RTG power decay

@VectorY There's no reason to have a probe run for that long in career mode.

@thatguywhodidathing, what I meant was that there would be a way to have infinite and decaying RTGs in the Career Mode.

@VectorY Half-life would most certainly be an XML attribute, so you could make it infinite. If you want to go to the dark pole of vulco you can still use an RTG, just not stay there for 1000 years. And it had been a month since your last comment, I assumed you gave up.

@thatguywhodidathing, maybe there could be another version of the RTG, one that decays. That way, decaying RTGs can be in the game, like what you want, but without removing the infinite power of the currently existing RTGs.

@thatguywhodidathing, What if I want to get to somewhere like the "dark pole" of Vulco? Rovers shouldn't be limited to that part of Vulco. And a month since what?

@VectorY Part of vulco near the day/night boundary has land with sunlight. Why would you be driving a rover on the dark side of vulco for 87 years anyway? Even if you, for some reason, had to drive your rover after 87 years, just wait a bit longer for the half-decayed RTG to charge your battery. The dark side of vulco is intended to be an extreme environment. RTGs will still last more than long enough to do whatever it is you need to do. Also, it's been a month.

@thatguywhodidathing, Vulco Rovers are one of those reasons. It's because you can't land a craft in lava, and the side of Vulco that doesn't have lava doesn't get any light, so the craft would need to use RTGs in order to stay operational.

@VectorY But that does not address why adding a decay, a decay longer than pretty much all reasonable missions, would harm gameplay.

@thatguywhodidathing, if RTGs feel like cheating to you, then you can avoid using them. And like you said, the expensive price IS the downside, which should discourage players from using a lot of them in all of their crafts.

@VectorY Is limited power a bad thing? It would add depth to the power mechanic, no longer could you just slap an RTG on your craft and call it a day. If you want infinite power you can use solar panels, but there's depth to that due to weight and sun distance. RTGs are just a bit cheaty in my opinion, basically being a part that lets you pay a lot of money to ignore power constraints forever.

@thatguywhodidathing, I already knew that the RTG power wouldn't cut off after 87.7 years, but the power would still be (theoretically) limited, because of the decrease in power over time. In other words, the total amount of power you would get from an RTG will get infinitely close to (but never reach) a certain value.

@VectorY The only other game like juno is ksp, and their RTGs don't decay. (and they run on "Blutonium," according to the part description) Juno can probably be more realistic than that. I don't see how adding this would reduce uniqueness. It would balance the method of just using them and forgetting about power. If it was clearly communicated that RTGs decay, then it would just be a design constraint. Also it would have a half-life. That means the power would drop off smoothly and not just cut out after 87.7 years. That would make the usable lifetime longer if you design around saving power.

@thatguywhodidathing, JNO isn't completely realistic to begin with. Even though it would be nice for the game to be a bit more realistic, realism shouldn't be added to the game if it will sacrifice the uniqueness of the game. Also, what if players who are planning REALLY long missions (more than 87.7 years) need a passive source of power? Besides, RTGs were made to provide endless power anywhere in the system, but they come with the drawback of being large and expensive.