Why does the Car Battery Die??

[Saigon]

Really doesn’t make any sense why your car battery would be draining when all engines have an alternator and the job of the alternator is to recharge the battery when the car is running

[martind]

Viper eredeti hozzászólása:

To actually make it part of the game..otherwise if the car had an alternator. tHat mechanic would not exist in any way. So your suggestion is to completely remove battery charge from the game.

The battery could still have a use. Like powering electrical devices when the engine is off. There are a bunch of inconsistencies that are not that bad buy annoying. Like that the rear lights, dome light, radio, and all the sci-fi electronics don't drain the battery.

[colours (⌐■_■)]

The zone bleeds off energy from your battery when you use it. For every bit of charge you get back the zone steals a bit. Call it the cost of doing business in a place where entropy is switched on and off depending on whimsy.

[infektedsyringe]

As an actual automotive tech... I can say this bothered me for about 3 seconds and I said "Oh, well I guess since the car is pretty much an SCP it doesn't charge like a normal car.... not to mention all the crazy aftermarket stuff that our character, a delivery driver, has been slapping on all will nilly.... okay, whatever."

[Wasted]

Since the car is supposed to be sentient maybe its brain just drains too much battery even with an alternator charging it while driving.

[Notius]

resource management, same reason why your fuel tank can last for the 3 hours between maps without dropping a pixel, but driving around on a map for 10 minutes drains it.

[Valen Logan]

The lack of an alternator caught me off guard too at first. Like someone else said, vehicles having alternators is so universal it is just naturally an assumed behavior (running engine charging the battery) of any vehicle.
But considering the state of the vehicle when we find it I just assumed the station wagon was such a huge piece of ♥♥♥♥ that it's alternator was busted.

[Midnght]

Well I had this same question but then I realized it's mostly because the ability to spike the battery leaving the car on is like -.1 same with lights so the drains are very minimal even though I agree where's our alternator lol. basic lights and staying on really shouldn't drain our battery as we drive but that's what it is lol.

[Firmamento]

Yeah first thing I noticed. Haven’t played much so maybe my idea won’t work, but why have a battery draining mechanic at all? Why not just fuel? Would make more sense to me. It was awesome in Days Gone barely making it on fumes, rolling downhill lol.

[martind]

It makes sense to have a battery mechanic with all the extra equipment. Maybe it consumes more than the alternator can provide or maybe you want to keep it on when the engine is off. But the alternator really should be able to at least keep the headlights on. Especially since all other lights have no problem.

Another important function of a car battery is to feed the electric starter engine to start the main combustion engine. When the battery is dead you either have to jump-start it or older cars can be started with a crank. Which I think would fit the game pretty well IMHO. If you let the battery run out and the engine go off you have get the crank and complete a bit of a quicktime event to get it running again.

[martind]

Another possibility would be to keep the car electronics and the sci-fi stuff separate but then the battery that gets drained should be an extra and not the one under the hood and the car should still be able to maintain the normal headlights while running.

[Thorstorm]

The car battery can be drained in many ways even if you have an alternator or not...

[Nova225]

There's like 5 different upgrades you can build to charge the battery. My favorite is the wind turbine you stick on the side. If it's windy or you're going fast enough it's enough to keep a full charge with the headlights on.

[Frosty]

I won't lie, it bugged me a bit at first too... But, then again alternators in most modern (i.e. OBDI and newer OBDII vehicles) aren't really meant to charge a 12v battery, in so much as they are to maintain a target voltage, with the battery acting as a method to stabilize the voltage. Back in the day you did have Generators on engines that were more robust and meant to really charge a battery from low voltages; these days, you try to charge a depleted (lower than 12.4v) too many times with your alternator and it'll either cook/sulfate the battery and/or burn up the alternator. There's also the fact that most alternators are spec'd for the vehicle with some minor overhead for accessories and/or towing connections, but they're not putting out much more energy than is needed.

So realistically, with all the crap you throw on this vehicle; it's more amazing the battery doesn't just fail half the time we try to go out on a run at this point. Though having an alternator output to manage alongside energy consumption/use might have been deemed too complicated for play testing?

-Some old guy who bangs on cars with a wrench for a living.

[Valhalla Awaits]

Saigon eredeti hozzászólása:

Really doesn’t make any sense why your car battery would be draining when all engines have an alternator and the job of the alternator is to recharge the battery when the car is running

Yeah from a logical point of view it makes absolutely no sense and doesn't work that way in the real world at all.

That being said, we're in a magical sentient car, fighting multidimensional intelligent chunks of metal, sawblades, and living lightning bolts... so...

[ChrisAKAPiefish]

For anyone who thinks this is a problem, have you played a video game before? Do you also complain in games where fuel never runs out in cars in other games?