Power production, storage and consumption gameplay questions

[[Kartell]Captain Data]

First things first: I'm not that experienced with SCUM in general, as I recently gave it a new try in SP only. I don't find any survival games enjoyable where I have to worry more about hostile players than actual survival gameplay. SCUM is one of the few games that actually cares about more of the details than just "munch stuff and drink non-spoiled water every five minutes to avoid a quick death". Instead, you need to have a diverse diet or you'll suffer ill effects over time.

But that's not my point here.

SCUM actually appears to be one of the few games that pushes "survival game" more into an authentic experience. At least one can do it via own server / SP mode by setting up more reasonable speeds of day time, fuel consumption, food / liquid consumption etc. For me that means I have more time looking for stuff and setting up my base, for instance. And that's where my questions come in:

1st
In my current base I finally was able to "procure" a portable power generator as well as a portable fridge and a portable stove. Aso I got the fuel to keep the generator running. However, I don't seem to be able to use car batteries as a means to store power produced from the generator and also can't feed power from a car battery into that fridge.
Question: are we able to use car batteries as "buffer batteries" as described above?

2nd
Not sure if that's even in the game yet: are we able to use solar panels or wind generators to produce additional electricity? Again, in case such feature is planned for the game, I'd love to use car batteries to store stuff.
Question: is such feature planned?

3rd
Clearly the power grid is still active. At night, street lamps are powered and it seems, other stuff is also powered by something. Currently, there's no way to draw power from the local power grid.
Question: is such feature planned?

4th
Since I'm an electrical engineer, I'd like to see more options for electrical power production, storage and consumption. We only seem to have the absolute bare bones stuff in game which also doesn't fully seem to work as it should (see battery charging via generator). Also there's no way to set up power grids (power is distributed via thin air right now).
Question: are we going to see a more detailled gameplay here?


Besides that, I'm glad we already got some solutions here. But I definitely want to see more, including "power storages" (several car batteries put together in a rack that can be connected to any power source nearby), a small power station (collect parts for a generator, a turbine and a steam engine) etc.
Stuff that consumes power? Well, lamps, a electrical oven, a radio or TV ... you name it.


Thanks for your time and consideration :-)

[InDaZone]

I'm guessing a lot of the stuff you mentioned is coming down the road. This is just the initial implementation.

[serilium]

right now power isn`t really that useful for players, with a fully fuelled generator it lasts about 5hrs real time according to other players, as a solo player i cannot log in every five hours and refuel a generator, doctors do say i should be getting 8 hrs of sleep and then there is work, can i go home early boss i have to refuel a pixel generator in a survival game called scum, what planet are the devs on i wonder or is it too many mushrooms, right now it is still better to not store food, just eat what you find and process kills straight away, rinse and repeat, someone is going to say solutions will be added in future it does not help right now though does it.

[InDaZone]

Originally posted by ferret:

right now power isn`t really that useful for players, with a fully fuelled generator it lasts about 5hrs real time according to other players, as a solo player i cannot log in every five hours and refuel a generator, doctors do say i should be getting 8 hrs of sleep and then there is work, can i go home early boss i have to refuel a pixel generator in a survival game called scum, what planet are the devs on i wonder or is it too many mushrooms, right now it is still better to not store food, just eat what you find and process kills straight away, rinse and repeat, someone is going to say solutions will be added in future it does not help right now though does it.

If players are still getting 5 hrs they are using generators from pre-hotfix. I've been using a small generator for a week. I only need to refill it every 2 days. (50hrs)

[[Kartell]Captain Data]

Originally posted by ferret:

right now power isn`t really that useful for players, with a fully fuelled generator it lasts about 5hrs real time according to other players, as a solo player i cannot log in every five hours and refuel a generator, doctors do say i should be getting 8 hrs of sleep and then there is work, can i go home early boss i have to refuel a pixel generator in a survival game called scum, what planet are the devs on i wonder or is it too many mushrooms, right now it is still better to not store food, just eat what you find and process kills straight away, rinse and repeat, someone is going to say solutions will be added in future it does not help right now though does it.

Afaik a SP server doesn't run without you logged in. At least for me night time, weather status and fuel remains the same when not playing Singleplayer SCUM.

However, I found myself in a situation I had to tune down fuel consumption. You need to know I got a motorcycle after 2 ingame days in a nearby village. Thought it would be a great help to around but it's actually totally wasting fuel. Had it filled up to approx 1/4 of its capacity - and it used all up on a trip of roughly 2 kilometers. A full fill means a max range of 10km ... that's a bit extreme. Server fuel consumption was set to 0.7. So even if I tune it down to 0.1 it's still too much consumption compared to the real life thing.

There's a real life counterpart for the portable generator. The 1000W variant has a capacity of 2,1 liters of fuel and a running time of up to 4hours (eco-mode).
The one used in game is much smaller (250W) and it runs for 5 real time hours (that's basically almost a full day in Scum). Capacity should be at 3 liters of fuel, which sounds reasonable. However, the generator is very weak - do portable generators with less than 1000W even exist outside solar generator territory?

[shadeslay]

That would be cool, anything to make more authentic.

It does a lot of things really well for a single player experience. I was trying to carry a generator up a hill to my car yesterday in game and kept hearing my heart pound as I looked at my stamina than at the top of the hill were the car is parked. I kept thinking, I'm not going to make it, I'm not going to make it. I thought, WOW this really is like real life.



Hopefully they keep adding new stuff like this, to really capture that survival experience.

[CrankyOldMan]

Originally posted by KartellCaptain Data:

Originally posted by ferret:

right now power isn`t really that useful for players, with a fully fuelled generator it lasts about 5hrs real time according to other players, as a solo player i cannot log in every five hours and refuel a generator, doctors do say i should be getting 8 hrs of sleep and then there is work, can i go home early boss i have to refuel a pixel generator in a survival game called scum, what planet are the devs on i wonder or is it too many mushrooms, right now it is still better to not store food, just eat what you find and process kills straight away, rinse and repeat, someone is going to say solutions will be added in future it does not help right now though does it.

Afaik a SP server doesn't run without you logged in. At least for me night time, weather status and fuel remains the same when not playing Singleplayer SCUM.

However, I found myself in a situation I had to tune down fuel consumption. You need to know I got a motorcycle after 2 ingame days in a nearby village. Thought it would be a great help to around but it's actually totally wasting fuel. Had it filled up to approx 1/4 of its capacity - and it used all up on a trip of roughly 2 kilometers. A full fill means a max range of 10km ... that's a bit extreme. Server fuel consumption was set to 0.7. So even if I tune it down to 0.1 it's still too much consumption compared to the real life thing.

There's a real life counterpart for the portable generator. The 1000W variant has a capacity of 2,1 liters of fuel and a running time of up to 4hours (eco-mode).
The one used in game is much smaller (250W) and it runs for 5 real time hours (that's basically almost a full day in Scum). Capacity should be at 3 liters of fuel, which sounds reasonable. However, the generator is very weak - do portable generators with less than 1000W even exist outside solar generator territory?

__________-
Fuel consumption setting of all vehicles is turned off by the devs atm! So you can't adjust it and yes they guzzle gas!

[GamerBeast]

Hey Captain Data, I think I can answer some of those questions:
1) You will be able to fill your car battery with generators in an upcoming patch/update, but that car battery will only be usable for a vehicle.
2) is planned, but no ETA for it unfortunately.
3) this has been discussed internally but nothing decisive has come of it so far.
4) gameplay wise - everything will remain as is, with no major changes planned for the system.

I do like the ideas you're tossing around, will see if anything can be put to use. More items that will use electricity will come down the road! :)