Make electricity interesting

[Pandarsenic]

inspired by

People still haven't created an idea that motivates someone enough to actually put the effort into making station power a nonbinary situation.

The problem
Power generation is boring. There are basically four states:
No power -- sucks, has to be fixed, this is fine as is
Power from solars only -- This usually means the engine exploded. Stable, no risk, everything is powered, boring as hell.
Power from the engine -- Everything is powered unless someone hits a power sink, probably.
Extra power from pushing the engine harder -- Literally identical to the above, except the power sink fucks off sooner? No other real benefits.

The solution?
Give extra power some benefits and cool things to do so engineers have a reason to fuck around with the engine. Presented here are some ORIGINAL IDEAS DO NOT STEAL and some stolen from other codebases, like 2015ish BayStation:

Department subnets
- What we have now: The station is one universal power grid.
- What would change: Engineers hit a breaker, lever, clip wires, whatever, to disconnect the department from the main grid. The grid now feeds a local power station/SMES instead, giving it a layer of protection against power failures and power sinks on the main grid, BUT increased vulnerability to power sinks targeting the subnet. Additionally, antagonists can sabotage the subnet to quickly and efficiently screw power up in a specific area.

Spacecoin mining
- What we have now: There is no use for excess power generation other than flexing and occasionally blowing up power sinks
- What would change: The crew can make machines that add credits to a linked account (if no account is linked, they add to the station budget. Head IDs can link them to the personal ID or the department budget). These machines use a large number of graphics cards stock parts like lasers, manipulators, and scanning devices, which burn out regularly, becoming some sort of unusable rubbish. The machines also generate significant heat, releasing it into the surrounding atmosphere. The amount of spacecoin they generate is based on the part tech levels and how low you can keep the temperature of the room they're in.

Science calculations
- What we have now: There is no use for excess power generation other than flexing and occasionally blowing up power sinks
- What would change: The crew can make machines that attempt to convert excess power into capped discounts for certain techs, gas shell research papers, or other, cooler esoteric shit, like predictions of events before they happen. Maybe also use the "generates heat, keep the heat down or it runs like shit" from above.

Mouse cookout
- What we have now: Mice eat wires, then die.
- What would change: If there is a certain amount of power on the grid (either raw or unused draw) mice die on the first wire nibble, before breaking the wires, so the wire layout is not disrupted.

Borehole mining
- What we have now: Miners run around with plasma cutters to get fat stacks. There is no use for the deployable base.
- What would change: This was suggested in one of the mining threads, but tl;dr -- install a borehole/core mining drill on the base, feed a SMES unit on it, install turrets and other defenses, and then send it to Lavaland/Iceland. It draws/spawns hostile native life to it, but the longer it runs uninterrupted, the better the mineral income it provides (either increasing raw rate, or shifting to provide a higher percentage of better materials). Gives an opportunity to have bored Engineers, Miners, and possibly Medics team up.

Beaming electricity
- What we have now: Shuttling SMES units and up-down power junctions are the only way to send power to other Z-levels.
- What would change: The crew can make electricity sending/receiving machines. They're paired one-to-one, configured with multitools or something maybe, and can send power (VERY inefficiently, like 20% to 50% efficient) to other Z-levels for projects there (restoring old stations, etc.)

Wait, why are we doing this again?
Because there are like 6 cool ways to set up the engine and all sorts of cool SM-gas interactions, but there's exactly one setup besides default with any benefit (Carbon Dioxide rigs are self-sustaining without firing emitters at the supermatter). Give engineers a reason to do optimize the engine and a way to upgrade the power grid. Also, give them something nonessential, but useful to do instead of waiting for someone to maxcap a major hallway or ditching the station entirely for their projects.

Also, encourage cargo's bitcoin miners to fight science's event-prediction analysts over the spare power output.

[BeeSting12]

>Departmental subnets
Still needs to be a disadvantage to wiring the department right up to the grid, otherwise wiring each department to the grid will just become a natural part of the engine setup process. The power running directly from the SM would likely go on high voltage wires, and going through the SMES also acts as a transformer to the low voltage. APCs would be unable to handle high voltage power and will blow up if there's too much power in the grid. I believe the SMES's can be set to regulate the power output, the SMES's might even have to be managed to prevent the power output from blowing up APCs. Some machines would require high voltage input, such as emitters for an example, but those are special cases.

I think this idea would give the most sabotage/crew conflict opportunities. As power runs out or is limited, there would be conflicts over which department gets the precious remaining power. Engine output should be balanced so that the base setup is just enough to power the station's power draw at roundstart plus a little. If science wants to upgrade machines (increasing power draw) or anyone else wants to do something fun, a more specialized setup would be needed, solars/the turbine/a PACMAN generator would have to be setup, or they could just start stealing another department's power.

>Spacecoin Mining
Good idea, I'd say just make it so that the spacecoin machines don't work in space. More accurately, they have no way to radiate heat off of them, so the machine overheats and dies in space.

>Borehole Mining
So just for clarification on the idea - you pretty much feed it power and it digs a deeper and deeper hole in the ground spitting out minerals? Or does it run around the mining z-level/dig a tunnel through the z-level.

These are all good ideas, my opinion on the SM replacing the singularity was sorta "okay cool there's a lot more nuance to the engine, but whats the point?". Power has always been a fairly binary thing, so expanding it was just up to the autism of the engineers rather than any necessity/usefulness to the station.

[Pandarsenic]

>Departmental subnets
Still needs to be a disadvantage to wiring the department right up to the grid, otherwise wiring each department to the grid will just become a natural part of the engine setup process. The power running directly from the SM would likely go on high voltage wires, and going through the SMES also acts as a transformer to the low voltage. APCs would be unable to handle high voltage power and will blow up if there's too much power in the grid. I believe the SMES's can be set to regulate the power output, the SMES's might even have to be managed to prevent the power output from blowing up APCs. Some machines would require high voltage input, such as emitters for an example, but those are special cases.

I think this idea would give the most sabotage/crew conflict opportunities. As power runs out or is limited, there would be conflicts over which department gets the precious remaining power. Engine output should be balanced so that the base setup is just enough to power the station's power draw at roundstart plus a little. If science wants to upgrade machines (increasing power draw) or anyone else wants to do something fun, a more specialized setup would be needed, solars/the turbine/a PACMAN generator would have to be setup, or they could just start stealing another department's power.

>Spacecoin Mining
Good idea, I'd say just make it so that the spacecoin machines don't work in space. More accurately, they have no way to radiate heat off of them, so the machine overheats and dies in space.

>Borehole Mining
So just for clarification on the idea - you pretty much feed it power and it digs a deeper and deeper hole in the ground spitting out minerals? Or does it run around the mining z-level/dig a tunnel through the z-level.

These are all good ideas, my opinion on the SM replacing the singularity was sorta "okay cool there's a lot more nuance to the engine, but whats the point?". Power has always been a fairly binary thing, so expanding it was just up to the autism of the engineers rather than any necessity/usefulness to the station.

Clarification on subnets: This is taken from my loose memories of BayStation just under a decade ago. Basically, departments start wired to the grid. If you set up the subnet, you got a few benefits: A detailed breakdown of departmental power use (both at the grid-to-departments level and to see which rooms are drawing how much power on the subnet) was a big one. The other, more relevant to us, is isolation from grid-level power sinks for departments like medical and engineering, where power loss is a serious cascading problem. By configuring the subnet, you have a reserve of power on your subnet SMES that can't be fucked over by grid-level power sinks because the transmission from grid to transformer SMES is one-way.

The flip side is planting a power sink on a configured subnet fucks the whole department REALLY fast, BUT the people know the power sink has to be close to there physically because subnets are isolated.

I also enjoy the potential for power issues to have Engineers doing interim solutions like announcing rolling brownouts to noncritical departments, but also stuff like the RD sneaking into the bridge to make sure science keeps its power available for accumulating research points.

Spacecoin mining: Yeah, just a "doesn't work in space/hard vacuum" would be nice. like if there's not enough moles of gas nearby or they're too warm, they lose efficiency in terms of coins gained/wattage spent and then eventually shut off. If this system works well, it could also perhaps be generalized to telecomms; I've always wished telecomms had to be cold for an actual reason.

Borehole mining: It stays in place where you call it down and runs (pulling minerals from "below the surface" to ground level) until power is dry or the equipment is damaged too much by the summoned mobs.

[Farquaar]

One thing that I think would be really cool: If the power is drained but there's still a bit of juice in some of the powernet's APCs, there should be flickering lights. Flashlights in dark, spooky halls with the occasionally blinking fluorescent light is cooler than uniform dim-ish emergency lighting, in my humble opinion.

[BeeSting12]

Ahhh okay so subnets are actually more of an upgrade than a roundstart thing to powersink proof the station.

[Pandarsenic]

Department subnets
- What we have now: The station is one universal power grid.
- What would change: Engineers hit a breaker, lever, clip wires, whatever, to disconnect the department from the main grid. The grid now feeds a local power station/SMES instead, giving it a layer of protection against power failures and power sinks on the main grid, BUT increased vulnerability to power sinks targeting the subnet. Additionally, antagonists can sabotage the subnet to quickly and efficiently screw power up in a specific area.

I'm reviving this because of Ghilker's changes to station power consumption.

I think Subnets would be an interesting potential solution (but one that would take a significant amount of work) to the problems of power distribution on the station.

If people think it sounds cool, we could trial it on one map and see if people like it, do anything with it, etc.

Delta or Kilo are my first instincts, though if MMM found it interesting, Tram has a lot of maintenance space that could be used for those control rooms.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Department subnets
- What we have now: The station is one universal power grid.
- What would change: Engineers hit a breaker, lever, clip wires, whatever, to disconnect the department from the main grid. The grid now feeds a local power station/SMES instead, giving it a layer of protection against power failures and power sinks on the main grid, BUT increased vulnerability to power sinks targeting the subnet. Additionally, antagonists can sabotage the subnet to quickly and efficiently screw power up in a specific area.

I'm reviving this because of Ghilker's changes to station power consumption.

I think Subnets would be an interesting potential solution (but one that would take a significant amount of work) to the problems of power distribution on the station.

Im not a mapper nor a electrician, but im very sure you could illegally bypass a subnet block very easily by connecting to raw maintenance wire through a few odd walls and then accidentally create a feedback loop that might short out areas of the station. You can already make a subnet but just using Pacman's and wireclipping in isolation as a backup for science autism fortress meta.

Im thinking of subnet like
- APC floor-wire interaction modules that give data and regulation to power usage when you view and modify them in person at power entry points of the department & dividers between rooms such as genetics/science.

---

- Engineering can shut the named subnets off/on redirect on both ends via console, which creates high voltage direct current (HVDC) surges of energy (cables will force energy to the subnet visibly with pulses rather than passive consumption, touching these can be dangerous without shoes or floor panelling) to be converted by the subnet, as they will explode if they reach a exposed end-wire.

Maybe to recycle the bluespace teleportation jammers for it spritewise as inspiration.

[Pandarsenic]

- APC floor-wire interaction modules that give data and regulation to power usage when you view and modify them in person at power entry points of the department & dividers between rooms such as genetics/science.

- Engineering can shut the named subnets off/on redirect on both ends via console

I haven't looked at it in a long time, but I believe these features both existed in the Baycode subnets when I looked at them Back in the Day

[cacogen]

What we need is settlements and a day/night cycle and at night they get attacked by bugs unless the turrets are running but this requires power so they have to convince our comfy space station to give them power by trading valuable resources they’ve extracted and they can’t just leave the settlement because they started there and the journey is long and fraught with danger and they may not be allowed into the station which only has limited food production. This would make power interesting.

How is this different from the Iamgoofball suggestion to make power like FTL, where it has to be switched between departments? A) that would suck for people who can’t do their jobs B) everybody’s on the same team so it’s in everybody’s best interest for there to be enough power for everybody. When it becomes a resource traded between factions, the conflicting interest combined with the lack of having to be responsible for the consequences of your actions towards the other factions (unlike between departments) leads to interesting scenarios

Although I would like to see something like this in the game I’m suggesting it more as an example of what I think would make power interesting. Also I stole parts of this from both Lifeweb and RimWorld as well as The Outer Worlds