Piezoelectric Flooring -- piezotiles for power, lighting, and much else

[REMworlder]

From the grim darkness of the 56th century come walkways that generate power through traffic and ambient noise, courtesy of applied research into piezoelectricity.

What It Does
Piezoelectric flooring (or piezotile) can generate electricity when installed in high-traffic areas. Every unit that walks over, stands, or converses on piezotile adds small amounts of electricity to the system the piezotile is connected to. Piezotile is most commonly found in main halls, cafeterias, craft rooms, and distribution centers. More unique piezotile installations include prison, animal pen, dance hall, and drill ground surfacing.

Variants and Applications
-Lighting: Useful in space-efficient Rimworld colonies with thin hallways. Rimworlders don't like ensconced lighting, preferring piezotile to light up tight spaces with lots of traffic where normal light stands don't fit. Light could add another dimension to combat by removing the darkness accuracy penalty for units on it.
-Security: Changes in voltage sense intruders. Stored energy can also shock. Used to stun intruding units, scare away unwanted animals, and kill invasive plants. Could also function like nightengale flooring and emit noise or light to help security isolate targets.
-Temperature: Seasonal¹ and daily temperature changes generate power through pyroelectricity, a relative of piezoelectricity. Could also be used to provide flooring that heats up as people walk over it.
-Speed: Helpful messages inform and divert users to help traffic flow more smoothly.

Potential Pros
-A small footprint. Less vulnerable than huge solar arrays, but less productive or efficient.
-Lighting piezotiles could provide a way to light up tight spaces where vanilla Rimworld lamps don't work (eg single tile hallways) or don't justify the constant electricity use.
-Encourages walkways typically found in large outdoor colonies.
-Could provide alternative small-scale heat or electricity sources.
-Energy production scales with activity (eg, dies down at night when least needed).
-Could encourage separate piezo-only electrical circuits.

Potential Cons
-Expensive. Not viable as an initial source of electricity due to cost and lack of colonists.
-Has to be researched.
-Rare. Only specific ferroelectric materials are efficient enough to be used.
-Unreliable. Require constant traffic.
-Fragile. Fires and explosions wreck the mechanisms inside piezotiles easily.

Other Names
thermolium - changes in temperature generate voltage pyroelectrically
glowglass - lights up the dark
piezoplank - installed in strips
soundscale - noises travel far on the extra-rigid surface
cerralectric - a thin ceramic veneer acts as an insulator
vibo-tile - low bass frequencies from ambient noise resonate like humming
pizosolum - Greek and Latin are barely recognizable Low Gothic in the far future
plastigen - scavenged plastisteel is used as a rugged surface
mumblestrip - generated energy softly plays audio to foot traffic
piezopebble - topped with local aggregates
shockstone - anyone generating energy on it (walking) shocks himself
piezopad - less efficient, but easier on the joints

Conceptual Appearance
A simple pattern effect that doesn't clutter up the Rimworld aesthetic. Implies a mechanical nature, possibly decorated using current Glitterworld styles. Lighter colors and delicate edges can be used to imply fragility and differentiate from the typical floorings. Could have staggered tile-like effects to show an emphasis on stride length and foot traffic.

I hope this was slightly entertaining to read, I had fun thinking about it!

¹ Seasonal temperature introduced in the Oct 27 change log.

[skullywag]

I rather like the idea of this...dont think it would be too hard to implement either. Ill let someone else have a bash though i feel ive been nicking all the ideas recently lol.

[TrashMan]

Unfortunately, it's power output IRL is questionable.

[Ruin]

How about just lighted floor tiles (lighting radius of 1)?  That would be sweet enough.

[Sir]

This would be cool, I have some long walkways that are one block wide and I can't get lit. These would work real well.

I'd also see them being able to act like circuits.

[Coenmcj]

I was wondering if anyone would suggest Piezoelectricity or something along the lines of it... Nice one.

What about small scale Kinetic generators built into manual doors? the force required to open the doors generates a small amount of power into the system.

[Igabod]

This would be cool, I have some long walkways that are one block wide and I can't get lit. These would work real well.

I'd also see them being able to act like circuits.

Why can't you light them? Colonists can walk over the lamps. I used to put my lamps right in front of the door just for laughs until I made a new lamp that actually looks like a lamp with a shade. Then I started placing them in spots that made sense aesthetically.

[Weyrling]

Why can't you light them? Colonists can walk over the lamps. I used to put my lamps right in front of the door just for laughs until I made a new lamp that actually looks like a lamp with a shade. Then I started placing them in spots that made sense aesthetically.

Because Speediness, slowing pawns down when they're already rushing to and fro during a crisis is frustrating to some of us (Atleast I assume climbing past a lamp slows them down, I have not performed any SCIENCE! on the subject).

I'd enjoy having lighted floors, but more specifically lighted floors that 'require' energy if anything, having floors capable of transferring and using energy seems more useful and reasonable to me.
Walking doesn't really transfer that much force to the ground, and the efficiency of piezotiles is probably fairly low.

What would be great is to have a conditional system for power use, so that I don't have to turn my crematorium/machining table off/on manually and such, most of the workbenches don't see constant 24/7 usage, so they shouldn't require that energy 24/7.
The premise behind motion sensitive floors that light up seem to be along the same vein of thought, even though I don't think that there's a reasonable amount of energy to be gained from people walking around.

[Igabod]

Because Speediness, slowing pawns down when they're already rushing to and fro during a crisis is frustrating to some of us (Atleast I assume climbing past a lamp slows them down, I have not performed any SCIENCE! on the subject).

Which is why I was putting them in front of doors, the colonist is already slowed down by the door so being slower for 1 more square won't be as noticeable as it would be if you placed the lamp 7 squares from the door. Though if the hall is long and you place one every 14 squares it would get quite annoying, but then again if your colonist is in a single square wide hallway that is that long they will get negative thoughts from it. I always make my hallways 3 squares wide (plus 2 more for the walls). It's not as space efficient, but I've never built a base that takes the entire map yet anyway so who cares about efficiency in that regard?

[skullywag]

Its pretty simple to make objects not slow pawns down. Can be done in the def, cant remember what to change it to however as not near pc.

[Igabod]

Its pretty simple to make objects not slow pawns down. Can be done in the def, cant remember what to change it to however as not near pc.

<pathcost>0</pathcost> would remove any slowing effects. changing that to a negative number gives speed bonus (this was used in my faster floors mod)

[skullywag]

I meant where you normally put "passable" etc in say a building def for example. Theres an option that removes the slowdown.

[Igabod]

I meant where you normally put "passable" etc in say a building def for example. Theres an option that removes the slowdown.

oh you mean like <passability>NoSlowDownEffect</passability>? I made up the NoSlowDownEffect part, was just using it as an example. Well that's weird to have two methods of altering walk speed of colonists over an object.

[Sir]

This would be cool, I have some long walkways that are one block wide and I can't get lit. These would work real well.

I'd also see them being able to act like circuits.

Why can't you light them? Colonists can walk over the lamps. I used to put my lamps right in front of the door just for laughs until I made a new lamp that actually looks like a lamp with a shade. Then I started placing them in spots that made sense aesthetically.

Well I could, but I exercise aesthetic restraint :/