Why so few Lights on larger Maps?

[Stefan Braun]

Hello,

as you might know, you can turn on 9 Lights on Small, 8 Lights on Medium and 7 on Large Maps. If you turn on more, the Breaker will turn off due to overload.
Why is it like this. 9 Lights on a Small Map is more than enough for a Singleplayer, however, in Multiplayer it might get tight if the Team is not turning Lights off when no longer needed.
However, on Medium and Large Maps, why is the Number smaller? 8 or 7 Lights respectively are not really that much, considering there is only 1 Light Switch for each Lights (unlike in Reallife, where you have multiple Light Switches for larger Rooms).
If you have more Players and you want to preserve your Sanity, it quickly gets tight, especially on Prison and so on.
Why only so few Light Switches? Are the Breakers made in China? Ok, just kidding. Why is that? I had it more than once on Sunny Meadows that the Breaker tripped because of that ridiculous low Limit of 7 Lights. Have 2 - 3 Players search one Part of the Map each, turning on the Lights to prevent Sanity from Draining too quickly, woosh - Breaker is overloaded.

[WolfLink0370]

To give a simple answer - the larger maps are older buildings with dated fuse boxes... which can't handle as much power as they used to. The smaller maps meanwhile have breaker boxes that are more up-to-date, and as a direct result can handle a bigger power load.

[Stefan Braun]

But there were many more Things in Operation. On High School, there would have been almost all Lights on at some Point (if there would be many Classes at Morning) or the other Electric Equipment a Mental Institution needs to handle. Like the Computers of the Workers, the Lights in the Windowless Patient Rooms or the Kitchen or Medical Equipment.
So, on the First View - your theory makes sense, but if going deeper, it does not make so much Sense.

[ActivelyVacant]

Many lights on large maps are long hallways, so one switch is likely to cover a larger area and have several more neighboring rooms.

[Emurinus]

From a lore perspective, the larger maps are generally dilapidated and use older electrical systems (In Maple Lodge's case, it's not run down but just using a small generator) compared to the more modern small maps. You could also argue the ghost is affecting the electrical systems.

[Gen_Panic]

A dev would have to answer this one, because there is no good, rational, reason, so it must come down to encouraging certain types of game play. The larger maps are, IMHO, supposed to up the ante in the tension part of the game. If you could turn on all hallway lights to preserve sanity and quickly move from room to room with two group of two, then there is less pressure and less coordination needed.
Lets be honest. Why are a couple lights knocking out the whole buildings power to begin with? Light bulbs are a minuscule draw. I could see a circuit breaker popping due to damaged are faulty fixtures, but for the entire house to lose power so easily is ridiculous. A modern homes circuit breaker provides 200 AMPs to play with. 9 lights knocking that out is just silly.
So, its just a thing that has to be put in the "Its Just a Game" category and not thought too much about.
TLDR: IDK

[WolfLink0370]

Publicado originalmente por Gen_Panic:

A dev would have to answer this one, because there is no good, rational, reason, so it must come down to encouraging certain types of game play.

I dunno about you, but the fact that Sunny Meadows uses a rather ancient looking breaker kind of leads credence to what Emurinus and I have been saying:

older buildings = older fuse boxes... older fuse boxes = less power efficiency... less power efficiency = less lights can be on at once. Therefore, older buildings cannot handle as much power as a modern house.

As for Maple Lodge... while it is modern, like Emurnius also mentioned... all of it's power is run off a generator, which naturally would not have as much power capacity as a properly maintained, modern fuse box.

[Shurenai]

Publicado originalmente por WolfLink0370:

Publicado originalmente por Gen_Panic:

A dev would have to answer this one, because there is no good, rational, reason, so it must come down to encouraging certain types of game play.

I dunno about you, but the fact that Sunny Meadows uses a rather ancient looking breaker kind of leads credence to what Emurinus and I have been saying:

older buildings = older fuse boxes... older fuse boxes = less power efficiency... less power efficiency = less lights can be on at once. Therefore, older buildings cannot handle as much power as a modern house.

As for Maple Lodge... while it is modern, like Emurnius also mentioned... all of it's power is run off a generator, which naturally would not have as much power capacity as a properly maintained, modern fuse box.

This is 100% the reason, and iirc Dknighter actually said as much in the past.

It's not just a case of old fuse box vs new fuse box- It's a case of the general state of disrepair. Stuff like this is why when a house or building is derelict or otherwise not properly maintained we condemn it and don't let people in- It's no longer up to code, it's no longer in a state of repair that is required to run the whole facility, and the BEST case scenario of attempting to interact with anything within is that you blow a fuse rather than, yknow, causing a spark in the wall from a chewed wire and sending the whole building up in flames.

Part of it is that it is old- But most of it is that the larger buildings are all ancient abandoned buildings that haven't seen a lick of repair in over a decade, Or, the maple lodge being the only current point to the contrary and as mentioned, is run off of a generator of questionable maintenance levels rather than being connected to the power grid. (Have you seen that thing?)

Compare Tanglewood, A nice well built modern home, to Sunny meadows, an ancient mad house that even at the TIME was likely not up to code because they cut SO many corners back then, Many times in those kinds of old buildings you actually couldn't hook everything up and have it all on at once, you'd blow the fuse easily because they just weren't rated well- This lead to buildings that cut corners in their electrical work to just have schedules so that the total electrical needs of the building never exceeded what was available.

Even Bleasedale and Grafton, despite being farm houses, are in good repair if a bit messy inside, while the highschool and prison are clearly abandoned, in disrepair, etc.

[Gen_Panic]

Publicado originalmente por Shurenai:

Publicado originalmente por WolfLink0370:

I dunno about you, but the fact that Sunny Meadows uses a rather ancient looking breaker kind of leads credence to what Emurinus and I have been saying:

older buildings = older fuse boxes... older fuse boxes = less power efficiency... less power efficiency = less lights can be on at once. Therefore, older buildings cannot handle as much power as a modern house.

As for Maple Lodge... while it is modern, like Emurnius also mentioned... all of it's power is run off a generator, which naturally would not have as much power capacity as a properly maintained, modern fuse box.

This is 100% the reason, and iirc Dknighter actually said as much in the past.

It's not just a case of old fuse box vs new fuse box- It's a case of the general state of disrepair. Stuff like this is why when a house or building is derelict or otherwise not properly maintained we condemn it and don't let people in- It's no longer up to code, it's no longer in a state of repair that is required to run the whole facility, and the BEST case scenario of attempting to interact with anything within is that you blow a fuse rather than, yknow, causing a spark in the wall from a chewed wire and sending the whole building up in flames.

Part of it is that it is old- But most of it is that the larger buildings are all ancient abandoned buildings that haven't seen a lick of repair in over a decade, Or, the maple lodge being the only current point to the contrary and as mentioned, is run off of a generator of questionable maintenance levels rather than being connected to the power grid. (Have you seen that thing?)

Compare Tanglewood, A nice well built modern home, to Sunny meadows, an ancient mad house that even at the TIME was likely not up to code because they cut SO many corners back then, Many times in those kinds of old buildings you actually couldn't hook everything up and have it all on at once, you'd blow the fuse easily because they just weren't rated well- This lead to buildings that cut corners in their electrical work to just have schedules so that the total electrical needs of the building never exceeded what was available.

Even Bleasedale and Grafton, despite being farm houses, are in good repair if a bit messy inside, while the high school and prison are clearly abandoned, in disrepair, etc.

The camp map with a generator is the only one that has a little logic to it.
The abandoned buildings would have service cut to them, so flipping on a breaker would do nothing, especially if they had wiring so bad that turning on a few lights made them fire hazards.
Modern houses don't lose power to all circuits when you overload a circuit.
I have practical experience working with electrical systems. This is a game and the rules are set up by the devs. If they say a building loses power from using x number of lights then that's how it works in the world of their game. Cool. No Complaints here.

[Maya-Neko]

The lore thing is nice to go down, however from a devs side of few it is mostly about performance. Lights and shadows are one of the heaviest things you can use graphics wise and combining that with the large maps tendency to have long hallways and large rooms with many objects in it and you're getting a combination, that weaker PCs might not be able to run anymore when too many lights are switched on.

On top of that DK is not an 3D artist, thus the maps he made early on weren't that much optimized and rather used bought assets, which also adds more performance issues (the best example for that was the blue bed, which had so many poligons that it could easily single handedly lag some PCs back in the days, when you've looked at it).

And now with the planned release on console, keeping these performance problems in check gets even more important

Maybe they might raise the limits one day, when everything got reworked, but as of now, it simply is what it is.

[Paño]

htrdby

[Switorik]

Don't question this games power requirements. Its strictly gameplay and in no way related to real life.

If you blow a fuse, you need a new fuse to replace it. Where are we getting all these new fuses? In fact, a lot of older installations were done incorrectly with higher amperage fuses installed allowing more power to be used before its blown.

Breakers on the other hand can be reset, but houses are almost never wired in a way that every single light is on one circuit. This means we are tripping the main. That is possible if the fault current rating is higher than the main but means every single house has incorrect breakers installed.

A typical lighting circuit in the US is 15 amps. An incandescent 60 watt light bulb is 0.5 amps. That means in theory you could have 30 bulbs on before you trip a circuit.