Make nightvision internal buffer bigger

[darkfrei]

Related to: https://wiki.factorio.com/Nightvision

Nightvision require a suit energy supply to function. Unfortunately its complementary tech portable solar panel does not provide energy at night, and the Nightvision's internal buffer of 120 kJ will quickly drain in a few seconds. Getting initial use out of Nightvision requires charging a modular battery to stay online over night.

Why the system, that's has the internal energy buffer cannot be used the whole night without external battery? It's like a flashlight, that cannot use inbuilt batteries, but needs external power source.

Or have been on the home planet such short nights?

[Deadlock989]

You want to strap a big battery pack to your head?

[foamy]

You want to strap a big battery pack to your head?

I mean, you can apparently put two-dozen construction robots and several megajoules worth of buffer there.

[Pandrosos]

With the exception of the roboports, all the armour equipment has similarly very small buffers. The system is designed around the use of batteries to meet night-time demand if using solars, as well as demand surges. Indeed batteries in armour are there for the same purposes as accumulators in your factory.

Why should nightvision be especially excluded from this?

[conn11]

Excellent idea, there is the gap of potentially using night vision on modular armor but having not researched batteries yet. For consistency reasons multi tired nv could be a thing. Mk I with generous internal buffer and the old greenish optic. Mk II as it is now.

[foamy]

Why should nightvision be especially excluded from this?

Because unlike all the others, night-vision is specifically only useful at, you know, night, and has a known and fixed draw to get through that night. Thus an integrated battery makes perfect sense in its case.

[darkfrei]

The one Personal battery has 20 MJ of electric energy and it needs 5 batteries.
So one battery has about 4 MJ and the nightvision's recipe must include enough batteries for the covering energy consumption for most of the night. Or just 200 seconds.

So the drain by the nightvision must be 20 kW and internal buffer must be 4000 MJ, just only one battery.

[planetmaker]

A bit off-topic but while we are at it... it bugs me more that the size of the night vision module should be 1x1 instead of 2x2. It would fit with the belt immunity. And joined with one battery there need not be empty spaces considering 2x2 for the "big" units.

[bobucles]

Night vision goggles require 120 seconds of storage to barely last through the night. At 10kJ power drain it demands 1.2MJ of energy storage, or 6% of a basic battery.

I don't think it's unreasonable for NV to be a fully contained system. The modular armor's first energy source is pocket solar panels, and they obviously won't power NV at night. Adding the internal storage will eliminate the dependence on suit batteries, and make the device very easy to use.

I also think that Night Vision is tragic from an artistic point of view, because the devs put so much effort into having an amazing night scape. Players often don't even build a single lamp because NV renders night time obsolete very early on. I'd rather NV didn't exist at all (or was more explicitly postgame), while the early game night vision should be replaced with a lantern upgrade. The default flashlight is extremely ineffective at night, so a large light can help by giving 360 degree lighting and improved vision range.

[foamy]

I concur with that, too. One of the coolest experiences is early-game factorio nights, where the only light comes from your smelter array.

[mudcrabempire]

Nightvision is currently the only equipment which explicitely requires batteries to be used (since PFR isn't available that early): Shields totally work without batteries, they just aren't as effective because they can't recharge as fast. Discharge defense has enough charge for 1 or two shots, which is quite decent already. PLD works, it just doesn't shoot as frequently without constant power supply. Personal roboports have enough charge to recharge about 23 robots which is plenty for small works. Exoskeleton requires constant power supply anyways so batteries don't even help.

Only nightvision absolutely requires a battery to work and only nightvision is available so early that you would actually like to not need that battery.

Nighttime is very restrictive, basically preventing you from doing any serious work, unless you play in the dark and increase your screen brightness to gain fake-nightvision (I think many players do that, which is a bit sad). Lights just don't really help, since their radius is so small that you would require unholy amounts of them to get anything done and nightvision is obviously meant to be the solution to nighttime.

To make lights usefull, their radius would need to be at least doubled, better tripled. Then one could also reasonably make nightvision a bit harder to get, since one has a functional early alternative.

Also, from an aesthetic point of view, I would like lights to be split into two items: a "signal" which may work as currently, and a "lantern" which would be the primary tool of large-scale illumination (with a different sprite, might actually fit well into the theme of factorio).
Another aesthetic point is the fall-off of the light-radius: I think it would look better if light sources (all of them) would not have a certain radius with full brightness and then a sharp drop-off into nothing, but instead fall off smoothly over their entire radius. Then one could also increase the light radius of all sources (lanterns would still need a much larger area on top of this), giving more total coverage, just with lower light levels away from the sources (but still better than nothing).

Ok, now I'm just spinning off my mind and I don't know inhowfar this is worth implementing: One could make light levels of light sources add up in overlapping areas (might need an upper limit). One could make adjacent light sources increase each others radius, similar to how using several personal roboports increases the working area (since their light adds up and is therefore enough to illuminate further areas).
Nightvision could be restricted to a certain area around the player (again with a smooth fall-off), drastically improving vision, but not giving the full-screen vision of daytime and therefore not making lights completely obsolete. In this case it might be worth to implement "mark2 lanterns" (may want to call them "floodlights") with a serious light radius for late-game illumination.
Nightvision could get a mark2 version including any of the following features: larger vision radius, lower energy consumption, smaller grid size (1x1 would nicely complement belt immunity), better vision (brighter, less graying, better fade-in/-out at dusk and dawn, one could worsen vision quality of the mark1 version to make this more notable).

I am aware that one could simply make a mod do this, but as I see it, mods should provide additional/changed content, not fix issues of the base game. So one would need to determine whether the current light system is bad and requires fixing, or if it's fine and changes are the domain of modders. I tend towards the former, since my current philosphy is: "use bright screen for fake-nightvision, get real nightvision ASAP, never think about it again", which can kind of be reformulated into "fuck this problem".

[BlueTemplar]

A mod is often how issues in the base game get fixed... (by integrating it in the base game once it gets popular enough.)

[foamy]

While we're at it, I'd like to see the size dropped to 1x1 on the grid. That way it fits better with solar panels and belt-immunity.

[Honktown]

Why not have two nightvisions? Nightvision mark one doesn't have an internal battery, and is 2x2. Nightvision MK2 would be 1x1, and have batteries. You could use the excuse that nightvision is an incandescent bulb (return the power draw to the old value) and nightvision MK2 is LED (smaller, more efficient).

[conn11]

Why not have two nightvisions? Nightvision mark one doesn't have an internal battery, and is 2x2. Nightvision MK2 would be 1x1, and have batteries. You could use the excuse that nightvision is an incandescent bulb (return the power draw to the old value) and nightvision MK2 is LED (smaller, more efficient).

I would suggest the opposite, Mk I 2x2 with internal battery and Mk I 1x1 without. The first tier is meant to be used with solar plates only (with personal batteries not researched yet), likely in modular armor. So the player can benefit from night vision from the start, but is sacrificing more equipment grid for it.
And tier two 1x1, nicely fitting with belt immunity, for the power armors, with fusion reactor and batteries. The electrical drain is marginal enough. Maybe distinguish even further by reusing the old green optic for Mk I and keeping the recent greyed out for the Mk II.

[Honktown]

Why not have two nightvisions? Nightvision mark one doesn't have an internal battery, and is 2x2. Nightvision MK2 would be 1x1, and have batteries. You could use the excuse that nightvision is an incandescent bulb (return the power draw to the old value) and nightvision MK2 is LED (smaller, more efficient).

I would suggest the opposite, Mk I 2x2 with internal battery and Mk I 1x1 without. The first tier is meant to be used with solar plates only (with personal batteries not researched yet), likely in modular armor. So the player can benefit from night vision from the start, but is sacrificing more equipment grid for it.
And tier two 1x1, nicely fitting with belt immunity, for the power armors, with fusion reactor and batteries. The electrical drain is marginal enough. Maybe distinguish even further by reusing the old green optic for Mk I and keeping the recent greyed out for the Mk II.

...that's a very good idea. Darn you for thinking up better reasons than me

[conn11]

Why not have two nightvisions? Nightvision mark one doesn't have an internal battery, and is 2x2. Nightvision MK2 would be 1x1, and have batteries. You could use the excuse that nightvision is an incandescent bulb (return the power draw to the old value) and nightvision MK2 is LED (smaller, more efficient).

I would suggest the opposite, Mk I 2x2 with internal battery and Mk I 1x1 without. The first tier is meant to be used with solar plates only (with personal batteries not researched yet), likely in modular armor. So the player can benefit from night vision from the start, but is sacrificing more equipment grid for it.
And tier two 1x1, nicely fitting with belt immunity, for the power armors, with fusion reactor and batteries. The electrical drain is marginal enough. Maybe distinguish even further by reusing the old green optic for Mk I and keeping the recent greyed out for the Mk II.

...that's a very good idea. Darn you for thinking up better reasons than me

That’s -mostly- the good thing about forums, more then one thinking about a topic.

Further increasing the necessity, by considering that typically night vision and no pers. battery is a scenario in early midgame. Where the factory is spreading enough pollution to regularly provoke biter attacks, but military is often still lacking behind. Without artillery one tactic is to manually clear out Biter nests. Not that easy when it’s dark and not going to be easier with the prettier but somewhat darker blue nights presented for 0.18.

[Honktown]

Why not have two nightvisions? Nightvision mark one doesn't have an internal battery, and is 2x2. Nightvision MK2 would be 1x1, and have batteries. You could use the excuse that nightvision is an incandescent bulb (return the power draw to the old value) and nightvision MK2 is LED (smaller, more efficient).

I would suggest the opposite, Mk I 2x2 with internal battery and Mk I 1x1 without. The first tier is meant to be used with solar plates only (with personal batteries not researched yet), likely in modular armor. So the player can benefit from night vision from the start, but is sacrificing more equipment grid for it.
And tier two 1x1, nicely fitting with belt immunity, for the power armors, with fusion reactor and batteries. The electrical drain is marginal enough. Maybe distinguish even further by reusing the old green optic for Mk I and keeping the recent greyed out for the Mk II.

...that's a very good idea. Darn you for thinking up better reasons than me

That’s -mostly- the good thing about forums, more then one thinking about a topic.

Further increasing the necessity, by considering that typically night vision and no pers. battery is a scenario in early midgame. Where the factory is spreading enough pollution to regularly provoke biter attacks, but military is often still lacking behind. Without artillery one tactic is to manually clear out Biter nests. Not that easy when it’s dark and not going to be easier with the prettier but somewhat darker blue nights presented for 0.18.

In terms of balance, changing the recipe for nightvision 1 to need batteries would be a nice conduit to producing batteries: batteries are needed for personal batteries, accumulators, laser turrets, and robot frames. Early on, laser turrets are slow, a bit weak, and take a lot of power infrastructure you probably don't have yet. Accumulators aren't useful until you've made a bunch of solar panels (which are needed for equipments now, but they're still expensive per power generated). Robot frames aren't needed until bots (which suck at start and take research) and yellow science (which I'd assume is often started after purple). Batteries can't be crafted by hand either, so you'd need to start sulfuric acid and battery infrastructure, which has the benefit the sulfuric acid is available for blue chips. Personal batteries are only really needed for high-drain stuff like exoskeletons which are a definite "nice-to-have" but aren't as big as "being able to effing see effectively at night".

[conn11]

Why not have two nightvisions? Nightvision mark one doesn't have an internal battery, and is 2x2. Nightvision MK2 would be 1x1, and have batteries. You could use the excuse that nightvision is an incandescent bulb (return the power draw to the old value) and nightvision MK2 is LED (smaller, more efficient).

I would suggest the opposite, Mk I 2x2 with internal battery and Mk I 1x1 without. The first tier is meant to be used with solar plates only (with personal batteries not researched yet), likely in modular armor. So the player can benefit from night vision from the start, but is sacrificing more equipment grid for it.
And tier two 1x1, nicely fitting with belt immunity, for the power armors, with fusion reactor and batteries. The electrical drain is marginal enough. Maybe distinguish even further by reusing the old green optic for Mk I and keeping the recent greyed out for the Mk II.

...that's a very good idea. Darn you for thinking up better reasons than me

That’s -mostly- the good thing about forums, more then one thinking about a topic.

Further increasing the necessity, by considering that typically night vision and no pers. battery is a scenario in early midgame. Where the factory is spreading enough pollution to regularly provoke biter attacks, but military is often still lacking behind. Without artillery one tactic is to manually clear out Biter nests. Not that easy when it’s dark and not going to be easier with the prettier but somewhat darker blue nights presented for 0.18.

In terms of balance, changing the recipe for nightvision 1 to need batteries would be a nice conduit to producing batteries: batteries are needed for personal batteries, accumulators, laser turrets, and robot frames. Early on, laser turrets are slow, a bit weak, and take a lot of power infrastructure you probably don't have yet. Accumulators aren't useful until you've made a bunch of solar panels (which are needed for equipments now, but they're still expensive per power generated). Robot frames aren't needed until bots (which suck at start and take research) and yellow science (which I'd assume is often started after purple). Batteries can't be crafted by hand either, so you'd need to start sulfuric acid and battery infrastructure, which has the benefit the sulfuric acid is available for blue chips. Personal batteries are only really needed for high-drain stuff like exoskeletons which are a definite "nice-to-have" but aren't as big as "being able to effing see effectively at night".

I agree, excellent argument. Most players would rush to have working night vision and with con bots locked after blue science since 0.16.69 creating more drive toward chemical industry is nice to have. And it certainly fixes, the issue why one nightvison has a internal battery and mkII hasn’t.

[BlueTemplar]

KISS : NO inventory item should have an energy buffer (except the batteries) !

This is especially messy with Mk1 roboports + Mk1 batteries where most of your energy is often going to be stored in the roboports themselves and won't show up in the battery level indicator !