Wind and Wind Power

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Power generation via the wind, as an alternative or support to solar power.

As there in no ‘wind’ system currently in place for wind turbines to use, I suggest using the weather as a means of determining the output of a given turbine. It would use a similar system to solar power to decide the charge rate. Perhaps something along the lines of:

Sunny - No Breeze - No charge
Clear - No Breeze - No charge
Cloudy - Soft Wind - Small charge
Drizzle - Soft Wind - Small charge
Rain - Average Wind - Regular charge
Thunder Storm - Average Wind - Regular charge
Lightning Storm - Strong Wind - 1.5x charge (Maybe a chance of lightning striking the tower, damaging it?)
Acidic Drizzle - Soft Wind - Small charge
Acid Rain - Average Wind - Regular charge
Flurries - Soft Wind - Small charge
Snowing - Average Wind - Regular charge
Snowstorm - Strong Wind - 1.5x charge (Chance of turbine freezing, disabling it for a few minutes/damaging it?)

Or, use the ranged penalty system to determine how much the turbine charges.

So, your thoughts?

2

How would we apply this? Enormous buildings that radiate electricity? Turbines strapped to the top of your sedan? I love the concept, but within the current state of the game, it seems a bit out of place.

3

Well personally i consider it a step in the right direction, as i am currently hoping for a massive amount of electric changes to the game, i really hope eventually they will begin working on getting lighting set up so we can store up energy in batteries with solar panels then light the (in my case usually) bunker, of course things like acid rain should damage these and slowly require maintenance but the addition of a wind setup would be very cool. Just need to add wind to the game, i think it needs to be added anyways as with long range shooting wind speed should be a factor… i know this is impractical but idc i want wind… chills from cold breezes… the whole nine yards.

4

Wind ought to be separate from climate though. A day can be sunny with winds of 40 mph. And you can have heavy rains without wind.

5

I was thinking it would be a wind turbine ‘vehicle,’ like the office chair, except heavy enough to not 'G’rab and drag with you.

I hadn’t thought about that, you’re right. I suppose the charge effects should be random, determined when the weather transitions. Maybe use this as a placeholder until an actual system is implemented?

Thanks for the support, and I think certain ranged penalties are already associated with the weather.

6

I think Z-levels first so we can use this, cause at the current time I think a solar panel would be much better.

7

depending on the time and difficulty associated with a full wind write-up, the weather system could make a very nice complement to the solar panels, as they charge in good weather: these would charge in bad.

8

I like it, have a wind engine that is always running in the wind.

9

For bonus points make laser turrets run off of wind as well as sunlight.

10

For the record - solar power is almost useless in the northeast, and will ALWAYS be almost useless. We have a very low average sunlight albedo here. And if you live near the great lakes/appalacian mountains, there are areas where the sunlight albedo rivals Maine and Alaska. And heck, for that matter; Maine itself is in the northeast.

Wind power and hydropower will always be better suited for this area. Wind has the downside of giving you the most energy when you need it the least. There are definite time of day graphs we could look at; its been years since I did stuff with this, but I’ve actually done college work on this stuff - it wouldn’t be that hard. I’d imagine the easiest way would be to link it to the time of day/season, based on what would be realistic, and I don’t think it would be terribly complicated, since from what I remember, the averages are actually fairly damn predictable.

Hydro-power would be even better, as you have an endless number of streams, not to mention the rivers, and they provide more consistent power output.

11

But you can’t really attach a water generator to a Segaway of doom

12

[quote=“secretfire, post:10, topic:5693”]For the record - solar power is almost useless in the northeast, and will ALWAYS be almost useless. We have a very low average sunlight albedo here. And if you live near the great lakes/appalacian mountains, there are areas where the sunlight albedo rivals Maine and Alaska. And heck, for that matter; Maine itself is in the northeast.

Wind power and hydropower will always be better suited for this area. Wind has the downside of giving you the most energy when you need it the least. There are definite time of day graphs we could look at; its been years since I did stuff with this, but I’ve actually done college work on this stuff - it wouldn’t be that hard. I’d imagine the easiest way would be to link it to the time of day/season, based on what would be realistic, and I don’t think it would be terribly complicated, since from what I remember, the averages are actually fairly damn predictable.

Hydro-power would be even better, as you have an endless number of streams, not to mention the rivers, and they provide more consistent power output.[/quote]
What do you mean when you say “…giving you the most energy when you need it the least.”? And hydropower would be awesome to have, though it may be unbalanced.

This would be amazing to have guarding your base. :L

While Z-levels would definitely make this more realistic, I don’t think it’s entirely necessary.

That’s the original idea, yeah. Instead of having to sit and wait for the sun to come back so you can recharge, this would allow you to get going sooner than currently possible with just solar power.

I found this hilarious. So I sigged it.

We don’t really want that. The suggestion is to have the generator always charge in the wind, not just run in it. The only way to defeat the zombies is to be aggressive, AND SO WE CHAAARRGE!![size=5pt]Jokes![/size]

13

What I meant, Worldmaster, is that when you look at peak usage times for electricity, they often coincide with the lowest periods of wind-based output.

14

Hm? I’m definitely no expert on electrical energy or anything like it, but doesn’t generated power just get stored in capacitors for consumption?

15

I have mixed feelings, sure it’s always useful to have more power; but wind turbines need extensive setup to properly generate power. For passive power potential, solar power is easier to set up. So we’re creating another system of power to fulfill a purpose that’s already fulfilled.

If we’re looking at realism; turbines need to be around 30ft higher than anything nearby to properly generate power. I don’t think even a well-built turbine will hold up well on a vehicle. Plus they’d need to be pretty big to run even the smallest vehicle/appliance.

Maybe if we had something to use all that power on; then we’d have a reason to build turbine fields.

How exactly are these things going to work? We’ll need more information to base it on.

16

turbine on a vehicle, now you’re making me think of that wind-powered car I saw (not a sail car, it had a turbine that turned the wheels).
Generally though wind turbines would be for stationary power generation.
Regarding storage, if you’re talking about modern large scale power generation, storing the power for any significant amount of time is very expensive, the equipment to do it is expensive, and you always lose power in the process.
In the cataclysm, stored power would be the default instead o fthe exception.