Lifetime-limited batteries

[The_Rocketeer]

Could be there's already a mod for this that I don't know about - I envision batteries that eventually expire and can no longer be recharged.

One way this might work is to use something that counts the number of whole EC that a battery has been charged (from all sources), and compares this with a lifetime maximum allowable recharge parameter. Once the maximum is reached, the battery can no longer be charged, and once finally drained the craft is no longer able to store EC.

A more sophisticated angle might be to reduce the EC storage capacity of the battery depending on cycling rates and age - my above suggestion is pretty basic really.  (self-plagiarism, tut tut - TR)

This would give solar probes, particularly electric rovers, - actually all crafts - an effective functional death, adding a small but significant penalty/limitation to the usage of an otherwise-infinite resource - EC.

Edited September 4, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[pandaman]

Running out of 'Life Support' for batteries?,  I can see that causing a few interesting 'debates'.

Actually I quite like the idea.  The trick would be getting the battery lifespan balance right.  Too short and batteries are next to useless,  too long and there's no point.

[The_Rocketeer]

I'm no so naive as to imagine this suggestion would be met with unified community consensus

But mechanical mortality is true for all fuel sources except EC (which thru ISRU then extends its own immortality to other fuel sources, notably excluding Xenon and Solid Fuel), and while they certainly have considerable longevity, IRL even solar panels have a specified functional lifespan. This particular feature, tho, would just be a nod to the fact that no battery is infinitely rechargeable (indeed many are not safely rechargeable at all).

A more sophisticated angle might be to reduce the EC storage capacity of the battery depending on cycling rates and age - my pitch suggestion is pretty basic really.

Edited September 3, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[John FX]

There would need to be a finite life for the NTG then for this to have any effect on gameplay. If not you just have one on board and you always have EC.

I quite like the idea of having batteries that wear out and an NTG which would use up its fuel after a few years.

Obviously it should be an extra difficulty option and would need to be turned on rather than being default.

 

 

[The_Rocketeer]

21 minutes ago, John FX said:

There would need to be a finite life for the NTG then for this to have any effect on gameplay. If not you just have one on board and you always have EC.

Sort of... correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it RTGs (which I think is what you mean? and actually also solar panels/arrays) can't store EC, so they have to 'give' it to a part that can store EC (e.g. a probe core) before it can be used. So if all the EC storage parts have 'expired' even an RTG would be no use. I guess there may be an exploit to be dealt with where Fuel Cells are concerned, since IRL they don't really store EC, they just store chemicals to generate it on demand.

I also question the idea that it wouldn't affect gameplay anyway. Personally I almost never use RTGs, and almost unfailingly use some sort of EC-storing part. Also RTGs are a top-level tech, whereas batteries (and panels) come in very low in the current tech tree. It's also not necessary to strictly enforce a mechanic for players to avoid abusing their way around it - I think most players of KSP have their own personal code of conduct about this sort of soft-realism. For some it's more rigid than for others, and that seems cool by me. My point really being, in the strictest sense no it wouldn't necessarily alter the underlying infinite-ness of EC, but it would limit the number of ways and ease with which it can be utilised as such.

Edited September 3, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Alshain]

The only reason I can think of for this is for 'realism' sake.  As far as realism goes, well Opportunity has been knocking around Mars for over a decade now on the same batteries and it's still going.  These aren't your average AA Rechargeables from Energizer, they last a long time.

On top of that you can really take this sort of thing to extremes, we could have the light bulbs in the Illuminators burn out, but would that really add gameplay value?

[The_Rocketeer]

33 minutes ago, Alshain said:

As far as realism goes, well Opportunity has been knocking around Mars for over a decade now on the same batteries and it's still going.  These aren't your average AA Rechargeables from Energizer, they last a long time.

This is true, but KSP timescales can be orders of magnitude longer than human timescales.

For context, I was inspired to suggest this when I saw another thread about 'abandoned vehicles' and thought, why would I ever 'abandon' a vehicle if it wasn't broken and had unlimited power? Well, this sorta deals with the unlimited power issue.

As for the extremes/lightbulbs point, well maybe that's not so dumb, and for some I'm sure it does add gameplay value - the DangIt mod is based entirely on that premise.

I've also seen the point raised elsewhere about craft in Career-mode that are made redundant by the advance of technology before they've even completed their mission. This suggestion would go a little way toward righting that balance I think, since it would render nearly all crafts defunct eventually.

The above paragraph is badly expressed. There's a good point in there somewhere but it's past my bedtime and brain isn't cooperating anymore.

Edited September 4, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Guest]

Having things wear out and require replacement parts (as a resource like in USI-LS?) or outright replacement (through KAS/KIS, which imo should be stock since it seems so popular) would I guess add a lot to the game for some and simply annoy others. Reminds me of the stock life support debate.

As far as the idea of a 'stockalike' kind of battery decay goes, simply dropping down to 50-75% of their nominal charge over the course of a few years seems to me like a simple and not overly obtrusive method of implementing such a feature, but it'd probably just mean I'll just pack extra battery mass on everything to make up for the loss, rather than account for it depending on the mission's predicted length.

I feel RTG decay would be good for stock balance, though with Eeloo remaining the farthest planet it still won't really matter right now unless you're trying to set up a stock base out there, but I doubt anyone who would do this would be a strict stock player.

 

28 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I've also seen the point raised elsewhere about craft in Career-mode that are made redundant by the advance of technology before they've even completed their mission. This suggestion would go a little way toward righting that balance I think, since it would render nearly all crafts defunct eventually.

That's just a fundamental problem of space exploration; to me at least it feels completely fine and the normal way of things. In any case, how do you get from "this is a problem" to "adding universality to this problem will fix it"? IMO stock KIS+KAS is what would fix this since it allows ships to be refitted.

[The_Rocketeer]

8 minutes ago, String Witch said:

In any case, how do you get from "this is a problem" to "adding universality to this problem will fix it"?

 

46 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

The above paragraph is badly expressed. There's a good point in there somewhere but it's past my bedtime and brain isn't cooperating anymore.

Is how. I'll try again 2moro. (Also it's kinda bad form to pick me apart for something I already retracted isn't it?)

8 minutes ago, String Witch said:

That's just a fundamental problem of space exploration

Except in KSP it happens in a handful of hours for a single Mun flyby, not a decade-spanning program.

Edited September 4, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Alshain]

59 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

As for the extremes/lightbulbs point, well maybe that's not so dumb, and for some I'm sure it does add gameplay value - the DangIt mod is based entirely on that premise.

Funny thing is I did actually consider this for a mod once, but it would be reliant on KIS/KAS.  With KIS & KAS it could be an interesting gameplay mechanic (but minor) if balanced correctly, but in stock I think it would be awful.  The DangIt mod, along with any random failures mod would be a very awful thing in stock.  Burning a light bulb out isn't critical, but true random failures is another topic entirely.  You are the OP but as I understand it the topic is predictable failures, not random failures.

Anyway, back to the batteries.  I can kinda see the abandoned vehicle issue, except once you've been everywhere on a given body you are going to abandon them anyway.  Rovers are really too slow to go very far with stock as well, unless you just like to sit around with your finger on the W key all day long.  So I would really think that they would end up abandoned with or without lifetime restriction on the batteries.  Honestly if that was all you wanted, your wheels would likely wear out and get stuck first.  Have you seen the self pictures of Curiosity?  They get really beat up after a while.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Alshain

[The_Rocketeer]

30 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Honestly if that was all you wanted, your wheels would likely wear out and get stuck first.  Have you seen the self pictures of Curiosity?  They get really beat up after a while.

I was going to counter this by saying that Curiosity's been in constant use for 4 years, but then I fact-checked myself and it turns out Curiosity only passed the 10km mark last spring. So I guess I have to give you this one. On the other hand, I see many other relevant conditions for battery limitations than just rover breakdowns - permanent satellites like comms relays or science hubs would have to be decommissioned after a certain interval, or deep space probes will eventually just run out of power Voyager style. Small things, maybe, but it's one of those fairly subtle changes that affects very little in new games, but has a lot of far-reaching implications for more mature established games.

[Alshain]

But again, they last too long to be a viable gameplay mechanic.  By the time the Voyager probes run out of power they will be 50 years old.  Accounting for Kerbal 6 hour days, that is 200 years in game.  There is no point to adding a 200 year limitation.

[Armisael]

44 minutes ago, Alshain said:

But again, they last too long to be a viable gameplay mechanic.  By the time the Voyager probes run out of power they will be 50 years old.  Accounting for Kerbal 6 hour days, that is 200 years in game.  There is no point to adding a 200 year limitation.

Really 171 years, since a kerbal year is 426 kerbal days long.

That said, yeah, I don't really see how this would make the game better.

[AlamoVampire]

Ok, first, I like the proposed idea of a terminal battery life span. Also, with respect to the implemented durations of RTG life spans or probe battery life, or station battery life, who says the time scale must be in compliance with real life? Why not, as ONLY AN EXAMPLE, say for batteries they have 10 years maximum potential life, where max potential means full charge/drain cycles, then another 5 years where its cut in half then 1 year where its 1 quarter then dead. so, 16 years max. For RTG's they could have a half life, since, its my impression they are a nuclear device, of say 100 years as the fuel inside is decaying. Also, love the idea of KIS/KAS working along side such an idea, and even as a stock idea, such a useful pair of mods. 

Again, only my thought of how it could work, and yes, even with a toggle to turn the feature on/off.

[pandaman]

From a current 'stock' angle,  having to plan for replacing batteries and RTGs etc for very long term or permanent missions  would have quite an impact on design.  All that 'stuff' would need to be accessible (outside or in cargo bays etc) and mounted to docking ports so that it could be removed and new ones inserted. 

Another interesting point...  depending on how the battery life is measured.   If you take a new battery to your Eeloo station by the time it actually gets there it is several years old.  So maybe the best way (as the OP mentions) is to measure the 'usage' of each battery somehow, but that may be just turn out to be extra calculations and data storage for relatively little gain. 

[panzer1b]

While im generally against time limited mechanics (LS of any form) or any sort of wearing out (engine failure over time, batteries, RTGs, cpu on probe cores, ect), i would actually support this under the condition that both batteries and RTGs never become dead, but end up with reduced capacity over long useage cycles (and something like total energy generated by the RTG as a time based mechanic would add too much background processing needs to the game as every vessel with 1 on board would need constant calcs, instead make it get weaker after a certain amount of energy is extracted from it).  Solar panels could also have a similar mechanic, which lowers their effectiveness with more energy obtained from them.

The actual bottom limit would need some balancing, but i think if batteries and RTGs ended up at ~50% of their original capabilities after a long useage time then itd both show that actual batteries and RTGs do indeed have lifetime considerations, but at the same time it doesnt completely screw over stuff that ends up in use for a very very long time (ive had a few ships that lasted over 100 kerbal years before they were completely destroyed or abandoned).  I dont consider things like equipment failure a fun mechanic, but in this case i have to make an exception since i really like the concept, but it has to be implemented in such a way that it doesnt render vessels useless after a certain period of time.  Yeah if you go into absolute realism everything has a end date after which its worthless, but i think such a mechanic wouldnt make the majority of KSP players very happy (myself included), so cap the end value at some percentage thats reasonable like 50%...

[The_Rocketeer]

12 hours ago, Alshain said:

But again, they last too long to be a viable gameplay mechanic.  By the time the Voyager probes run out of power they will be 50 years old.  Accounting for Kerbal 6 hour days, that is 200 years in game.  There is no point to adding a 200 year limitation.

And again, thanks to timewarp KSP games have no upper limit on timescale. You might never reach anything like the 200 years mark, in which case good news, this will have practically no impact on your game whatsoever. But some may be playing into many hundreds or even thousands of years, in which case this is something to think about. In KSP there is no such thing as 'too long' - at least at the moment. I mean, when it comes down to it, what I'm suggesting is a really gentle way of changing that fundamental principle - it would mean that, eventually, there is an effective 'too long' for every craft you build, which at the moment there is not.

In many ways, the low short-term impact of this change is ideal for those who don't really want it. If you don't play games in which battery life could ever be a factor (because they're too short-term) it's a change that doesn't really affect you in the slightest. On the other hand, if long-term multi-generational style missions/programs are your cup of tea, it not only becomes more relevant, but it adds a neat surprise/a whole new element to your mature game, having to factor in how tired out your old equipment is instead of just assuming it's always pristine. There may be an argument here for cost of implementation vs magnitude of player appreciation (since depending how it's done it could barely effect most players most of the time), but that's not really a gameplay question.

Anyhow, I've floated my thoughts, so I'm going to let others debate the intricacies now.

[Alshain]

2 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

And again, thanks to timewarp KSP games have no upper limit on timescale. You might never reach anything like the 200 years mark, in which case good news, this will have practically no impact on your game whatsoever. But some may be playing into many hundreds or even thousands of years, in which case this is something to think about. In KSP there is no such thing as 'too long' - at least at the moment. I mean, when it comes down to it, what I'm suggesting is a really gentle way of changing that fundamental principle - it would mean that, eventually, there is an effective 'too long' for every craft you build, which at the moment there is not.

In many ways, the low short-term impact of this change is ideal for those who don't really want it. If you don't play games in which battery life could ever be a factor (because they're too short-term) it's a change that doesn't really affect you in the slightest. On the other hand, if long-term multi-generational style missions/programs are your cup of tea, it not only becomes more relevant, but it adds a neat surprise/a whole new element to your mature game, having to factor in how tired out your old equipment is instead of just assuming it's always pristine. There may be an argument here for cost of implementation vs magnitude of player appreciation (since depending how it's done it could barely effect most players most of the time), but that's not really a gameplay question.

Anyhow, I've floated my thoughts, so I'm going to let others debate the intricacies now.

You aren't understanding what I'm saying though.  This isn't a switch Squad can turn on, they have to develop a system to maintain running tallies on all batteries in a game.  They spend that time to do that for a function that will not come into play but once every 200 in-game years?  It's just not worth the time.  Any shorter timespans and not only is it unrealistic but it become tedious to replace on space stations and satellites.  In fact that would be even worse than implementing life support because you would not only have the tedium of resupplying them, you would have to replace parts rather than just refill them.  So a short life is bad, a long life is pointless.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Alshain

[Kerbart]

Why stop at batteries? Solar cells degrade, radiator coolant evaporates, drills dull... Everything is subject to reduced performance after a lifetime in space.

i agree with the "realism for the sake of realism"'critique. I fail to see how it would enhance gameplay.

[The_Rocketeer]

@Alshain if this was what you meant with your earlier posts then no that wasn't clear to me. As I alluded to above, this is a cost/benefit analysis, not a gameplay-affecting issue. I know I'm not well enough informed to judge on that analysis (I have no notion of the implementation costs, and I imagine it depends greatly on the developer's approach and sophistication) so I won't try to enter that argument.

[The_Rocketeer]

4 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Why stop at batteries? Solar cells degrade, radiator coolant evaporates, drills dull... Everything is subject to reduced performance after a lifetime in space.

i agree with the "realism for the sake of realism"'critique. I fail to see how it would enhance gameplay.

Because batteries/EC storage affects all of those other things that you have mentioned. EC storage degradation becomes an abstract for all degradation. This seems like a very KSP approach to this facet of space exploration.

And realism for it's own sake? I don't think so. It's more the sense of immersion, a sense of the game-world aging. Every new craft you build will be better than everything else you already built regardless of its tech level, simply because it's fresh. Meanwhile old workhorses you've used for dozens of interplanetary missions start to feel more like old workhorses. Character, y'know?