The headlamp is severely under-powered compared to a real-life equivalent.

[ampersand55]

Describe the bug

I tested it in game, and it runs out of batteries after a little over 23 minutes which makes it borderline unusable. It also accepts ultra-light batteries (2/2) which runs out immediately after you turn it on.

The cheapest headlamp sold by US largest outdoor retailer (Recreational Equipment Incorporated) is advertised as having 6 hours burn-time at its highest setting.

high: 6 hours / 300 lumen (55 meters)
medium: 12 hours / 150 lumen (35 meters)
low: 140 hours / 6 lumen (8 meters)

Reference:

"Black Diamond Astro 300 Headlamp" costs $19.95 compared to $40 for the pre-apocalypse price of the in-game headlamp. It weighs 75 grams compared to in-game 520 grams.

https://www.rei.com/product/202772/black-diamond-astro-300-headlamp

Attach save file

N/A

Steps to reproduce

Spawn a headlight and a light battery, load it and turn it on. Do the same with a very light battery.

Expected behavior

I expect it to work for a couple of hours at the very least.

Proposed solution: Make it take medium batteries (56/56).

According to this site LEDs produce 80-152 lumen per watt, so a 300 lumen LED headlamp it should have a power consumption between 2-3.5 W. Does the json flag LIGHT_300 stand for 300 lumen?

If we say it's 3W and a medium battery is 56 kJ it should run for 3W / 56 kJ = 18666.66 seconds ~ 5.185 hours, which is close enough to the 6 hours expected.

We shouldn't need to specify power draw for LED sources, we can calculate it from lumen emitted and adjust it with json flags specifying conversion efficiency.

Screenshots

No response

Versions and configuration

• OS: Windows
  • OS Version: 10.0.14393.7428 (1607)
• Game Version: d515611 [64-bit]
• Graphics Version: Tiles
• Game Language: System language []
• Mods loaded: [
  Dark Days Ahead [dda],
  Disable NPC Needs [no_npc_food],
  Portal Storms Ignore NPCs [personal_portal_storms],
  Slowdown Fungal Growth [no_fungal_growth]
  ]

Additional context

No response

[solarfl4re]

Note that the 6 hour figure is runtime to 10% of initial output according to the user guide.

It'll be much the same for other headlamps, too. Depending on whether it's PWM or current regulated, your light will either gradually dim, or when voltage becomes too low in a regulated light, output will sharply drop. Some discussion on pros and cons here.

Along with the bright & inexpensive model you linked to, there are pricy high-end headlamps like this Surefire Maximus - bright, durable, charges from a car or wall outlet. The perfect headlamp for the serious survivor!

I have no idea if it's reasonable to have the in-game headlamp dim gradually. Probably easier to just chop a few hours off the max runtime figure?

[Maddremor]

Two notes on this:

First I want to note that the Astro 300 would not fit a medium battery which is something like a D cell or 3 AA in a trenchcoat.
Second, the output of a lamp is more complex than a straight lumen rating. Since flashlights and headlights are directed but we don't have facing for the player character we end up with them "punching above their weight class" in terms of how much of the screen they reveal.

[IdleSol]

Until we can fit multiple batteries in one item. There is no point in sticking to actual power consumption values.

So the only thing we need to focus on is run time. Or if a flashlight is supposed to run for 8 hours. Then its consumption should be equal to:
16000 / 8 / 60 / 60 = 560 mW

Alternative. Focus on a regular flashlight:

Cataclysm-DDA/data/json/items/tool/lighting.json

Line 219 in d515611

"power_draw": "1560 mW",

[ampersand55]

As there is a recipe for creating a headlamp that takes a flashlight and some string/tape/patches, and you can uncraft the headlamp to get a flashlight, the headlamp should be treated as if you have a flashlight strapped to the top of your head.

Perhaps we should split the headlamp into two. one "makeshift headlamp" representing a flashlight trapped to your head, and one "regular headlamp" that takes a light battery and has a slightly lower illumination and power consumption than the flashlight

[kevingranade]

Until we can fit multiple batteries in one item. There is no point in sticking to actual power consumption values.

The primary goal is to match runtime, but we don't want to just randomly set consumption and battery capacity. We are NOT changing to multiple batteries per tool, please take a look at https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/doc/batteries_and_electricity.md

However, the "technical details" in the linked site says it accepts three AAA batteries, which is what we mean when we use medium batteries.

[AudBobb]

I have no idea if it's reasonable to have the in-game headlamp dim gradually. Probably easier to just chop a few hours off the max runtime figure?

Don't flashlights already do this?

[IdleSol]

Don't flashlights already do this?

They do. For battery 16, the first radius reduction is on 2/16. Then 1/16.

And while I was checking this out, I noticed that the flashlight involved in the recipe for making a headlamp is powered by medium batteries.

Cataclysm-DDA/data/json/items/tool/lighting.json

Line 209 in ad8047d

"flag_restriction": [ "BATTERY_MEDIUM" ],

UPD. My personal opinion. For almost all electronics that can be enabled, you should remove: "charges_per_use": 1