[Suggestion] - Nocturnal control

[The Nightmare Tank]

So a few days ago, I was thinking that there should be some kind of way to control if something is active or not at night time. For example, a time switch that deactivates a light at night time, since they wouldn't really need those while they're sleeping, especially if it's lights that aren't even in their barracks or next to Bristle Blossoms. Or deactivates liquid/gas pumps that aren't necessary at the moment. Basically to minimize power wastage through the night. Or to enable Coal Generators and such at night while the Manual Generators are unused, and so on.

[goboking]

Time Switches are at the top of my list of things I'd like to see added to the game.  A simple Day/Night On/Off function would allow us to cool the lights in our work areas during the night and those in our sleeping quarters during the day.  There are other applications, I'm sure, but this is the big one for me.

[WanderingKid]

2 hours ago, The Nightmare Tank said:

So a few days ago, I was thinking that there should be some kind of way to control if something is active or not at night time. For example, a time switch that deactivates a light at night time, since they wouldn't really need those while they're sleeping, especially if it's lights that aren't even in their barracks or next to Bristle Blossoms. Or deactivates liquid/gas pumps that aren't necessary at the moment. Basically to minimize power wastage through the night. Or to enable Coal Generators and such at night while the Manual Generators are unused, and so on.

There are only a few cases where I could see significant value here.  Lights draw 5w, I'm so not worried about them I spam them everywhere when I get around to it.  The heat I could do without, so there's a little value there.

Pumps I want running overnight if they're running at all, they don't draw power if the pipe is blocked (such as feeding the lavatories) so they're either refilling overnight the day's usage or they're idle.  If I need to move water/air, I typically continuously need to move water/air, either to the distillers or around the base.  Again, if the air isn't being used (at max normal pressure), the pump stops, so it's self regulating except for air to the sleeping quarters.

Once I (personally, everyone has their taste) switch over to coal I typically deconstruct the manual generators completely.  Because coal generators require a huge battery bank early to not waste coal when you don't have a lot of system load, the batteries can almost always handle an overnight charge.  Once those 500kg go into a coal, you're getting 300kJ at 600W, no matter what (along with 10kg of CO2 when it's done).  Need a place to store it if you've only got 300-400w load on the system, or to store the energy from the backup coal generators.   Also, coal is a hand load.  Disabling NGG or Hydrogen generators I could see, though, as those are more automatic.

I think simple motion detection switches on the lights (so they don't run unless someone is near them or you turn them on permanently, like for bristle berries) would be a more effective implementation of the general concept to lower ambient heat. 

[The Nightmare Tank]

So like a security light sort of thing?

[WanderingKid]

10 minutes ago, The Nightmare Tank said:

So like a security light sort of thing?

Pretty much my though, yeah.