Power Smarts / Light switches

[JayNic]

During the day, I see my 30 colonists rooms lit up like a christmas tree... I can hear my mums voice telling me to turn off the lights.

It would be nice that if a room is not in use, or if the colonist is sleeping: then the last person to leave will turn out the lights. This could work for bedrooms, or public areas.

Maybe a character trait of "Power Smart" means the colonist commonly turns off lights in rooms that are not his own after checking if anyone is inside. It could be a cool little animation: when the colonist walks by the room, he opens the door, does a speech bubble indicating that he's yelled to see if anyone is inside, then turns the light off.

On the other hand a"Power Stupid" person might forget to turn his own lights off, and even more commonly: any public room.

[Thubin]

Not a bad idea, however, you do know you can manually shut them off now right? You can click on them then you have the option.

[JayNic]

Yup. I do know that. Just don't want to micro manage it all the time. Not really something a "mayor" should have to do - more of a "mandate" that he should suggest.

[Stickle]

I would love this. Even just the little bit of atmosphere of watching my colonists get in bed and turn off their lights for the night would make it worth it.

Even if it only affected bedrooms and maybe things like armories I'd be happy; though I guess in some cases determining what constitutes a bedroom, an armory, a hallway, a mess hall, etc (or a giant mish mash of multiple functionalities) could be complex. Maybe it could be a setting on the lights themselves?

[FlyingTurtles]

Maybe it could be as simple as making all lights in an (x) amount of squares, from a bed in use, shut off.

[Thubin]

Yup. I do know that. Just don't want to micro manage it all the time. Not really something a "mayor" should have to do - more of a "mandate" that he should suggest.

Okay, just checking. I hope it didn't come off as condescending; I know things can be misread without inflection and body language. ;-)

[ThomasA]

Sounds like this could be an idea for a new research option like "Lamps with motion sensor" ;-)

A fine possibility to save some rare energy :-)

[starlight]

Not a bad idea, however, you do know you can manually shut them off now right? You can click on them then you have the option.

Clicking on 30 lamps each game day is not my idea of a fun game.
Auto switch off when not required would be nice.

[Thubin]

Clicking on 30 lamps each game day is not my idea of a fun game.
Auto switch off when not required would be nice.

I'd agree, but it takes me maybe 10 seconds to do it if I so choose. Granted I'm deliberately keeping my colony small so I don't have a power problem to begin with; to call my laptop a dinosaur is an insult to dinosaurs everywhere lol.

[AspenShadow]

Perhaps a UI grouping system? Wherein you can save certain sets of toggle-able objects to all be selected at once?

This sort of on-off micromanaging with the power has been discussed before and it's going to be one of the major challenges for Tynan to resolve without attributing it Colonist AI as suggested here. There could later be an upgrade so that lights in disused rooms turn off automatically and lights in rooms with a currently-used bed dim when the colonist sleeps, but that wouldn't be necessary early on in the game with a smaller base and some players might rebel against having their power handled in any small part by an AI that isn't 100% yet.

[Demoser]

Perhaps a UI grouping system? Wherein you can save certain sets of toggle-able objects to all be selected at once?

Yes, please. Maybe something as simple as another button that tells the light (and doors!) to turn off during an eclipse. Managing power when bases start to get a bit bigger during an eclipse is just down right annoying. However, a menu that gives you the ability to group and toggle multiple stacks of objects, the same or different, would be best.

[JayNic]

To select all of one type of object, you can double click it.

I usually turn everything off when getting raided, or everyone is out mining. But yeah, a grouping system would be interesting. But this game type seems more suited on the side of intelligent automation over intuitive manual controls

[Demoser]

To select all of one type of object, you can double click it.

Up to 80 objects. My larger bases have numbered much over 80 lights. At which point after you get the 80 out of the way you have to hunt and peck to find the last few remaining lights because the game tends to re-select the previous 80 you just turned off.

Edit: Also I tend to turn off all the doors during an eclipse, but there are doors that i like to have turned off all the time. So the group turning off and on for doors is tedious as i have to: group turn them off, group turn them on, then manually turn off the doors i dont want on.

[linkxsc]

I've got one.

A couple things that might help out with this situation

1. a build able wall with no wiring in it (seriously, sometimes my people spend more time mending faulty wiring in the walls then doing their jobs)

2. A "switch" component. Probably a furniture type, but when installed in a power conduit and triggered it "breaks" the conduit, cutting power to everything down the line.

     Might sound a bit useless, but they're common in most games. And you could easily make it so that your living wing is wired at 1 place, so all the power can be cut at once. Also it would be nice to have to charge up "emergency" battery banks, and then cut them off from the circuit. That way, if theres a short in the main circuit. The disengaged batteries won't be damaged/drained, and can be activated to pick up some slack while repairs are happening.

3. Motion detector. Pretty standard. senses if there's a person within so much distance, and acts like a switch and either turns on power, or shuts it off. Obviously useful for shutting lights off when people aren't in rooms. But infinitely useful for traps later in the game. However a drawback is that it pulls a measly 5W or something all the time to keep the detector running.

4. controllable small wire. You all know what I mean, the small wires the run from all your gear to nearby walls and conduit. Make it so that you can choose to reline these. Perhaps you want your lights running off a particular conduit that's controlled with the above switch or motion detector.

5. "Wall", versions of the above. Conduit takes up a lot of space sometimes, so powered walls are useful. but in the existing game, cutting power to a wall means cutting down a wall. So a similar set of switching units that can be built into walls.


OFC most of these have hopefully been suggested before though, and I don't feel it should stop there.
Light sensors. Pressure plates. Temperature sensors (tell if theres fire in a room). Water systems to make sprinklers to help protect you from fires, and irrigate outdoor fields to make them more effective. (more fun can happen if a fire starts in your battery room, sprinklers run, and short out your battery bank. The lulz) More weapons then just bombs and turrets. Stuff like that I'd like to see.

[Galileus]

Im' really having tough time deciding if it's a great feature or needless complexity, but I do love all that electrical stuff. Well, obviously - some minor things like motion detector and a switch (manual or with a controller) are a great little thing, but if that's the only thing - why don't just have automated lights and be done with it? Switch stays in manual form and there - done.

Then again - I really loved all these epic contraptions you could do in minecraft with electrical devices mods. Timed switches flowing molten lava on top of invaders heads, drawbridges working on a pressure plate "code", all sorts of mechanical traps... It would be awesome to have all that as an option - where you can do it all if you like, but don't really have to.