batteries and solar panels

[idolord 10]

Hi everyone

First i wanted to thanks Bohemia Interactive for finaly making one game that directly and totaly grabbed my attention (even the name sound epic, where "take on helicopters" sounded just normal as "making a cofee", this one sound like "enter the history") Aside i must admit that i'm in fond of space, that's maybe why.

If you are intrested in my actual suggestion and not willing to read the explaination of what make me throw those suggestion i advise you skip the next chapter. ;)

The first subject i wanted to talk about is solar panel, chem batteries and their behave.

In the game actually (in game time mode for instance, i didn't test or played in real-time) i do have chem batteries and solar panels on my rover (yhear i like wasting money ;) ) the first thing is that solar panel power won't restore if you are not "driving" the rover (i mean when you are in the lab or in the office) plus time dilatation also don't make your solar panel regenerate ... It is a bit sad and not realistic as solar panels produce electricity if they are exposed to light whatever happened.

For the chem battries (i guess by "chem" you mean lithium, alkaline or whatever chemical reaction needed to produce electricity) so on my rover as i said there is chem batteries and solar panels but when at full charge solar panels don't throw electricity at batteries to recharge them.

who would launch a 1200K dollars probe with an average power generator and his batterie not linked to each other ?

this "issue" raise another one.

I did landed on mars late on the afternoon, and did my stuff, roam around and such. they were still light out there but my rover decided on his own that either consuming solar panel electricity, he will consume chem batterie electricity leaving me empty for the coming night.

So here are my actual suggetions:

-Making solar panel power recharge whenever their exposed to light, whatever you are doing.

-Making full power solar panel recharge chem batteries or alowing us to redirect the solar energy to the chem batteries foreseeing more night venturing.

-Allowing control of where the electricity come from or restrict the use of a source of energy.

finally sorry for my english (i have to say that i'm french for my defence :) )

with devotion,

Idolord.

Edited August 2, 2013 by idolord

[Decho 10]

Recharging while not in control of the vehicle would be great, and really is necessary once power failure gets implemented, as with recharging batteries. Also I'd like to see the recharge rate affected not only by the position of the sun in the sky but also the orientation of the panels relative to the sun's position - it's a very simple calculation and when it's getting later in the day being able to park on a slope for slightly faster recharge might be useful.

[idolord 10]

@Decho: i think it is already a feature in the game, it happened to me to drop down to 2 Wh at 16h (mars time) cause i was down in a crater and when i came back out the crater i came back to 3.9Wh but it might also be my mind tricking me XD

[Thales 45]

-Making solar panel power recharge whenever their exposed to light, whatever you are doing.

This feature will be added soon but just now it's not working properly - batteries don't recharge if you're not on the map or if you skip time. It's also the reason why are rovers fully functional even if they have drained batteries. Long story short - it's currently work in progress.

-Making full power solar panel recharge chem batteries or alowing us to redirect the solar energy to the chem batteries foreseeing more night venturing.

-Allowing control of where the electricity come from or restrict the use of a source of energy.

Those are interesting ideas. Please write them to our feedback tracker so we won't forget to look at it.

[idolord 10]

@Thales thanks for the answer and for the clarification about solar panel batteries. i'll do as you suggested and post those on the feedback tracker.

edit: posted on the feedback tracker as 0000156 entry (for references)

Edited August 6, 2013 by idolord

[Hundl 10]

Hi!

One easy way to implement the selection of the power source could be the "toggle cameras" menu, where you can switch cameras on- or offline.

In this menu there could be the option to switch the battery on- or offline.

As other technical devices drain power too (not implemented in the game yet), it would be cool if they also could be switched offline while not in use.

... Also I'd like to see the recharge rate affected not only by the position of the sun in the sky but also the orientation of the panels relative to the sun's position - it's a very simple calculation and when it's getting later in the day being able to park on a slope for slightly faster recharge might be useful.

I toltally agree with that.

Cheers and big up to the developers! Great game :)

[kevin[35th] 10]

iteresting idea!

[Demongornot 10]

Sound interesting, energy management and solar panel recharge when not on mars will be great, of course this something that must be able to handle real time playing, for those who use select real time rather than game time, when they are not in the game, if it is day on Mars solar panel should have to recharge battery, same when using game time and time skip function.

Sadly you can't recharge the Chems batteries, they are described as a non reversible reaction, this is a non rechargeable one, probably cause they have a way better efficiency than rechargeable one, they are made to be use as secondary or emergency power supply, for example cause of the change around solar panel on the last patch, my rover on Mars with solar panel have encounter a bug that have broke my SP, cause of another but i have not put the small solar panel on top, i was forced to run on the solar panel rechargeable battery and when empty the chem battery was useful for me to do a lot of more objectives on Mars even if actually the game not yet make the rover unable to operate when he have no more energy source, he keep going, same when solar battery are empty and that the energy output from solar panel themselves are not enough to match with the power require, it must make the rover slower and/or unable to complete some tasks...

Also when we use solar panel but rechargeable battery even if they still have energy start take energy from chem battery, a solution for manage power and for example disabled chem battery until we really need them rather than wast them will be perfect !

Take a look here :

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?166969-Rover-technical-management

[pspletinckx 0]

Battery, why not fuel cell?

I don't wanna hijack any thread but I still don't have permissions to start one of my own,

I have many ideas/suggestions but let me just talk about only one of them (seems relevant)

 

The refinery uses 2.4kW all the time, but it is able to synthesize and separate water,

It would be nice if we could use this device as a hydrogen + oxygen fuel cell for making and storing energy?

 

Science!!,

greets, Bullet0Storm