up for the night and get to work. Kinda tangential from the topic, but I think the lifting mechanics basically make sense and this broader electrical power issue warrants discussion.
I think the most obvious thing: what size and quantity/quality of panels are you guys talking about? Solar used to be OP(years ago), so it was nerfed like crazy. In recent games I had my mobile base (7 wide 10 long min) literally covered in panels, and still couldn’t drive for two+ days straight, even in good weather I think. I had 2-4 of the largest storage batteries, the second/heavy electric engine, and a fridge. Acceleration/top speeds not a problem because you need deceleration to avoid the frequent roadblocks/other cars/mines/robots+turrets.
Is there any way you can make a motor powered by all these captured squirrels I’ve got?
90% of the code infrastructure for animal harnesses is there.
You can define a squirrel harness as a vehicle part that can capture animals.
You can define a squirrel powered engine vehicle part that consumes acorns as fuel.
The only bit that’s missing is the code to turn a captured squirrel into an installed engine. If someone wants to write the animal harness JSON and then pings me for the C++ code, I’ll finish the rest but it’s not a priority right now.
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Use the squirrel in a recipe for a squirrel engine. They could be part of one of the unobtrusive layers in a vehicle so you could have more than one.
squirrel mounted AI enhanced patrolling auto turret
That literally made me lol xD
Humor aside, there should be a morale debuff for mistreatment of animals in an engine. 
(ignoring the fact, that wires are made out of friggin soy these days and the critters eat the car!!)
If corpses weren’t so wonky to implement in vehicle code a road roller powered by a zombie treadmill would be my favorite thing to ever occur.