Cataclysm - Batteries

[LambdaSix]

Currently Batteries behave like some weird positively charged liquid-metal that can be poured into battery-accepting items and merged together with other stacks of batteries.

Given the changes made to Reloadables (They're now Containers with generic logic) and the advent of "Everything can be a container" glory, proposal to fix batteries to something semi-sensible.

Currently firearms like rifles & handguns (anything lacking ONE_SHOT, so not revolvers) load their charges from a magazine, the changes made to reloadables/containers means that now the firearm has a single-slot container only accepting specific item types (the magazines it supports) - and when treated as a RangedWeapon, the ammunition is taken from that container's contents. The same is true for revolvers, shotguns, etc, they have a fixed size container that only accepts their ammunition type and the firing mechanism pulls from the container.

The proposal is to treat Tools and battery consuming things the same, they have a fixed size container that accepts a certain type of item type, Battery in this case, and when activated drains charge from the contained battery.

Currently batteries look like this in their definition.

{
        "type" : "AMMO",
        "id" : "battery",
        "category" : "spare_parts",
        "price" : 12000,
        "name" : "battery",
        "name_plural" : "batteries",
        "symbol" : "=",
        "color" : "yellow",
        "description" : "A set of universal batteries.  Used to charge almost any electronic device.",
        "material" : "iron",
        "volume" : 1,
        "weight" : 1,
        "ammo_type" : "battery",
        "count" : 100,
        "fuel": {
            "energy": 1
        }
    },

The majority of the change would be thus:

{
        "type" : "AMMO",
        "id" : "battery",
        "category" : "spare_parts",
        "price" : 12000,
        "name" : "battery",
        "name_plural" : "batteries",
        "symbol" : "=",
        "color" : "yellow",
        "description" : "A set of universal batteries.  Used to charge almost any electronic device.",
        "material" : "iron",
        "volume" : 1,
        "weight" : 1,
        "ammo_type" : "battery",
        "battery_data": {
           "type": "AA",
           "material": "Li-ion",
           "capacity" : "2.9wH",
           "//": "Will implicitly convert to 100 'charges' for legacy. (0.029Wh/104W per charge)",
           "max_voltage": "3.6V",
           "recharge": true
        },
        "fuel": {
            "energy": 1
        }
    },

Basically replacing the 'battery as liquid stack' concept with the battery as a distinct item that has some data attached to it, primarily:

• The type for items that care (MP3 Player takes AAA, Flashlight takes D)
• The material the battery is made from, ties into the Material system to determine density/flammability
• Total Capacity in Watt-Hours (or Kilowatt-Hours)
• Maximum voltage the battery can provide, for things that care.
• If the battery is rechargeable. Presumably in the near-future nearly all batteries will be rechargeable.

The immediate change is that you no longer have to reload 300 charges of battery into an item, you reload 1 or more batteries into the item and the charges are drained from those batteries as specified by the item. And then unload the item (retrieving the batteries) when you wished to change to another set of batteries.

The items using batteries would continue to work as before, and can take advantage of new properties to restrict the type of battery they use. Otherwise, they'll treat 0.029Wh of capacity as '1 charge' in the old system.

A related change would be to make certain things rechargeable by virtue of having a rechargeable battery in them already (eCigs, Smart phones, ebook reader) and provide tools (USB Cable?) to recharge them from suitable sources such as power banks or homemade charging stations. Again, assuming the near-future world has mostly settled on some variant of USB cable for low-voltage charging.

UPS should be reserved for the high-drain applications it currently services (Power-armour, laser rifles, etc) and normal batteries should account for everything else.