Short circuit event on non-active electric grid

[Konscience]

On [Alpha15.1284], no mod used.
Hi, firstly, I'm sure most of you will find this "working as intended".
But, I'll let the moderator/Tynan judge by themselves before moving this to suggestion for the time being.

Since I don't want my colonist sunburned because power cable run near them, I often disconnect my batteries,
Thus leaving multiples sub-grids of:
One full battery - A single power cable - A power switch turned off (which is in this case not connected)
It happened that this sole power cable exploded in the [Zzzzt!] event...

So (now) I know the event seek for a power cable connected to a battery,
But this battery wasn't in use, no power consumming device attached. Just a single cable. Nothing else.

As I worked as an electrician, (assuming standard security procedures are applied in construction/use) this accident make no sense.
The only real life exemple that look similar to me is those cellphones battery exploding due to bad conception...

TL;DR: There is no reason for an unused power cable to explode, non-solicited power grid should be safe.

Pictures related

(06/12/2016) Edit: Typo and clarifications

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[14m1337]

A short circuit may even happen with a battery that's charge is nearly at zero.
The thing is: it shouldn't explode in that way. The short circuit in that case may happen in a form that immediately discharges the regarding battery(ies), it may even heat up the surroundings a bit, but it would never explode.

On the other hand .... Tynan is our god, thus he makes the rules.

[Rock5]

A quick fix, obviously, is to put the switch next to the battery.

[Konscience]

A quick fix, obviously, is to put the switch next to the battery.

Or to set the event frequency to 0
But that's not the issue, as I stated, it should not happen in the first place when the battery power grid is IDLE

[Rock5]

Well, the way I see it is, Tynan decided there needed to be an event associated with power setups so instead of using some realistic complex events, he used 1 general all purpose unrealistic event. I mean what's realistic about a system being prone to explosions only if you add batteries? Or wiring exploding?

It would have been more realistic and nearly the same if the wiring just occasionally broke. Not dependent on any power draw or supply, just break due to wear and tear.

[Zhentar]

Large banks of batteries basically completely negate several events. Short circuit exists to create a risk associated with those batteries, a tradeoff where the player neutralizes one event at the cost of encountering another. That's the purpose of the event and it's no more arbitrary and unrealistic than random 16 hour long eclipses.

That said, in the OP's scenario, an explosion in an active grid seems like a much better way to achieve that goal than in an unused island. I think this is worthy of writing up, since aside from the unrealisticness, it can be exploited by players to significantly reduce the hazard of short circuit events.

I can't write it up right now, but I'll put it in Mantis tomorrow.

[Konscience]

It would have been more realistic and nearly the same if the wiring just occasionally broke.

Yes it clearly would be sufficient, no need to be punnitive (that's really what I feel when building battery, "warning battery are just too much OP so they come with this punitive flaw"

I think this is worthy of writing up, since aside from the unrealisticness, it can be exploited by players to significantly reduce the hazard of short circuit events.

Never thought of that, you mean building a battery with like 10% charge in a big field of cable connected into nothing?
But that's another reason, we shouldn't try to trick the game in order to evade the problem :/ this feel just wrong...

BTW can anyone submit in mantis? How does it work? Never used a bug tracker before.

[Zhentar]

Posted here: https://ludeon.com/mantis/view.php?id=2810

BTW can anyone submit in mantis? How does it work? Never used a bug tracker before.

Nope, Tynan has to manually give you permission to report bugs in mantis (you can see under my username that I am a "Super Modder", which is why I can do it).

[Konscience]

Oh, thanks for the information!
And also many thanks for the bug report on mantis