Repair the power plant

[Mayron]

hi,

the following mods inspired me to the suggestion

• Save Our Station!
• Trimble County Power Station & La Grange

 

Suggestion:

If there were one or more power plants in the basic game, you could install an endgame mechanism that would make it possible to get the power grid running again after the power failure.

 

this task should require many skills/materials and only run again for a certain amount of time.
you could also limit the repairs per savegame & it wouldn't always be successful.
failure would result in a fire and further repairs would be impossible.

 

I could also imagine a similar mechanism for the water failure.

I think such an endgame goal would be an interesting task.

 

I've searched the forum for such a suggestion but if I've missed something similar I'll delete this post

[AwesomeAlan1]

I think a main power plant/grid for each town would be really interesting to see. Zombie spawns could probably be very high for those locations, and the actual size of the power plant depends on the area (smaller for Rosewood, larger for Louisville).

 

If you are able to somehow get through the hordes of undead in those areas, fortify them, and THEN manage to reactivate the power grid, it could be really interesting for multiplayer and late-game base/town building. Especially with NPC's on the horizon. Leading a faction to take over one of the power plants and providing power to an area would be really cool.

[Bullet_Magnate]

I like the idea, but am just wondering where the fuel for the power plant(s) would come from.  Realistically, even if you could transport enough fuel from the gas stations, it wouldn't last very long (and I'm not sure power plants use the same type of fuel that runs cars).  Barring some story-driven way to arrange importation of fuel from off-map, I can't see it working for more than a few days.  

[Mayron]

On 5/25/2022 at 6:22 PM, Bullet_Magnate said:

I like the idea, but am just wondering where the fuel for the power plant(s) would come from.  Realistically, even if you could transport enough fuel from the gas stations, it wouldn't last very long (and I'm not sure power plants use the same type of fuel that runs cars).  Barring some story-driven way to arrange importation of fuel from off-map, I can't see it working for more than a few days.  

hmm yes those are good points.

 

but I would first assume that a power plant fails because it is no longer maintained and there is no lack of fuel.
I can imagine that a power plant already has large reserves. (but that's just an assumption)

Furthermore, you could look for tanker trucks to fill up the reserves.

[getstoopid]

I don't think you could run a power plant on your own. To fix the "power problem" I could imagine some kind of improvised wind turbine or maybe solar panels although they were not that "customer ready" in the early 90s. And all of this should require very high skill levels, otherwise it would unbalance the game massively in my opinion.

[eksynn]

i wouldn't mind if this were a per-town thing. and nothing would be permanently damaged. however, repairing the engines and keeping them running would attract a lot of zeds for miles, so clearing out about a third of the town would probably be enough to keep it running for a while until it goes out due to low maintenance, requiring players to do it all over again. (the difficulty to fortify, repair, and maintain would be lessened in single player games, or if the town only has a few players online in it.)

and no limits on how many times this can be done, just.. the horde would essentially fully respawn and slowly make its way to the power place if it's cleared out.

 

in other words, high combat skills are required to clear the horde, as well as high.. other skills to do the rest of the job. one individual could certainly do this, but it would take a really long time, and there'd be no guarantee of success. (failure means at least a day or three worth of waiting to try again). and then the entire thing all over again for the water supply, which would require the power plant to be active. or vice versa if the power plant is powered by water. (a quick real life research on the area in the mid-90s would be necessary to know which towns use which power and water supply plants)

[Vundecat]

while it is not technically impossible to repair a power plant and get it operational after a zombie apocalypse, there's a lot you'd have to consider that most people don't really think about, like for example if it were a coal power plant:
 

The power plant itself has several parts to it: The turbine, generator, burn pit, the cooling towers and pumping station.  The generator and turbines are specially made machines, and you can't really just patch those things up with scrap metal, if they're broken they'll require machined parts to fix, something that would be scarce at best.  The pumping station would likely be connected to the ohio river, and not only would you need to keep that area cleared it's also going to occasionally suck up zombies into the pipe which is going to have to be unclogged manually.  If those cooling towers don't get water the plant isn't going to be running either.  That and the transformers outside of the plant too, if zombies run into those things and damage them it could short-circuit them and they could explode, and those aren't something you can just put scrap electronics into either.  The power plant, transformers and pumping station are all going to be making hella noise, and constantly attracting zombies who will break in and potentially damage the machines. 

 

You'd also need giant truckloads of coal, and when I say truck I mean like, a 16-wheel trailer truck, not some pickup truck, to fuel this plant for any significant amount of time.  The amount of game-days it'd take for that to be mined up by hand, and then transporting it and keeping the transportation vehicles in good condition would already be a full-time job by itself. 

 

And not only that, even if you had the plant running, if any of the power lines go down anywhere, it will cut off that section of the grid.  Things are falling apart after only a year of game time, and any heavy storm could easily take out a whole power grid.  You need those specialized cars with the thingy on top to repair those lines, as well as the whole power cables, and you'd have to maintain those cars too. 

 

Looking aside the astronomical amount of devwork that it would take to implement all those features and content, the amount of things you'd need to actually get a power plant running, even at a limited capacity, are so overwhelming that there's no way a single player would be able to do it.  It'd be a full-time job for a small community of players even, if you weren't hand-waving many aspects of actually running one.  I don't think it's very feasible at all personally. 

 

However!  One thing I think people are sleeping on, and something that I think is similar in concept but far more obtainable would be backup generators.  Many large buildings like apartments, hotels, malls, offices etc have backup generators (usually at the top for tall buildings) that will power emergency lights/power for if the main power grid goes out.  I'd love to see those generators be repairable/refuel-able and with enough gas, be able to power individual buildings/complexes back up.  They'd guzzle lots more gas than a tiny generator, but they'd be able to restore ovens/fridges/emergency lights to a mall or hotel or apartment complex.  They'd require generator knowledge to operate of course, and higher electric skill (4+ at least) to be able to repair, but I think it's totally feasible for even a single player to be able to repair those kinds of generators!

 

[duh7]

On 5/25/2022 at 4:14 PM, AwesomeAlan1 said:

I think a main power plant/grid for each town would be really interesting to see. Zombie spawns could probably be very high for those locations, and the actual size of the power plant depends on the area (smaller for Rosewood, larger for Louisville).

 

If you are able to somehow get through the hordes of undead in those areas, fortify them, and THEN manage to reactivate the power grid, it could be really interesting for multiplayer and late-game base/town building. Especially with NPC's on the horizon. Leading a faction to take over one of the power plants and providing power to an area would be really cool.

Cool idea but where in kentucky u have powerplants in every town?

[MrTrololo]

power plant would be nice in game as location but here is tiny issue to make them work again: most of them can't just work without human maintenance,especially if they require fuel like coal obviously, and in case of nuclear power plants they require uranium/plutonium, additionaly if they were abandoned their reactor cores gonna melt down and explode, probably the only ones that doesn't requires that much of human attention are hydro power plants

it would be nice to be able to produce electricity other way than by generator,in one of my post i've suggested car alternator windmill,battery array and solar cells

[MoonSlime]

On 5/25/2022 at 11:22 AM, Bullet_Magnate said:

I like the idea, but am just wondering where the fuel for the power plant(s) would come from.  Realistically, even if you could transport enough fuel from the gas stations, it wouldn't last very long (and I'm not sure power plants use the same type of fuel that runs cars).  Barring some story-driven way to arrange importation of fuel from off-map, I can't see it working for more than a few days.  

Most coal burning power plants generally carry enough coal for 1 to 2 months of power. I could see the map being divided into three power sectors: North (mall and Louisville), east and west. With the north plant being the largest and west plant being the smallest. With that said, if you're willing to say truck all the coal from the north plant to the west plant, you could get 4 to 5 months worth of power for a large area. 

 

Most likely the Power plants didn't turn off due to lack of fuel or machine failure, but due to the fact most coal plants have an automatic turn off if not hit with in 24 to 48 hours.  So some one theoretically go turn it back on if they have the knowledge, and run it until fuel is out or machine failure. 

[MoonSlime]

 

On 6/8/2022 at 2:37 PM, Vundecat said:

while it is not technically impossible to repair a power plant and get it operational after a zombie apocalypse, there's a lot you'd have to consider that most people don't really think about, like for example if it were a coal power plant:
 

The power plant itself has several parts to it: The turbine, generator, burn pit, the cooling towers and pumping station.  The generator and turbines are specially made machines, and you can't really just patch those things up with scrap metal, if they're broken they'll require machined parts to fix, something that would be scarce at best.  The pumping station would likely be connected to the ohio river, and not only would you need to keep that area cleared it's also going to occasionally suck up zombies into the pipe which is going to have to be unclogged manually.  If those cooling towers don't get water the plant isn't going to be running either.  That and the transformers outside of the plant too, if zombies run into those things and damage them it could short-circuit them and they could explode, and those aren't something you can just put scrap electronics into either.  The power plant, transformers and pumping station are all going to be making hella noise, and constantly attracting zombies who will break in and potentially damage the machines. 

 

You'd also need giant truckloads of coal, and when I say truck I mean like, a 16-wheel trailer truck, not some pickup truck, to fuel this plant for any significant amount of time.  The amount of game-days it'd take for that to be mined up by hand, and then transporting it and keeping the transportation vehicles in good condition would already be a full-time job by itself. 

 

And not only that, even if you had the plant running, if any of the power lines go down anywhere, it will cut off that section of the grid.  Things are falling apart after only a year of game time, and any heavy storm could easily take out a whole power grid.  You need those specialized cars with the thingy on top to repair those lines, as well as the whole power cables, and you'd have to maintain those cars too. 

 

 

 

I think you're looking a little too far into it. Repairing a power plant wouldn't be a long term goal. It would be a short term goal, for a multiplayer server. Maybe for SP if they really want to. Similar to how using the gas stations atm are a short term to medium term project as all the gas stations will eventually run out of fuel. Like mentioned above, if there are 3 plants, you could salvage (with high enough mechanics, maintenance, and electrical), stuff from two of those plants into last one to keep that last one running longer. And being super fancy, could even have it so you could control what towns from the plant you could spend power to, consuming less overall fuel to stretch it out. 

 

Also as mentioned above, the initial shut-off would most likely be due to an automatic shut off to prevent damage, if no humans interacted with it. So repair might not be necessary at first. 

Power plants (and water stations) would be fun places to have on the map to explore, as maybe even zed hotspots. Even if we say, can't repair them, they would still make for great spots to scavenge. Lots of metal, machines, and coal. Especially since Indiestone said they wanted us to go from Modern, to dark ages, to post modern medieval style technology wise with skill, crafting, and the tech trees. The leftover coal from the powerplants would be a great source for blacksmithing and other tinkering. 

[Toshis]

It was interesting read, both OP and replies. But I am wondering, is it really worth the effort to maintain a power plant?

[MoonSlime]

12 minutes ago, Toshis said:

It was interesting read, both OP and replies. But I am wondering, is it really worth the effort to maintain a power plant?

for single player? totally not. Maybe as an interesting self imposed challenge. 
for multiplayer? could be. 

TBH I just feel zomboid need some more optional objectives like it. The "save the station" mod is like, one of my favorites. you could completely ignore it, or go fix the stations. Like maybe going to a water treatment plant and hooking up a lot of generators, and give a small area working water for a tiny bit. 

 

Another thing I would kind of like would be solar panels. but to make sense for 1993, they would need to spawn only in the very rich area of Louisville. Unique loot only in that area. So if you want like a long term renewable power, you would have to go to the most dangerous area. 

Edited June 14, 2022 by MoonSlime