Batteries and some electronics thoughts.

[Land Squid 22]

So a quick thanks to AshleyP for inspiring some thoughts in another thread.

 

 

 

Batteries:

 

In short, different types, disposable versus rechargeable and means of utilizing the same.

 

I'm keeping this idea currently focused to a player's personal gear and not presently including stuff like using car batteries as part of base building or restoring vehicles. Using different batteries types and needing multiple batteries for particular devices adds a layer of difficulty to the game ostensibly should help to prevent excessive proliferation and indefinite use of "elite" gear and the like.

 

Battery types:

 

D cell - fairly obvious for the starter flashlight or larger electronic devices, such as some radios and the like.

AA cell - a somewhat universal battery type, found in a wide variety of electronic devices. For the purpose of this game lets say GPS, some NVG's, and some weapon optics.

CR123A cell - a rarer battery type that has found wide use in high performance electronics, especially in tactical or weapon lights, some weapon optics, and NVG's.

 

Disposable versus rechargeable:

 

By and large due to the differing chemistry between the types rechargeable batteries tend to have less "juice" (mAh's) and thus run out faster. To compensate for this, they can be reused multiple times. The idea here is for players to be able to recharge the batteries using various means, be it tapping into still functional power grid such as at lamp posts, thanks AshleyP, or by setting up a small solar charger.

 

The limitation to this sort of thing would be battery condition. As batteries are continually recharged they are degraded (a modern NiMH rechargeable battery can give you about a thousand cycles of drain and charge but still has a very definite life span). As a battery's condition degrades so does it's available fully charged capacity. At "ruined" status the capacity would be zero, and thus you'd need to discard it and find a replacement.

 

Disposable batteries would start with a certain amount of charge and condition. Once expended toss it away. Disposable batteries would be quite a bit more common than rechargeables.

 

Just throwing out some numbers here to give a general impression of how I'm thinking battery capacity would work in relation to item condition...

 

The different cells would have different maximum capacities. Disposables: D cell 8000mAh, AA cell 2200mAh, CR123A 1500mAh. Rechargeables would be half that capacity (yes I know the numbers vary a bit, trying to simplify this down for the game though). These values represent 100% charge with pristine condition.

 

If the condition is degraded, these values are adjusted accordingly. Good condition as an example being a 0.9 multiplier. A good condition disposable D cell with 100% charge would only have 7200mAh available for consumption in your electronic device. A rechargeable D cell would 4000x0.9=3600mAh at full charge.

 

Condition multipliers:

Pristine 1.0

Good 0.9

Fair 0.75

Worn 0.5

Damaged 0.25

Badly Damaged 0.1

Ruined 0.0

 

Short of some sort of external damaging factor (such as bleeding all over your batteries and ruining them), battery condition is static for disposables, and rechargeables would only experience degradation when recharged.

 

Different electronics would consume mAh at different rates, and also require different numbers of batteries to function. The classic PVS-7 NVG's from dayz mod as an example would require 2 AA batteries to function while the M68 CCO optic would only need one.

 

 

 

GPS:

 

Just a quick idea I had regarding the usefulness of certain electronics in a post-apocalyptic world. Obviously many of the satellites are going to go spinning along merrily for quite some time before failing. Others may go sooner due to lack of human intervention in the usual maintenance and housekeeping functions (such as making sure a satellite doesn't drift too far out of it's assigned orbit without some sort of correction or keeping clocks synchronized).

 

So, the idea for GPS satellites is "blind periods." The GPS and GLONASS (Russian GPS) systems each consist of 24 individual satellites. As those birds fail and/or fall out of the sky that will open up blind spots in the satellite constellation. Periods of time when your GPS receiver will not be able to tell you where you are. As these occurrences are dictated by the orbits of the satellites they are not "random" in the true sense of the word, but are predictable periods through-out the day.

 

During these periods your GPS receiver in game would either return a null response, giving you no coordinates if it can't pick up enough satellite signals to triangulate its position, or during other periods give you incorrect readings, showing you perhaps a few coordinates farther north/south/east/west than where you really are. Incorrect readings would be the result of a lack of housekeeping of the satellites, as their clocks and positional data must be kept current otherwise the positional signals they transmit will begin to "drift".

 

NVG:

 

Again limiting the usefulness and thus tamping down the "OP'ness" of the object. Since I've already covered it in another thread I'm going to be lazy and just copypasta it here. If it seems disjointed it's because I'm copying from three different posts of mine.

 

Most I2 tubes limit field of view to a 40 degree cone. For someone playing the game with a 4:3 ratio screen giving them an approximately 90 degree FOV, when using NVG's the outer 1/4 of the screen on the left and right (and a little less above and below) should be obstructed. For a real world demonstration, try cutting a toilet paper tube in half, and then peering through it. Gives an idea of the restricted FOV when using NVG's.

 

...regarding the limitation of NVG's in the game. With the addition of item condition there is a new aspect that can be exploited to limit their "usefullness." I'm sure you guys have tried out the ACOG's and other optics in the game and seen how badly obscured the field of view is with the broken lenses. The same is sure to be true with the NVG's.

 

So even if you maintain the same "rarity" that they had in vanila DayZ Mod, the fact that a goodly percentage of them are going to be "damaged" or "badly damaged" is going to hamper their utility dramatically as in addition to the limited FOV to start with, the remaining FOV is going to be further obscured to the point where you are trying to look at the world through a straw.

 

Also a rather pedantic thought occurred to me about repairing NVG's. Say you do manage to get a few sets of broken NVG's together and piece together a reasonably good condition set. If you don't clean and purge them correctly (flushing the air and dust out of the inside of the optic with a zero moisture medium such as pure nitrogen) you'll end up with fogging, debris spotting and other performance degrading issues or possibly even tube damage, despite having perfectly intact lenses.

 

IMO I think it'd be pretty cool if the (very rare) NVG's in the game were more varied, some being weapon mounted, some being hand-held (used like binoculars and such so while you could walk with them you'd be moving very slowly), and then of course the helmet or head harness mounted.

 

Additional thought: Make the head-mounted NVG's only work when in first person view.

[Jaygoon 240]

SOme nice ideas :)

 

Would like a lil remote controlled buggy that can carry explosives :)

[BelMarduk 169]

Im not sure of a forum discussion on batteries, but I (for one) don't think anything more than a 'universal' battery (as is currently implemented) is really needed. With the advent of 'damage' to any and all gear, that mitigates (virtually) every issue. The proliferation of things like GPS and NVG's will be no where near that of the MOD. Unless you are a very good shot, or able to mug the person with the NVG's a firefight is probably going to destroy them. I guess we need to wait and see as the 'electronic' gear makes it into game as to how it plays out :D

[Land Squid 22]

Im not sure of a forum discussion on batteries, but I (for one) don't think anything more than a 'universal' battery (as is currently implemented) is really needed. With the advent of 'damage' to any and all gear, that mitigates (virtually) every issue. The proliferation of things like GPS and NVG's will be no where near that of the MOD. Unless you are a very good shot, or able to mug the person with the NVG's a firefight is probably going to destroy them. I guess we need to wait and see as the 'electronic' gear makes it into game as to how it plays out :D

 

The singe greatest impediment to proliferation right now is the simple fact that bodies disappear before they can be looted. In regards to gear destruction I've already noted that hostile players have taken to aiming expressly for the legs now in order to avoid destroying the backpack/vest contents. With that in mind once bodies are made to be persistent I don't think the gear destruction is going to prove a significant impediment to looting of higher tier gear from murdered players

Edited December 30, 2013 by Land Squid

[jaginun 87]

Batteries:

 

Yeah, I like this idea. It's complicated, but not amazingly so, and adds some more difficulty to the game without being artificial or unrealistic.

 

GPS: I like the addition of realism, but it seems a little difficult to predict and use for such a small item. Perhaps instead, you have to pick up new software for the GPS, in order to use GPS in say, the west, or north east area of the map. Yes, it would be unrealistic, but a little less hassle than having to work out orbital patterns. And to add a touch of realism, once the satelites are in orbit, they don't tend to change position unless they have their velocity changed, so it would be more a question of them being unorientated.

 

NVG: Yep, I like this idea. Make these massive contraptions on your face actually act like machines on your face, and not ski-goggles, with prisine NVG's having the FoV of 45 degrees or so, with badly damaged NVG's barely having 5 degrees or so, as well as the tops and bottoms obscured. The only problem I can see is how this will work with customisable FoVs. It could stay the same for everyone but it would mean people with large FoV's to start with would have large black areas of their screen.

[Land Squid 22]

Batteries:

 

Yeah, I like this idea. It's complicated, but not amazingly so, and adds some more difficulty to the game without being artificial or unrealistic.

 

GPS: I like the addition of realism, but it seems a little difficult to predict and use for such a small item. Perhaps instead, you have to pick up new software for the GPS, in order to use GPS in say, the west, or north east area of the map. Yes, it would be unrealistic, but a little less hassle than having to work out orbital patterns. And to add a touch of realism, once the satelites are in orbit, they don't tend to change position unless they have their velocity changed, so it would be more a question of them being unorientated.

 

NVG: Yep, I like this idea. Make these massive contraptions on your face actually act like machines on your face, and not ski-goggles, with prisine NVG's having the FoV of 45 degrees or so, with badly damaged NVG's barely having 5 degrees or so, as well as the tops and bottoms obscured. The only problem I can see is how this will work with customisable FoVs. It could stay the same for everyone but it would mean people with large FoV's to start with would have large black areas of their screen.

 

You don't have to work out the complex math for orbital patterns for the game. It's enough to simulate by just having a rolling blackout/error schedule spanning say a week. ie.

Monday - 0513-0835 no service, 0915-0952 +-1 to 5 randomly selected to X and Y coordinates....

Tuesday - 0237-0414 have it flicker between correct and incorrect coordinates....

....

 

As for the orbit of the satellites, in this case yes they actually do. One of the characteristic problems with most satellites is magnetic and atmospheric drag is constantly eating away at them. It's slow, and takes a while, but it's there. (Also would be holding their orientation as the reaction wheels saturate and not having someone tell them to execute a desaturation manuever, or not being able to due to a lack of thruster fuel.) Case in point is to look at the repeated orbital boosts needed by MIR and the ISS in order to stay in the sky. In the zombie apocalypse your GPS sats will all be in different stages of orbital management. Some are going to be closer to drifting out of alignment than others. Some of their clocks will have been synched up more recently than others (this sort of management is needed because of relativity, the satellites are moving substantially faster than you are on the ground and also in a lower gravity environment and so "lose" a few microseconds per day (Citation. :P and correction, not milliseconds), etc. This will result in different satellites producing positioning errors or failing earlier than others and thus producing the erratic service I described above.

 

As for the NVG's I'm going to dig around some for pictures of tube damage and the like, but if you get a chance in game pick up a damaged ACOG and peer through it. While the FOV is the same as the unbroken ACOG the picture is harshly obscured by broken lenses. There's no need to play with the FOV after it is initially set to 40 degrees for NVG's, you can simply limit the visibility further by adding those broken lens effects, dead spots, etc. to the image.

 

For people with large FOV's set, yes, a lot of their screen is going to be blanked out. But that is one of the huge drawbacks to the technology. Image intensifier tubes only allow a very narrow viewing angle (as stated, forty degrees). This is huge reduction of your natural nearly 180 degree FOV that you have in real life. Attempts to alleviate this problem are currently VERY bulky, heavy, and expensive. Example, GPNVG-18 And even with all that you still only have true depth perception for the center 40 degree viewing angle. Unfortunately depth perception is something a little beyond our means to simulate in a game otherwise that would prove another problem for people using NVG's. It is actually absurdly difficult to do something as simple as walk around in an open field at night with only a 40deg FOV and no depth perception without LOTS of practice.

Edited December 30, 2013 by Land Squid

[jaginun 87]

Ah yeah, I appreciate that it's gonna be easy for the dev's to put the system in, but I was worried about the players having to learn the schedual in order to use it, in which case it might become more of a hassle than a help.

 

And I stand corrected about the loss in velocity, I didn't know that Geo-Stationary orbits were low enough to be affected by the atmosphere, and I didn't have a clue about the effect of the magnetic pull. And about law of relativity, I assumed that the computations to calculate the time dialation took place onboard the satellite, and didn't need to be affected from the ground.

[weedmasta 784]

I thought it was clearly stated that there would be no NVGs in SA.

[deadmoose 0]

what u need is one of these for your charging needs. 

[Land Squid 22]

Ah yeah, I appreciate that it's gonna be easy for the dev's to put the system in, but I was worried about the players having to learn the schedual in order to use it, in which case it might become more of a hassle than a help.

 

And I stand corrected about the loss in velocity, I didn't know that Geo-Stationary orbits were low enough to be affected by the atmosphere, and I didn't have a clue about the effect of the magnetic pull. And about law of relativity, I assumed that the computations to calculate the time dialation took place onboard the satellite, and didn't need to be affected from the ground.

 

And that'll be part of the difficulty of depending on the GPS. If it's returning no coordinate result you'll know it isn't working. The rest of the time it might be working just fine, but can you really trust it? Perhaps the errors aren't enough to be a major problem for basic foot navigation, perhaps they are. You pays your moneys and you takes your chances.

 

 

By and large, yes, they do handle most of the relatavistic calculations on their own but these things still need "tweaking" or housekeeping be it in their clocks, or their orbits, to keep errors from growing in the system unchecked. As a minor aside I was working in a facility during a leap second event. Basically we had to manually add a second to the clocks governing the servers and satellite uplinks in order to keep them consistent with the rotation of the earth (which is slowing).

 

It's one of those really obscure things that most people would never think about or have to deal with ever in their entire lives, but if not taken care by some unnamed technician somewhere would allow problems to slowly develop in the automated systems. And in the zombie apocalypse, all those unnamed technicians are gone. :P

 

Edited December 30, 2013 by Land Squid

[Land Squid 22]

I thought it was clearly stated that there would be no NVGs in SA.

 

Killjoy. Actually, got a link?

 

what u need is one of these for your charging needs.

 

<snip>

 

I like it!