Boost Night Vision's battery 10x

[bobucles]

Once upon a time suit energy was multiplied by 10x but not everything followed suit. Night vision has 120kJ of energy storage, which was enough to last the night but doesn't any more. A minmum of 1200kJ is now needed to survive the 120 seconds of night time.

Although tbh I'd rather have a modular large lamp. Night light effects are cool, and NV kind of ruins that.

[Rseding91]

Night vision equipment energy was increased by 10x when the change happened along with everything else.

[bobucles]

Don't ruin this discussion with your "facts"!

1200MJ is a very convenient number. It turns out that 120 seconds of energy storage is enough to (baaaarely) last the night, which very conveniently amounts to adding an extra zero to the storage. Why is this important? Because the T1 modular energy source is solar power. It doesn't provide energy at night, so it can't power night vision goggles at night. Now you might make a silly argument such as

But it should require suit batteries to function!

Which might be a good argument if NV was a 1x1 module, but it isn't. It's a 2x2 module, and other 2x2 modules have MORE energy storage. The shield mk1 for example holds 1.1MJ worth of shield and the Personal Roboport holds 35MJ, practically the same as filling the suit with MK1 batteries in the first place. You might argue

But those other things need energy storage to function!

Guess what? So does NV. It literally can't function if it can't survive the night. Without an internal storage the tech is effectively locked behind sulfur, batteries and suit storage.


TLDR: All other modules can function as standalone plugins but the Night vision can not. Fix that.

[BlakeMW]

I totally agree. NV is kind of bad anyway and 90% of the time I don't even use it, normally I don't even notice if it's day or night, the only time I might use it is when I'm driving vehicles, makes it easier to dodge rocks. Since it's kind of a sub-par use of equipment slots it shouldn't be shackled to batteries, when other much more useful equipment like personal roboport is not. And it's as big as a personal roboport! I'm sure some batteries could be slipped in there .

[eradicator]

NV is kind of bad anyway and 90% of the time I don't even use it, normally I don't even notice if it's day or night,

Speak for yourself. I never play without night vision. I get it as fast as i can, and use it in even the most combat-focused suits, becaues it is essential for me to see anything at all at night (old screen, old eyes, whatever the reason). Giving it an energy boost for the early stages isn't going to change any major balancing, it's just gonna help people like me see as much as other people apparently already do (and i still have to use an equipment slot for it as opposed to people who just turn up their screen gamma or something, which in PvP is probably everybody).

[BlakeMW]

Speak for yourself. I never play without night vision. I get it as fast as i can, and use it in even the most combat-focused suits, becaues it is essential for me to see anything at all at night (old screen, old eyes, whatever the reason).

I have to say that I am 100% not surprised that some people feel this way. I spent many years playing game with a very dim monitor, games without a brightness/gamma setting were painful, and if the game offered ways to brighten the environment up, I would use them aggressively. An example is the old and little known game Startopia where you could place lamps, I'd put lamps everywhere to make it easier to play.

But this is a game settings problems: games should have brightness/gamma settings rather than forcing players to rely on in-game solutions which other players, with normally bright monitors, don't need. Ideally a game should also have a brightness calibration screen, one of those "you should be able to barely see this text" type things.

[bobucles]

The NV is potent, but at the same time I like the lighting effects in darkness better. Watching the base light up at night is cool and watching the uranium glow in the dark is extra cool. NV removes the awesomeness of those effects. I'd prefer if NV didn't exist at all and instead it was instead replaced with a lamp module.

[eradicator]

Ideally a game should also have a brightness calibration screen, one of those "you should be able to barely see this text" type things.

I guess that wouldn't hurt to have. But the main problem with old screens is that they lose maximum brightness (of which they had less to begin with compared to current lamp technology), and thus brightness range, which can not be fixed in software, same as eyesight. Btw, if you really can't tell a difference between day/night in factorio then i'd suggest that it's your screen that's miscalibrated, and not mine. Night should be very dark by default, otherwise it doesn't add anything to the gameplay.

(Btw, i rember playing the demo of Startopia, from a magazine CD.)

[BlakeMW]

Oh I can literally tell the difference between day and night just fine. I mean "gorilla in the room" sense, visually I can tell just fine, the brain just doesn't think it's worth taking note of since it's not relevant to the task at hand and enough information is still available (things can still be recognized, and the player glow extends out to reach distance anyway).