Throwing batteries does no damage

TheGrifter · 2013-09-25T03:19:36.000Z

I don’t know if you’ve ever been hit by a battery… But it hurts. A lot. Sometimes, at ball games, audience members will throw batteries, to hurt the players of the opposing teams. It hurts them, a lot. But if I throw a battery in this game, zero damage. What’s wrong with this situation?

i2amroy · 2013-09-25T03:43:44.000Z

The batteries you are thinking of throwing in real life are probably D-cell or so, like the ones in flashlights

The ones in cataclysm are more like the tiny ones you find inside watches and laser pointers

Those things won’t do much more then bounce off your skin, unless you fired them out of a gun or something similar to greatly increase their velocity.

TheGrifter · 2013-09-25T03:50:39.000Z

You’re telling me that the batteries I get out of a flashlight aren’t big batteries? I always imagined 100 unit batteries to be about a D sized battery. Maybe I’m just weird, but they’re not nuclear. They have a rather short life span. So I imagined they were like normal batteries which have sort of stagnated now, why shouldn’t they in the future?

Rivet · 2013-09-25T03:52:19.000Z

The way Cataclysm batteries work, it’s almost like they’re a weird magical powder that you can pour into electronic devices.

I mean seriously, you burn three charges out of a flashlight, you can just add three back into it by adding a pinch of magic battery dust or something.

i2amroy · 2013-09-25T03:54:50.000Z

TheGrifter:

You’re telling me that the batteries I get out of a flashlight aren’t big batteries? I always imagined 100 unit batteries to be about a D sized battery.

That might be, but you don’t throw 100 battery units every time you throw one, you only throw 1 battery (which is a sad consequence of how the battery system works).

TheGrifter · 2013-09-25T04:21:05.000Z

You ought to throw 100 batteries each time. Make each battery a container and then throw the depleted dead battery, or full battery.

TheGrifter · 2013-10-01T05:52:07.000Z

I’m just saying, batteries hurt, man. You ever been hit by one?

EkarusRyndren · 2013-10-01T05:55:12.000Z

Batteries are made form tin-cans in CDDA right? …Sounds like a wicked-crazy-big battery to me.

Murphy · 2013-10-01T06:05:09.000Z

I guess 100 charges makes for one tin can sized battery. Throwing batteries makes no sense really, because you’ll throw the “charges” one at a time.

As for reloading flashlights, yeah, but it’s an abstraction for convenience. Kinda like the way you reload weapons - you have ammo count, not magazine count, and it decreases only by however much you replenish by reloading.

TheGrifter · 2013-10-01T06:54:38.000Z

I think batteries ought to work like liquor bottles in that they have a certain amount of internal liquid, but they essentially weigh the same full and empty, and you’re not just throwing one unit of liquor per turn.

Then, when you run out of charge, instead of having a glass bottle, you could just have a dead battery. Which you could throw at those lousy Yankees. I mean, there are so many people up in those bleachers, how are they gonna be able to tell who threw it? Or let’s say you’re at a concert. What better way to get back at the people making more money than you than to give them a big goose egg with a D-Cell? But I digress.

An0n3 · 2013-10-01T14:58:28.000Z

[quote=“TheGrifter, post:10, topic:3214”]I think batteries ought to work like liquor bottles in that they have a certain amount of internal liquid, but they essentially weigh the same full and empty, and you’re not just throwing one unit of liquor per turn.

Then, when you run out of charge, instead of having a glass bottle, you could just have a dead battery. Which you could throw at those lousy Yankees. I mean, there are so many people up in those bleachers, how are they gonna be able to tell who threw it? Or let’s say you’re at a concert. What better way to get back at the people making more money than you than to give them a big goose egg with a D-Cell? But I digress.[/quote]

This. Everybody has a drawer somewhere with a bunch of half-dead or questionably dead batteries in it because that is how these damn things work. Making batteries act more like power cells and less like magical battery powder would be nice. Bonus points, then, if we can get a way to recharge dead cells/convert them into fresh batteries or transfer charges between them.

I keep trying to figure out more ways to use vehicle solar panels and chargers for all my energy needs just because the battery system is so goofy.

kevin.granade · 2013-10-01T15:31:04.000Z

If we rework batteries to work like batteries (similar to liquid containers is a good point) instead of like ammunition, they’ll work like real batteries, in that if they’re not rechargeable all you can do is load them and have them run down, then possibly scrap them for parts, and if they’re rechargeable you’ll stick them in some device to recharge them.

“transfering power between batteries” is not something you can do without an intervening charging device. Probably your main interaction would be to load them into a charger hooked up to a power source, or possibly just a larger battery (for example a car battery).

An0n3 · 2013-10-01T16:23:22.000Z

I could see this being a little imbalancing with the battery consumption CBM. If you carry around a bunch of rechargable batteries and just drink the charges out of them whenever you need them, then juice them back up at your safehouse you can effectively go CBM crazy as long as you periodically return to base.

Then again the current ethanol burner / blood filter combo is pretty potent on the spot recharges anyway.

kevin.granade · 2013-10-01T17:43:39.000Z

Yea there are a bunch of ways to get arbitrary amounts of power with various power CBMs. Once you have your pick, the intent is basically to throttle your access to power, not cut it off entirely.

xLemor · 2013-10-02T10:20:39.000Z

I can feel the hate people will have when all they will find in houses are a bunch of non rechargeable dead batteries or almost dead ones. Be careful about what you guys ask for

An0n3 · 2013-10-02T13:05:44.000Z

At least they’ll make good throwing weapons!

And the acid inside might still be useful for something.
I’m okay with the battery situation getting a nudge towards the more intricate and difficult. It’s really simple to get 100,000 batteries quickly by emptying the million radios and flashlights, disassembling all those cellphones and whatnot.

Endovior · 2013-10-02T15:14:55.000Z

I wouldn’t mind, really.

Past a certain point in the game, the bottleneck on power consumption becomes some combination of acid and cans. Acid is renewable, given a bit of patience with funnels… cans aren’t exactly renewable, but now that blacksmithing is up and running, you can get arbitrary amounts of empty canisters from reforging scrap metal (which you may well be getting from cutting up old cars, which are ubiquitous). If you got some combination of metal and acid back from used batteries, than you could keep the cycle going for a long time, with a little effort.

Of course, I’d want a mass-disassembly function included somewhere in the process. Having to manually disassemble a stack of 50 or so dead batteries, one at a time, would be madness-inducing.

Weyrling · 2013-10-02T17:08:43.000Z

Endovior:

Of course, I’d want a mass-disassembly function included somewhere in the process. Having to manually disassemble a stack of 50 or so dead batteries, one at a time, would be madness-inducing.

The trick I use is to remove disassemble query, reassign the item stack to ‘(’ and just hold ‘(’ down for a minute or so.
Having a mass disassemble would be really nice though.

An0n3 · 2013-10-02T18:13:38.000Z

BRILLIANT

Endovior · 2013-10-05T04:41:03.000Z

[quote=“Weyrling, post:18, topic:3214”]The trick I use is to remove disassemble query, reassign the item stack to ‘(’ and just hold ‘(’ down for a minute or so.
Having a mass disassemble would be really nice though.[/quote]

Hmm. I actually tried that, but found that reassignment reverts after the first disassembly.