The revival of the power grid. (vehicles too)

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Since we seem to have a somewhat larger community, I think it would be a good idea to revive an old topic, rather than necro a whole bunch of threads about power systems in general.
We could post our ideas and generally have a big write up for us forum folk, then after that (and a bit of arguing probably) we can come up with a good solid idea based off some of our old ideas, and some of our new ideas, Consolidate it into a nice list and present it to the developers!

Here’s my couple of cents from a while ago:

A functional power system. Since cataclysm has no power system I think it would be wise to flesh out a new basic idea that can be adjusted to suit the development process. Let’s say the map is divided up into power regions, with a region that contains 18X18 tiles. If there is a power plant within the 18X18 grid it increases the value of the region by say, 100. Knowing this, power plants should be rare, say 1 per large city. The amount of houses/buildings within a certain area reduce said value, let’s say 1 per house and 2 per square of a larger establishments eg mansions hospitals or megamalls. Power should be able to be transmitted across power regions at a cost of 5 per region.

Some areas would be switched off by default, for example sewerage treatment plants which can make clean water at a cost of quite a bit of power, other systems could also be valuable resources for the survivor, machine shops, various factories and such.

Every few power regions, a substation may exist, allowing the player to interact with the power grid on an extended basis, say redirecting power, or switching off specific regions.

Thoughts?

And on to some newer things.

Localized power systems, eg player constructed.

Since we can basically have vehicles function as working systems, I was considering having a way to “hook up” my base to a power system.

At first I was considering the classical vehicle system, with a bunch of separately powered systems strewn about the place to perform different tasks.

I eventually gave up on the idea, as it was rather hard to implement without the use of cheats.

This brings us up to the present day of Cataclysm, in which I was faced with a perplexing issue quite recently.

I had two vehicles parked next to one another, a car and a semi truck respectively.

I wished to move the resources from within the car to the semi truck, for the fuel this was an incredibly slow and painful process of siphoning fuel into the singular bottle I had and dumping it into the semi.

After I had finished transferring the fuel, I hopped into the semi and attempted to start it up. No luck.
As it would turn out the semi truck did not have any charge in the battery, how I wished for jumper cables.

So there it is folks, cables.
We could a’pply them to a “terminal” or battery on a vehicle, and depending on the length of the cable you have, you could join it to a vehicle, this would allow the vehicle to equalize the current between it’s battery and the battery on the other end.

The vehicle could move around in the length of the cable, however to implement this there would be undoubtedly some complex algorithms involving having the visual representation of the cable.

A shortcut I considered was to either have the vehicles non moving, or simply not render the cable (or at least in the world). This was basically the quick fix I had considered.

All in all, this would allow you to have some centralized “generator” setup (or multiple) and have it routing throughout the base.

This generator could be as advanced (solar panel/nuclear reactor), normal (basic engine on alternator), downright strange (Pedal Power!!) Or very basic (Steam engines?)

Yes, you read that last bit correctly, Steam engines.
Here is an excerpt from IRC about the steam engines I was considering making:

[11:57] How far are we from exporting the fuel identifiers and such to JSON ? If that gets done in the not too distant future I may be tempted to make a whole set of steam vehicle parts, It might be a little difficult but I have attempted it before and kind of have some psuedo code lying around in my brain for it.
[11:59] The general Idea, is to have a “firebox” which is basically an engine that will run on liquid wood or something silly, this in turn will run a “boiler” which is basically an alternator type component that fits on the firebox and creates “Steam” which is stored in steam tanks. Finally I will have a set of steam engines that run of the said “steam”, of course the whole system will be variable sized.
[12:00] I just about had it implemented before, but I was having a little difficulty with getting the fuel types sorted out, this was before we had vehicle parts exported to JSON.
[12:02] I think the biggest hurdle will be figuring out how to fuel the firebox, just for novelty I could have it run on gasoline, which would be a lot easier to implement. However I would like to see if I could burn wooden objects in it somehow, which would probably require a shitload more code.
[12:03] I might be able to steal the turret code, and instead of ammunition accept 2X4’s or something really weird.
[12:04] Anyway, thanks for all jumping up at once and saying nobody wants steam engines and it will be too hard to make, I appreciate the complements.

Post your own ideas, make it better than mine (No big challenge there folks).

tl;dr : Moar electricity, post your own electricity,

2

For the ability to bring power to an area, maybe a low-yield generator like being able to slap together a rudimentary water- or wind-mill to power a house or two, contingent on having a flowing river or decently strong winds. You could also take the wheels off a car, or just run an engine with an alternator hooked up to it for a gasoline generator.

Maybe there could be a mechanical benefit to lighting up a city, say for dynamic spawn, once the streetlights are on the spawn pool will be nearly emptied or something?

3

[quote=“wad67, post:1, topic:4781”]I had two vehicles parked next to one another, a car and a semi truck respectively.

I wished to move the resources from within the car to the semi truck, for the fuel this was an incredibly slow and painful process of siphoning fuel into the singular bottle I had and dumping it into the semi.

After I had finished transferring the fuel, I hopped into the semi and attempted to start it up. No luck.
As it would turn out the semi truck did not have any charge in the battery, how I wished for jumper cables.[/quote]

The easier way to do this would have been to uninstall one of the fuel tanks on the car, giving you a very large container full of fuel to pour into the truck.
Then uninstall the car battery and install it in the truck to give it power.

4

But what if you don’t have the tools or the skill?

5

I liked the idea of having a longer term goal (probably once NPCs aren’t insane) being to clear out the zombies from a hydro dam and eventually craft enough parts to create new turbines to get the dam working again. I imagine there would be towns nearby with substations in them, and after repairing the dam, a console becomes active with an option to divert power to a specific substation. If a town’s substation is powered, the town gets power. Towns would have to be expanded to handle power, ovens becoming usable, adding streetlights, lights in houses, advanced crafting things like electrified fences, etc.

So here’s how it should go down:

  1. NPC faction leader gives mission to clear dam of zombies
  2. You (maybe along with NPC team) kill all zombies at dam
  3. NPC leader gives mission to repair one of three items, using a high level in one of the computer/electronics/fabrication skills and assorted rare parts. If you are skilled enough, you can repair all 3 yourself, otherwise, you have to either have NPCs in your faction with the skills, or recruit them somehow (this is taking a lot of assumptions about how well featured the NPCs can/will be)
  4. Player activates command console to target substation to power.
  5. If the dam is sufficiently manned (maybe require 10 NPCs to be at the dam, or some crew with X skills), the substation and surrounding city becomes powered.

There’s a lot going on in those 5 items IMO. To even get the mission, you have to have a high enough reputation with a faction leader that they trust you with it. Clearing the dam of zombies is going to be no joke. I’m imagining the dam was secured by the military before they went down, so lots of zombie soldiers, high level specials, etc, and use of explosives will probably cause the dam to come down around you and kill you. The skill requirement is pretty straight forward. The item requirement should involve something like finding a recipe book (“Hydroelectric Turbines for Dummies”) or a special piece of furniture that you put parts into (ex. “turbine assembly”, 'e’xamine it: “The turbine assembly looks like it is missing some components. Four steel frames, four sheet metals, and a hard plating seem to be missing.” or without high enough skill “This looks like a turbine, but you have no idea what to make of it” Adding the parts one at a time is an option to keep from being weighed down). Substation selection is a strategic thing. Maybe one faction wants this town lit up, but another wants that other town. Maybe there is a special military facility that requires power before you can explore it at all. Maybe you want to light up a lab for easier exploration. You should have a few different options, and each option should have have its own advantages and drawbacks, but the substation should be swappable, so it can support your needs at the time (at the risk of pissing off your NPC faction). Making sure the dam is manned is fairly straightforward. You have to make sure your NPC faction is sufficiently strong enough to actually run the dam and make sure it generates power. Having control of a working dam would probably make your faction a huge target for other factions, which means the dam could be under siege often.

This is all just one imagining of how it would go down. I think hydro dams would be the most realistic to implement, because other power plants require some combination of complicated supply chain, required expertise, or manpower that make them unrealistic. Solar/wind farms are a possibility, but I don’t think a single one could power an entire city on its own.

The most important part of it all is making sure that having power is actually useful and worth going for. So a few possibilities:

  1. Light sources in buildings/along roads
  2. Heat source in buildings (ovens)
  3. Possible morale/entertainment purposes (TVs?)
  4. Long range communication (radios/radio towers, laptops (wireless network?), etc)
  5. Opening up previously locked areas (military installation scenario suggested above)
  6. Food preservation in fridges
  7. Possible fresh water supply (reactivate sewage treatment plant in another quest?)
  8. Power new tools/appliances (new crafting recipes)
  9. NPC faction purposes (expand influence and control of your faction, attract survivors, etc)

The most important of these I think are 4, 5, 8, and 9. They all unlock some new capability that was previously unavailable and lay the groundwork for new content, rather than provide a fancier way to do something that was already possible.

6

Damn Vache. Nice planning. +1 to his plan!

7

Interesting.

Indeed, you’d need to make sure the power did something useful to make it worth bothering with.

Otherwise I feel my current setup is basically all you’d ever need.

I plug holes in building walls with “vehicles” consisting of a few frames, a solar panel, a battery, and some useful electronic equipment like welders, kitchen units etc.

Infinite power. Also, build in spotlights meaning I can stay up all night long reading if I want to.

8

+1 to power, also, conveyor belts for interesting factory fights?

9

I would love to see steam engines!

Never a shortage of wood around.

10

I really like the idea of restoring electricity as a late game goal. Would offer a challenge and a nice feeling of accomplishment, not to mention the benefits.

11

The restoration of power on a large scale is a great idea, however I think it might be a bit difficult to achieve, pethaps if there was a way to circumnavigate the NPC component. (IE finding some super advanced power plant that literally runs itself.)

Other than that, power on a smaller scale is what I was generally rambling about in my drunken fueled Idea fest.

Basically It would work as it did before, with vehicles strewn about the place, performing different activities.
Except in this instance, we could bridge power (perhaps even fuel ducting?) across all of these vehicles.

Lets say for example the player sets up a base In a nice public works or something, He has one “vehicle” (A mass of stationary components in this case) that is generating electricity via some engines and alternators.

The fuel tank, which is located in an open area (to prevent burning down the whole base when it goes up), is ducting fuel into the generator, How is it being pressurized or pumped into the generator? Magic. Or since literally everything is flat, perhaps we can assume fuel tanks are a bit higher than everything else and are gravity fed.
Once Z levels are in this could probably be expanded with pumps or whatever.

But anyway, back to the example.

The generator is running low on gasoline, the player needs that electricity to run his base, So what does he do?

The player jumps into his modified semi truck, drives to the nearest gas station, fills it up and drives back to base.
Using some some hose, he connects the semi truck tanker to the bases fuel tank, equaling out the amount in the tanks, or otherwise until the smaller one fills up. (this basically assumes the equalization mechanic will only really work with two containers equal in size).

The day is saved! After draining a whole gastation dry, The player can now have heating during the winter months (when solar panels won’t work as well as they should).

After a year or two, existing off the gasoline supply, the player has tired of driving longer and longer to find gasoline. With all of the spare tools and parts laying about the player sets about the create and alternative way of generating electricity through combustion.

Steam engines!

Far and wide did the player search, for a mystical tome on the construction of steam engines.
Perhaps the player went all out, set up casting basins and lathes to make a machine of high quality.
Or perhaps the player was not so endowed with his mechanical abilities, and modified existing components to run off steam (It can be done IRL)
Either which way the player has done it, He has created a power source capable of running of the plentiful forests in New England.

I wonder what the player will turn to once half the country has been deforested?

Let’s just hope he dies before then.

12

Triffids.

http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=2356.msg30279#msg30279
Read the “extra bloat” part of that post. Steam is cool too though.

13

Triffids.

http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=2356.msg30279#msg30279
Read the “extra bloat” part of that post. Steam is cool too though.[/quote]

+1 to basically everything in that post.

Too bad people are going to whine, because they don’t know what a transmission is.

14

I must say i love the general idea of restoring power in this way, would go well with the addition of specific buildings that need power to be opened, or a “med bay” in a hospital that can remove bad mutations, of course preservation of food and the ability to cook food from a stove are major ones id love to see, could also use it for say spotlights around your house or electrified fencing to give the dead a nice jolt.

15

[quote=“wad67, post:11, topic:4781”]I wonder what the player will turn to once half the country has been deforested?

Let’s just hope he dies before then.[/quote]

Is the Blob flammable?
Let’s find out!

16

[quote=“wad67, post:1, topic:4781”]Yes, you read that last bit correctly, Steam engines.
Here is an excerpt from IRC about the steam engines I was considering making:

[11:57] How far are we from exporting the fuel identifiers and such to JSON ? If that gets done in the not too distant future I may be tempted to make a whole set of steam vehicle parts, It might be a little difficult but I have attempted it before and kind of have some psuedo code lying around in my brain for it.
[11:59] The general Idea, is to have a “firebox” which is basically an engine that will run on liquid wood or something silly, this in turn will run a “boiler” which is basically an alternator type component that fits on the firebox and creates “Steam” which is stored in steam tanks. Finally I will have a set of steam engines that run of the said “steam”, of course the whole system will be variable sized.
[12:00] I just about had it implemented before, but I was having a little difficulty with getting the fuel types sorted out, this was before we had vehicle parts exported to JSON.
[12:02] I think the biggest hurdle will be figuring out how to fuel the firebox, just for novelty I could have it run on gasoline, which would be a lot easier to implement. However I would like to see if I could burn wooden objects in it somehow, which would probably require a shitload more code.
[12:03] I might be able to steal the turret code, and instead of ammunition accept 2X4’s or something really weird.
[12:04] Anyway, thanks for all jumping up at once and saying nobody wants steam engines and it will be too hard to make, I appreciate the complements.

Post your own ideas, make it better than mine (No big challenge there folks).

tl;dr : Moar electricity, post your own electricity,[/quote]

I would emphatically like to see steam engines and associated gear make an appearance. I have to say that I only stumbled upon this awesome roguelike a few weeks ago, but this is an idea I could get behind and would be more than willing to contribute to see implemented.

Also- it seems to me that most of the proposed additions in this thread come down to one thing- flow of some kind (read- current, water, steam, mutagen etc.) via appropriate items to adjacent locations or items. The whole siphoning thing is a start, but for this sort of system I feel like it could be broken down into pumps (substations, generators, boiling vessels, siphon starters), a conductive element (tubing, pipes, wire) and a few basic rules for what can follow what sort of pathway.

Ad-hoc stills producing steam power and ethanol (methanol if you’re not skilled up!), anyone?

17

[quote=“ClockworkZombie, post:16, topic:4781”][quote=“wad67, post:1, topic:4781”]Yes, you read that last bit correctly, Steam engines.
Here is an excerpt from IRC about the steam engines I was considering making:

[11:57] How far are we from exporting the fuel identifiers and such to JSON ? If that gets done in the not too distant future I may be tempted to make a whole set of steam vehicle parts, It might be a little difficult but I have attempted it before and kind of have some psuedo code lying around in my brain for it.
[11:59] The general Idea, is to have a “firebox” which is basically an engine that will run on liquid wood or something silly, this in turn will run a “boiler” which is basically an alternator type component that fits on the firebox and creates “Steam” which is stored in steam tanks. Finally I will have a set of steam engines that run of the said “steam”, of course the whole system will be variable sized.
[12:00] I just about had it implemented before, but I was having a little difficulty with getting the fuel types sorted out, this was before we had vehicle parts exported to JSON.
[12:02] I think the biggest hurdle will be figuring out how to fuel the firebox, just for novelty I could have it run on gasoline, which would be a lot easier to implement. However I would like to see if I could burn wooden objects in it somehow, which would probably require a shitload more code.
[12:03] I might be able to steal the turret code, and instead of ammunition accept 2X4’s or something really weird.
[12:04] Anyway, thanks for all jumping up at once and saying nobody wants steam engines and it will be too hard to make, I appreciate the complements.

Post your own ideas, make it better than mine (No big challenge there folks).

tl;dr : Moar electricity, post your own electricity,[/quote]

I would emphatically like to see steam engines and associated gear make an appearance. I have to say that I only stumbled upon this awesome roguelike a few weeks ago, but this is an idea I could get behind and would be more than willing to contribute to see implemented.

Also- it seems to me that most of the proposed additions in this thread come down to one thing- flow of some kind (read- current, water, steam, mutagen etc.) via appropriate items to adjacent locations or items. The whole siphoning thing is a start, but for this sort of system I feel like it could be broken down into pumps (substations, generators, boiling vessels, siphon starters), a conductive element (tubing, pipes, wire) and a few basic rules for what can follow what sort of pathway.

Ad-hoc stills producing steam power and ethanol (methanol if you’re not skilled up!), anyone?[/quote]

It all sounds great to me, I have the setup to make all of that stuff, just not the coding ability (or the internet for that matter).
As much as I would like to build a huge high pressure boiler with a redundant pumps to prevent back-pressure, that might be a bit advanced for myself to code.

I can handle JSON’s fairly well and I can occasionally delve into the world of c++ and emerge alive, but advanced things such as version control (see: github) and other more advanced coding is something I would probably have to study for another 10 years or 20.

The best I can do at the moment is draw up a shitload of ideas, and when I get the internet back on properly I will submit them to this thread.

Personally I’m a bit of a steam fanatic, restoring toy steam engines is a bit of a side hobby I picked up from my grandfather, I have a toy traction engine (which is basically what I want to see in cataclysm except quite a bit larger) and a toy stationary engine (has no boiler so I run it off one of those boilers you use for frothing coffee milk up).

I was considering sterling engines, but the amount of energy they produce is rather negligible, A toy one barely has enough energy to run itself, let alone a dynamo. And the larger ones they had back in the late 1800’s early 1900’s were only really capable of running a small fan. Modern designs have improved although generally they are fairly inefficient.

In terms of player made internal combustion engines, I was thinking a hit and miss engine would be something a player could make.
Probably not well suited to transportation, but could certainly run a generator.

More advanced internal combustion engines, should probably be impossible to make, it is possible to rebuild an engine using fairly commonplace tools, but making one from scrap is probably beyond the average player.

External combustion engines such as a steam engine, or a Stirling engines should be simple enough to make, along with some very basic internal combustion engines.

In terms of electrical engines, I am not particularly sure. Personally I have made many dynamos, out of nails, insulated copper wires and magnets, but actually making something capable of shifting a vehicle would probably be fairly difficult.

In terms of electrical generation, It’s fairly easy to rig a basic generator setup, Some big spools of copper wire and some magnets is all it really takes. Its basically a makeshift alternator.

From what I can see in the vehicle code, all of the combustion engines have starter motors in them, that’s why you can’t start the car if the battery is empty. I also noticed in the code you can start smaller engines without a battery, (it basically assumes the player starts it by hand).

If you really wanted to get fancy, remove the starter motor from all engines and make it a separate object, that you can take apart or use as a really low power electric engine (It has been done folks, My dad told me of the time he ran out of gas about 500m from the service station, rather than getting out and pushing the car, he simply put it into gear and drove to the station using the starter motor, Not sure if you can do that in the newer cars.).

So basically the engines in the generated vehicles would come with a starter motor, and another Item to add would be a pull-start mechanism. Add that to anything generated with a smaller engine, and hey presto Cataclysm is on it’s way to be a lot more fun.

I can see ridiculously high strength players adding a pull start to their v12 engines…

Once I get proper internet on this wall of text will soon become the great wall of the vehicle thread (with pictures).

18

Totally. Power plants would be a fantastic addition to the game. They’d provide an end-game objective aside from stockpiling artifacts and loot. Sure, cleaning out mines and science labs is fun, but it isn’t all that constructive, and in a sandbox roguelike like this, constructive is good.

As for how we’d implement this…

I’m thinking hydroelectric, wind-powered, solar, or nuclear power plants. Sure, fossil-fuel burning plants are present in the northeast, but getting the power back in one would involve maintaining a fuel supply.
Actually getting the power back online shouldn’t be a simple pull of a switch. A number of things would need to be done - perhaps repairing damaged turbines (requiring high construction/mechanics/fabrication skills) or damaged solar panels and wiring (requiring a high electronics skill). At nuclear plants, maybe you’d need to replace some of the plutonium. Obviously, a high computers skill would be needed to turn power back on. It’d be a practical use for those non-combat skills, besides making fancy gear.
Given that this game has random generation, the various power plants should be in various states of disrepair. Lucky players might just have to fix a turbine or two and pull the switch.

I’m all for steam engines, too. The construction system allows you to build your own cabin; it should allow you to power it and live “off the grid”.

19

What about labaratories? We can use power of Cascade resonance.

20

Tearing open portals to the netherworld is what started the apocalypse. Doing so just for power generation seems unwise. Plus, it seems it’d be way more complicated tapping that energy and turning it into useable power compared to literally any other method.