Change how 'hacking' batteries work

Or you know, not waste resources and just change the battery setup so that power cells don't get destroyed in the replacing of a motherboard. Simple shit like that. Does your computer battery get cut in half when you're replacing components on your motherboard? No. No it doesn't.

No, it doesn't, but my computer's button cell isn't its main and purpose-defining component in the first place, unlike the power cells in a battery where, quite reasonably, the only other components worth mentioning would be the frame and some charge and protection circuitry.

But that's besides the point, anyway. We could pull far-fetched real-world analogies (or "analogies") out of our arses all day to argue (or "argue") in favour of either side and still not get anywhere in this discussion. You and I know well enough why this is currently a thing, so wishing for this "fix" is rather moot. Newly built batteries come with charge to make building new craft easier (because, hint-hint, no cables for jumpstarting, although by now there are quite a few ways to engineer around that, too), and if cells weren't destroyed, you would get energy for nothing but an initial material cost and your time for grinding and welding (or setting up automated grinding and welding with projectors and timers, or …). So, if you really want to wish for getting intact cells from grinding batteries, please be prepared to also wish for zero charge on rebuilt or newly built batteries. Including for those batteries that were originally fully charged and that you managed to barely scratched worth even just one single cell during hacking.

Compromises and simplifications have to be made for games. Realism can only be taken so far before immersion succumbs to tedium. (And considering certain other "design" choices, I think SE has already quite enough tedium as it stands.) Given how "hacking" is currently symbolised by literally taking a grinder to the hardware, I think that, for once, Keen made an acceptable-enough call with the cells-to-scrap mechanism. Be glad that you at least get all other components unscrapped from using such a brutal tool.

Of course, if you seek realism from such a brutal tool, there's always Oh, Scrap!.

Or, if you seek more variety of tools, including a less brutal one, there's the Hacking Computer.

And if you want easy-mode brutality, use Easy NPC Takeovers.

The whole point of grinding to hack, is to preserve the component you're trying to take over. Things like batteries, store power, to hack them, you must replace their computers. You don't need to destroy their power cells. What if you're trying to hijack a ship thats battery powered only? How do you take it if you can't switch the batteries over to your side? You can't. Scenario designers must give you spare batteries with the ship so you can, because the devs decided to pull a stupid and not give you a way to hack without destroying.

My computer analogy is perfect, because a battery is much more than just a power cell in this game. Its got a micro computer in it to control its charge and discharge and output capacity to the rest of the grid and to authorize control of its functions, locking out anyone who isn't its owner.

Its a very easy fix for KeenSWH to fix batteries. All they have to do is move the hack line and the function line further apart. To do that, they just stick some components between the power cells, and the computers, and set the critical component line to a different spot.

Yes, batteries start with juice, which means if you didn't turn the power cells into scrap, you could have infinite energy. This issue doesn't get resolved really with turning the cells into scrap because you can set a battery to discharge, with other batteries at recharge, then craft enough power cells to re-craft the battery over and over and you'd power the assembler with the same battery you keep deconstructing while also pushing that extra power to the grid. It still allows the infinite loop. This issue also isn't fixed by this dumb "destroy the battery to hack it" thing.

This game has no realism. KeenSWH decided not to do any research at all and just threw the game together quickly to make as much money as possible. There is absolute zero realism to this game. Its 100% magic. Even the progression system is crap. So don't give me that whole "sacrifices for game design" thing. There's tons Keen could have done better, they chose not to. This battery thing is one example.

So, on one side you say, and acknowledge, that the game has no realism, on the other side you want some particular thing to be realistic? Then why don't you wish instead for hacking tools that aren't angle grinders? Until then, I will very much give you the whole "sacrifices for game design" thing because this is exactly what applies here, unlike your "perfect" computer analogy which very much doesn't apply, not least because you don't assemble and disassemble a PC with welder and grinder. Cherry-picking the favourable aspects of an analogy and conveniently ignoring the unfavourable ones so that it ends up fitting your argument doesn't make for a good analogy, certainly not a perfect one.

"craft enough power cells to re-craft the battery" – That would only really be as pointless as you make it out to be if the scrap from the cells converted into new cells perfectly without loss. But last I checked, scrap doesn't yield nearly enough iron to be a 1:1 recycle, let alone the necessary nickel, so you and I know that this is not the case. Besides, even if it were so, you'd still have to have a production chain in place for recrafting. Which, incidentally, would be the same production chain that you currently have to have for the regular crafting of power cells, hint-hint.

"What if the ship to be hacked has batteries only? What if I'm a scenario creator that employs such ships?" – What if, what if, what if, all I'm hearing is someone whining about not having everything laid out for him on a silver platter. For a game which literally has the term "engineer" in its very name. What's the next inconvenience you're going to complain about? That you have to double-click the game icon to launch it? Maybe Keen should just write you a postcard that says, "This is to certify that you've won SE. Congratulations".

Yes, I'm being facetious here, but either way there is nothing to fix in the sense of something actually being broken here. At best, you're asking for a lower number of steps needed to make certain pixels change colour in a certain way. Which itself is, granted, perfectly valid as a request, if still highly individual. I can also see how reordering some components in the build order would keep cells intact AND facilitate takeover. But I'm also fine with how it currently is, attributing it to Keen wanting to keep takeovers at least somewhat challenging, if nothing else, so for now I'm just going to continue bringing power cells when hacking batteries.

And really, be happy that it's only the power cells for only the batteries. Imagine if grinder-hacking any hackable block always destroyed some of its components. (Namely its computers. Because, you know, it's a bloody grinder you're hacking with.) You'd be whining a lot more still than what you're doing here over just a few power cells.

So this is going... to be simple about it, the reason I suggested this is because many mods and some default drones are battery powered only. There's also this fantastic user created scenario called Escape from Mars which you survive on a vehicle only, and other vehicles you can acquire are battery powered only, hence, why hacking without damaging the cells is important as they'd be left permanently disabled without the only main source which is the battery, or I could simply not have the means to produce more cells, I fail to see why some people are against a simple correction that you could as much just consider a tweak--EVERY single other block can be grinded down to be 'hacked' for ownership and then be put back to be used, except batteries because of an oversight. There's no one to give me a good reason to say it should remain as it is nor realism, nor balancing.

I suspect that this Andersenman guy is probably a Keen fanboy, who won't request them to do any work whatsoever if people request something ridiculously easy and simple as editing an XML file in their next update which takes 5 seconds of work and has already been done in mods. :P

Giving long winded rants about why Keen shouldn't do this, because god forbid editing a couple of lines in XML is just too much work for them~

---------------

But last I checked, scrap doesn't yield nearly enough iron to be a 1:1

What if, what if, what if, all I'm hearing is someone whining about not having everything laid out for him on a silver platter.

"something ridiculously easy and simple as editing an XML file"

So it is ridiculously easy and simple to edit an XML file. Your point? Just because a change is technically easy doesn't mean it should be changed at the next best opportunity, certainly not on the whim of some whiny kid on the internet who can't bear how the game isn't quite perfectly casual for his personal liking. If you're really so hellbent on wanting this particular change, why don't you make the edits yourself? Or create the necessary mod yourself? Can't be arsed? Don't want to bear the consequences of your personal choices but are more than happy to have others bear them? So, overinflated sense of entitlement much?

"but lets say you have all of the ores to make a single power cell"

Which didn't pop into existence in your cargo hold but for which you had to spend time and effort on digging them from the ground, thereby fulfilling the condition of "no infinite energy for free".

"Keen fanboy"

By calling me that, all you're doing is insulting yourself, namely by demonstrating that you haven't done your homework on me. "lost all respect" Pff, with all your petulant and irate arguing, you don't even respect yourself. Not sure what reaction you're expecting me to have to that, but I can assure that it's not going to be much more than, essentially, "Oh no! Anyway, …".

"because mods, because default drones, because scenarios" – Well, maybe you're not supposed to have it that easy, maybe the creators were deliberately this unyielding in their mod or scenario design when they made them battery-powered only, so your request could quite possibly undermine their intent, and why should Keen do that? Did you raise the issue with the mod or scenario creators directly already?

Again, silver platter. You're supposed to be an engineer, figure it out. Nothing has ever been created or fixed by whining. You want to hack? Bring power cells. You don't have power cells? Then you can't hack. You don't like it? Use a mod or modify the game files directly.

Whiny kid? Do you know how many people have been frustrated with this exact issue? Good lord you are absolutely ridiculous. Are you literally just a fanboy trying to keep things unchanged because god forbid anything different would bother you? Some wiki editor that can't bare the thought of editing a page to update some information? Or are you just a troll that likes to give people the middle finger? I'm going to assume the last.

Your right, I haven't done any research on you. I could care less who you are, all I know is that you're a troll.

xD Good lord, you are an idiot too. "You're an engineer, figure it out".... No, this game is about Engineering in space, not "figure out how to play the game with the most dumb mechanics available to you".

You should avoid responding in blind rage. Not least so that you have the chance to tell "your" from "you're", or that it's "couldn't care less", not "could care less". Your negligence is outright revolting to read. And that's not even counting the rest of your aimless and self-defeating ranting that at best makes me wonder why you must embarrass yourself like that.

Take a break to calm down, reflect on how petty and greedy you appear with your requests to have your self-chosen problems around a perfectly functional game mechanism solved by other people. After all, you still haven't said a single word in response to suggestions to per-maybe-haps get off your lazy arse and actively search for a solution of your own initiative. All your responses so far have amounted to little more than "I want, I want, I want, and if you don't give me, then I'm going to throw myself on the ground and thrash and scream unsubstantiated accusations and empty insults until I get my lollipop" at the first threat of having to lift a finger for a change.

Seriously. Maybe select a different server that has extra inventory space for power cells. Nobody forces you to play on server XYZ. (Nobody forces you to play at all.) Get something, or someone, to carry cells. Or why don't you have a look at those game files yourself that you so stubbornly want changed? Certainly if they're so easy to edit as you say, what's keeping you? Why haven't you browsed the workshop for a solution yet, or even provided your own mod? With how open, accessible, and human-readable the game files are, SE is certainly one of the easier games to mod.

In this game, you're supposed to be a space engineer. Not a space whiner, space cranky pre-schooler, or space entitled princess. Time to stop the tantrums and to start living up to the game title.

Are you seriously mocking a typo? Seriously?

My.... requests? This thread was created by someone else, TWO YEARS AGO. I remember this being talked about on the forums too before they were deleted.

Also, petty and greedy? I want this change to benefit everyone. It would literally hurt no one, anywhere, to relocate half the steel plates from the end of the list, to between the computers and the power cells. Or even move some components from earlier in the list, to after the power cells and before the computers. It wouldn't change the crafting costs, the welding time, or anything. It would simply allow you to grind to the computer only, then weld the battery back up as yours. It wouldn't even give you free power, the battery maintains its original power after you re-weld it, even if you place new power cells in it.

Do you seriously just troll around on the support system and tell everyone to go f themselves because you think no one should have ideas that improve the game? Is every suggestion "I want I want I want" to you?

Not everything should be solved by mods. This is something that should be base game, especially considering that power cells are burnt away into scrap to prevent an exploit.

Ugh, you really are a troll. Why is there no block button in this system?

Again, read and comprehend before responding. I'm not mocking your typo. I'm remarking on the impulsiveness and irateness in your responses that you permit to affect your concentration to the point of letting such shallow mistakes happen. Nor am I telling "everyone to go f themselves" or anything else to the effect of your wild and, explicitly so stated by you no less, groundless and unresearched assumptions. It's puzzling why you would continue to undermine your credibility with such detrimentally absurd claims and accusations. At this point, you're arguing participating in adding to this thread on the level of a poo-flinging monkey. Practically everything you're saying by now is pulled out of your arse. (Figuratively, I'm concerned needs clarifying.) If that's the way you want to be seen as a contributor, … your choice, but you stooping to such lows doesn't look like helping your case.

As does being so blinkeredly greedy as you are. Yes. By your own account, you would not only readily put your personal inconvenience above everyone else's gameplay experience, you even explicitly state it's your goal to do so. You elevate yourself to a position of representing the interests of the entire player base solely on the perceived duty of doing something for the greater good when (unless I missed a memo to, you know, literally everyone) nobody actually asked you to climb such pedestal. Your entire reasoning for this change boils down to "I would like it because this would make things easier for me". Which on its own would be perfectly fine, if there wasn't also your notion of "therefore, everybody else will like it, too, and ought to". Your obliviousness to your own pretentiousness is frankly staggering. Let me make this abundantly clear: You are not everyone, and you are not speaking for everyone. No matter the perceived or expected agreement or even desirability your request could conceivably meet in the player base, the only position you can reasonably and reliably take is your own.—And yes, right now it is your request because you're the one currently arguing (or "arguing") in its favour.—As far as this forum is concerned, literally the only indicators of others actively expressing their support for your request you could possibly rely on and show for are the votes on your posts, and on OP's, and comments voicing explicit agreement with you.

"Not everything should be solved by mods." Why? Again, just an assertion with nothing to back it up. Could'a', should'a', would'a'.

"This is something that should be base game, especially considering that power cells are burnt away into scrap to prevent an exploit." Explain to me how you expect your side to win by giving a reason against it. You acknowledge it's a measure against an exploit, yet you want the measure gone?—And why not the exploit itself? You've certainly been making a lot of wind around the waste of power cells; why are you keeping so conveniently silent about addressing why the waste is currently in place to begin with?—Let me say this again: You acknowledge that power cells getting destroyed is part of a larger set of game mechanics currently deliberately in place to address a certain problem under and within the availability constraints of the game's tech and its ongoing development, and you still want to have this one element in the set changed, with little more than "oh, it's just a small change" in the way of trying to convince Keen to doing so no less? With how short-sighted and self-defeating your elaborations are, it's no wonder you're not getting anywhere in this … exchange. Just look at all your responses so far: "I want, I think I know what's best for everyone, I know I can't have because someone put it out of reach (with reasonable justification no less), yet I still want. Also, anyone disagreeing with me is a troll. Raaaah!" Ridiculous. And you even want a way to silence people disagreeing with you in a public forum, the same public forum you yourself chose to be active in, and on your own authority at that. What a great way to represent yourself!

Take a breather, sort out your thoughts, and think about what you're saying before you're saying it. Right now, your comments are so bloated with emptiness, you might as well not bother commenting anything at all.

It's unfathomable whats hapenning here. What should be at best a QOL, "as is", is just very likely that keen simply did not realized that when they introduced the "fix" for the perpetual battery initial charge exploit, they crippled hacking batteries along, rendering them, by all means, not directly hackeable. It wouldn't be their first oversight. Now, what I fail to understand is why would anyone oppose such fix, that is: move the cells further down so you hit the hacking threshold without damaging them, and why? because mods (and I've seen replies with 'mods are the holy grail to everything possibly mod-able') use lots of stuff that is only powered by a battery, if you can't hack it, you can't pilot back to the base, or operate whatever construct you just acquired. Corruption PVE combat, super famous btw, has bases and vehicles that are powered by a single battery, they become worthless from the get go. It is that simple, and is ever more so since uranium is not found on planets anymore, solars alone can't cope, hydrogen needs a buffer source a.k.a. batteries, so, with what purpose would you cripple batteries upon hacking and what ungodly reason could you possibly have to not want this fixed? a fix which btw would have ZERO impact to anyone who couldn't care less. But apparently some people just can't have things working as they feasibly should, because the nay-saying is just too strong, should nay, must nay.

This Andersen guy sounds like he would oppose world peace if someone said "Everyone would like world peace", just because they said everyone in it and he'd probably go off on a tangent...

"Down with world peace! How dare you accuse everyone of wanting this! This shouldn't happen because I'm mad you blanket stated something and I wanna be mad and oppose you for the sake of opposing something that would do no harm to anyone anywhere! I shall now rant at you for 2 weeks because I have nothing better to do than to stand on my high pedestal and pretend to be better than you in every comment I make!"

I'm just gonna ignore his idiocy now.

----------

RDG; Yea, I cannot fathom why anyone would oppose a harmless change that hurts no one at all and only benefits everyone too. Sticking 20 construction components between the power cells and the computers, would not change anything at all in the game whatsoever except that, you could grind batteries down past their computers and then weld them back up to claim them as yours. Without destroying them.

The power cells to scrap thing was to fix an exploit that would allow infinite power. Such an exploit does not come back with this change we've all been wanting. The battery must be ground completely away from the grid entirely, in order to refill its power. If the battery survives even 1%, and is welded back up, it keeps its original power. So ultimately, this change we've requested, does no harm to anyone, and allows batteries to be hacked without destruction.

Honestly, I think the guy blathering all over the place at me is just a troll trying to troll because trolling is funny. Ignore him, idiots tend to get bored if they can't bother people anymore. Its unfortunate that this support system doesn't support blocking.

Its also unfortunate, that this support system requires you to Ctrl F5 every visit because it caches the entire page including all text, so if you come back the next day, it appears exactly the same even if you got an email saying you have comments here. I try to use this place as little as possible now, but, a dev told me on discord that an idea I had looks worthy of posting here, so I am about to go post that here and see what people say. Keep a look out for that if you're curious!

What a dense person. You didn't even get the point.

NOBODY is asking to undo the exploit fix, if you must know this, grinding the block down too much or entirely will still destroy the cells. Do you even understand the difference of hacking and grinding a module down? do you even read what's being asked here? merely to have hacking line not touch the cells, period. Do that, get it hacked, place whatever component else you grinded down back while not touching cells, and there you will have your 100%, 50% or even 1% energy left battery as it just were except on your ownership, no exploits involved, hell there's even space for mistakes if you grind too much bellow the hack line and destroy some cells... are you incapable of understanding this? THERE IS NO power exploit involved in hacking YET AGAIN, hacking is a change of ownership not claiming the entire block's component to build another in it's place. You do realize EVERY single other block merely needs to be grinded down just to the hacking line, put some componenets you got from it back and its voilà, you're the owner, this is what this is all about, yet you think it's about removing the energy exploit? in what world do you even live in that you cannot understand something so simple? But why are we arguing with you? you say "facts" yet you cling to name calling, thoughen up, suggesting go-to-every-modder to change the hundreds of mods out there instead, and still sadly fail to realize that if you have to bring components to acquire a block, you're not hacking it, you're building your own in it's place. Then remove hacking altogether, because why not?

We were already suspecting you were not worth our time, and your F-bomb just clarifies that the place where you belong, is on a complete intelectual oblivion. Have a great life.

His comment was removed, apparently so was mine. But yea. Andersen doesn't get it at all. He doesn't understand that what we want, doesn't even affect the exploit fix in any way shape or form.

Power cells would still produce scrap, and thus prevent the infinite energy exploit, even with components placed between the battery and the computers. Simple as that. If he can't understand that, then he's not going to understand it no matter how much time you spend on it.

For those who are stil interested in this i have made a mod yesterday who does exactly this. I don't know if KEEN will ever consider this small QOL change, but in the meantime you can check this out: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2968094117