Expandable Energy Storage Array

An energy storage unit with capacity determined by the battery/crystal items placed in it.

In my perusal and brutalizing editing of the wiki, I came across the MFSU page and noted, with some dismay, the line: 'This is the only storage unit, out of 4, that stores less energy than the sum of its component [sic] does.' (Which is true - 40M for the MFSU vs 64M from 6 lapotron crystals and the MFE.) So I thought about that, and a fittingly IC2 sort of way to address the issue, and came up with the idea of the EESA, or Expandable Energy Storage Array.

Long story short, it's a box with some number of slots in it, in a grid - maybe 3x3 or 4x2 or 4x4, it doesn't matter as far as the concept is concerned - into which you place RE Batteries, Advanced RE Batteries, Energy Crystals, or Lapotron Crystals (or maybe something else, like the charging versions). Essentially, the box would wire them in series and act as one giant energy storage box, discharging and recharging the individual items instead of a single internal reservoir as in the current EU storage blocks. Thus, you could expand your storage a little more gradually as you acquired the resources to do so. I've been doing some research on batteries and what might make sense somewhere between IC2 and reality, and this is what I came up with.

A few options (I love giving options, it makes my weird ideas easier to stomach):
- Have a single reservoir, but just adjust its size dynamically based on what items are installed instead of actually charging/discharging the actual items (not sure /quite/ how this would be coded though)
- Make the user fill every slot; if there's no battery, it has to be occupied with a cable or something (for electrical connectivity, see) or the block won't accept input or give output
- For voltage: either have another slot that determines output voltage, which accepts an LV/MV/HV/EV transformer, or have the EESA shapeless-craftable with those to set its voltage (so it'd have no output initially, and you'd also have to empty it and wrench it out to change the voltage). I tend to favor the former, but that's me.
- Limit the input items to the tier of the EESA itself (admittedly this is probably easier if it's crafted with a transformer to set its voltage? but what do I know about code)
- Alternately, have different tiers of EESA where each is used to craft the next one, so there's more of a sense of progression (the only progression now is MFE -> MFSU, the batbox and CESU are pretty worthless once you have a few transformer upgrades and don't need the batbox for a jetpack)
- Even more alternately, make the EESA EV(+IV?) only, which would limit it to being simply an expandable high-tier storage device.
- A slightly odder idea: add storage space in the form of connected blocks, a la reactor chambers for the nuclear reactor, to expand the EESA's available slots. Make a /really/ big series-battery.

Quote from McAztec

I'd like to point out that if you connect power sources in Series you get more Voltage and the same Itensity of 1 single source, you must connect them in Paralel to stay at the same Voltage, but increase the Intensity (multiply by their number). Also, being that these are not actual generators, but capacitors (storage units, call them whatever) they wouldn't work at all (or very little energy would be transmited) in series, at least for the classic model of a capacitor, 2 metal sheets with a layer of insulation in between and all that, dunno what kind of storage unit would the Energy (or Lapotron) Crystal be.

Like I said: 'somewhere between IC2 and reality'. If you wire IC2 energy storage in series, you get higher capacity and consistent voltage based on the block that outputs last. If you wire it in parallel, you get... not exactly reduced capacity per se, but because of the increased rate of output, less 'capacity' in the sense that you can't keep up the same rate of transfer for as long as the series wiring - but the same voltage (assuming your blocks are all the same thing). Granted, this all assumes your EU has somewhere to go. But that's the way I was looking at things.

Thanks for the lesson, though - I obviously didn't dig deeply enough in my research. It's been quite a few years since I actually worked on electronics as part of my job, and even longer since I got to do any component-level maintenance.

Quote from MauveCloud

I wasn't suggesting it as a solution. I was simply pointing out the existence of the GT Battery Buffer, so that the OP would be aware of it and could clarify how the suggestion differs from it.

Would you believe I never even used the buffer? Either it wasn't in the version I played with, or never drew my interest.

The difference is that core IC2 doesn't include anything like it, or (IMO) any significant way of using/reason to use portable energy storage (basic, at least, charging versions notwithstanding) once you've crafted the important mod items. Simply stating 'GregTech already has this' is insufficient reasoning as to why core IC2 shouldn't include it, particularly when a fair number of the people I play with absolutely detest GT and have flat-out stated regardless of how shiny the modpack I build they will not play it if that's included. I'm okay with GT myself, in fact I rather like it from time to time, but gaming is primarily a social thing for me and if I can't play with others (specifically, people I already know and trust) it's just not worth it. Thus my IC2 experience is almost always limited to core IC2 only, and so that's where I come from with all of my suggestions.

Having said that, now that you linked that article, my thoughtfully researched and fleshed-out (so I thought) idea pretty much looks like I just ripped off Greg's stuff and reposted it. Feels bad man.