*NEW* Electrical System **Updated**

[Saint Anthony]

It would be a lot cooler if the flashlights weren't 100x more effective than the lights you have to spend gas to power. How hard is it to make a light actually light up a room? Devs please tell me why I should waste the gas and the time to setup an electrical system with your current light mechanics please.

**Update 10/4/2017** I want to update what we've learned/discussed so far to save some people a little reading.

1. One input/output per device was apparently incorrect as relays offer more output slots, however, I was having difficulty getting this to work initially so that may need to be looked into. It's worth mentioning that while that IS useful, the electrical system would still benefit from a junction box that allows for multiple I/O slots. Specifically more input slots. Why? If your working with a faction of allied players and you've taken over a town or a small area of a town it makes sense to have more than one power source, for backups and such, to facilitate a better power system throughout your area(s).

2. I would like to suggest a possible reason for zombies to target power sources specifically gas powered generators. Noise. This would give players a reason to a) have backup power sources. b) defend them better. c) it would make traps and horde nights more interesting as a poorly defended power system could be sabotaged by zombies and render your carefully laid out traps during a horde useless. d) it would give players a reason to eventually upgrade their power systems to a quieter solar/battery based system.

3. The ENTIRE lighting system from start to finish sorely needs an overhaul. Some of it is done great, some of it is OP, and some of it is way under-powered/useless.

4. I want to apologize for the harshness of my first few posts. The reason I was so upset is that this new system and the update it came in were very much hyped by the devs and the community, and I was very underwhelmed by the actual product. In the future, might I suggest less hype, or better still a pre-patch to allow us to give you some constructive comments on how it can be improved prior to the offical patch. I know that things like this continue to be worked on in later patches, but your patches are often a long wait for players and with so much excitement over this addition it would have made sense to allow for a little bit of play testing before actual release.

5. This game IS really coming along nicely and you devs are overall doing a great job, please continue to take our comments and suggestions into consideration as you move forward with the design of the game. Thank you.

[Saint Anthony]

While I'm at it, daisy-chainning one connection per device is incredibly stupid and inefficient and shows just how little the devs understand how electricity works.

* Let me be more clear a junction box, wouldn't break the system and it wouldn't be too confusing for players that don't want to have to think about it, you could still daisy chain stuff the original way if you wanted to.*

[KellyR]

You don't have to daisy chain the devices, and they weren't trying to simulate how electricity actually works, they were trying to keep the math as simplistic and non-realistic as possible to avoid lag.

If you've played minecraft much, you should be aware of how much lag any sort of even vaguely realistic electrical simulation induces.

[Lerch Addams]

Originally posted by Saint Anthony:

While I'm at it, daisy-chainning one connection per device is incredibly stupid and inefficient and shows just how little the devs understand how electricity works.

Wait, i'm confused.

Modern electrical systems are made up of devices daisy chained together.

Do you mean more than 2 connections per device so you tee out to more devices?

(you can tell i haven't gotten around to tinkering with electricity in 7D2D yet)

[ึ]

Well its a game and isnt going to be perfect yet and I want to be able to use it without being a master electrician.
I do agree about running a generator for some of my interior lights is not worth it. So I end up using torches for the interior on every build. Kind of dissapointing but hopefully they will figure out something so I can power a few lights without a gen. I know some people will say "then go get solar panels and run your interior lights of of them". Well those are rare in the game.

I think that batteries and engines shouldnt lose any of their health at all while in use. This is unrealistic but batteries and engines aren't the easiest to get especially on a MP server on day 800 something.

[Saint Anthony]

Originally posted by Paladin:

You don't have to daisy chain the devices, and they weren't trying to simulate how electricity actually works, they were trying to keep the math as simplistic and non-realistic as possible to avoid lag.

If you've played minecraft much, you should be aware of how much lag any sort of even vaguely realistic electrical simulation induces.

It wouldn't be that complicated to create a fuse box item that can have multiple connections and allow relays to relay multiple connections around a building. It's not that complicated. And it would actually make setup less complicated and frustrating.

[Saint Anthony]

Originally posted by Φak:

Well its a game and isnt going to be perfect yet and I want to be able to use it without being a master electrician.
I do agree about running a generator for some of my interior lights is not worth it. So I end up using torches for the interior on every build. Kind of dissapointing but hopefully they will figure out something so I can power a few lights without a gen. I know some people will say "then go get solar panels and run your interior lights of of them". Well those are rare in the game.

I think that batteries and engines shouldnt lose any of their health at all while in use. This is unrealistic but batteries and engines aren't the easiest to get especially on a MP server on day 800 something.

Don't get me wrong some of the mechanics they got down pretty good. The way you make connections is pretty straight forward and simple. They made it so you can pickup and move stuff so you don't have to destroy it. Also, the way they setup the gas generator so that it doesn't consume any gas if you have all the electrical items switched off is pretty convienent and nice. But, the way they setup the actually mechanics of the electricity part of the system and the poor lighting is really frustrating and kind of invalidates the whole thing.

[Lerch Addams]

Originally posted by Saint Anthony:

Originally posted by Paladin:

You don't have to daisy chain the devices, and they weren't trying to simulate how electricity actually works, they were trying to keep the math as simplistic and non-realistic as possible to avoid lag.

If you've played minecraft much, you should be aware of how much lag any sort of even vaguely realistic electrical simulation induces.

It wouldn't be that complicated to create a fuse box item that can have multiple connections and allow relays to relay multiple connections around a building. It's not that complicated. And it would actually make setup less complicated and frustrating.

Ah. So you mean someting like a junction box?

I'm pretty sure this is a first pass on electrical and with any luck it will be made to be easier to use.

[Saint Anthony]

Originally posted by Lerch Addams:

Originally posted by Saint Anthony:

While I'm at it, daisy-chainning one connection per device is incredibly stupid and inefficient and shows just how little the devs understand how electricity works.

Wait, i'm confused.

Modern electrical systems are made up of devices daisy chained together.

Do you mean more than 2 connections per device so you tee out to more devices?

(you can tell i haven't gotten around to tinkering with electricity in 7D2D yet)

Yes, that's pretty much exactly what I mean. The way it is currently setup is I/O one connection into a device and one going out. That's it. Which makes setting up lighting thoughout a building tedious and overly complicated.

[Saint Anthony]

Originally posted by Lerch Addams:

Originally posted by Saint Anthony:

It wouldn't be that complicated to create a fuse box item that can have multiple connections and allow relays to relay multiple connections around a building. It's not that complicated. And it would actually make setup less complicated and frustrating.

Ah. So you mean someting like a junction box?

I'm pretty sure this is a first pass on electrical and with any luck it will be made to be easier to use.

I sincerely hope so. It was the point of this post, to get their attention that the current system isn't good enough for a final system.

[KellyR]

Personally I'm happy enough with it as-is, with the only thing I'd consider a high-priority wish being the addition of a block that let you aggregate power from multiple generator sources, so you could have like 2+ generator banks or solar banks pooling their power on the same "circuit".

Well, that and I'd like to be able to mod in electric fence posts, tripwire posts, and pressure plates that look like regular blocks for cosmetic reasons (Swapping the models on the electric fence posts and tripwire posts to non modelEntity blocks makes them not work at all, while pressure plates work, but then attempting to access their UI causes a repeating null object error).

[Avanar]

It's the first version with electricity give them time to develop it.

And don't mix up real world forces with those programmed to entertain in a game

[Saint Anthony]

Originally posted by Avanar:

It's the first version with electricity give them time to develop it.

And don't mix up real world forces with those programmed to entertain in a game

I understand it's the first version, just frustrated with the lack of purpose and functionality. Hopefully, they expand upon it quickly. If it stays the way it is for too long it will defeat the purpose of it. Again, the point of bringing it up in the first place. I don't think anyone is "mixing" anything up here. This is a realisitic-ish survival game. I can assure you that even in an apocalyptic scenario someone would come up with a better way to implement an electrial system than the silly one here. Daisy chaining your lights together rather than creating a local junction that they sprout off from is tedious and inefficient and a lack of useful lighting defeats the purpose of said system reguardless of whether we are talking about the "real world" or a game. There isn't a single light in my home that isn't brighter than every flashlight I own. It isn't unfair to say it's the most unrealistic thing in the game so far, besides a zombie apocalypse. :P

[[IPD]Argh...]

Mining helmet. No electricity no torches. Kek....

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Saint Anthony:

It would be a lot cooler if the flashlights weren't 100x more effective than the lights you have to spend gas to power. How hard is it to make a light actually light up a room? Devs please tell me why I should waste the gas and the time to setup an electrical system with your current light mechanics please.

Originally posted by Saint Anthony:

While I'm at it, daisy-chainning one connection per device is incredibly stupid and inefficient and shows just how little the devs understand how electricity works.

* Let me be more clear a junction box, wouldn't break the system and it wouldn't be too confusing for players that don't want to have to think about it, you could still daisy chain stuff the original way if you wanted to.*

It's not "one connection per device". It's one "parent" per device. Any parent can have multiple children

If you chain from the generator to a relay or switch you can have many branches off the same relay or switch. Actually you can have many individual switches directly branched from the generator itself

It's the incoming link that there can only be one of, there can be many sub links leaving the device. I'm not sure you understand the system if you think it requires a pure daisy chain, I have many switches and relays with multiple sub branches

[KellyR]

Originally posted by IPDArgh...:

Mining helmet. No electricity no torches. Kek....

Right up until they change them so they're assembled like guns, and the flashlight part loses durability while the light is on, and eventually breaks and doesn't work anymore.