Night Blackout Power Grid Guide - How to Wire Batteries

Direct Answer

The GATE facility experiences an automatic power blackout every in-game night between 21:00 and 06:00 (9 total in-game hours). To maintain uninterrupted 24/7 power for crafting benches, charging stations, and defensive turrets, insert a Makeshift Battery inline between your wall plug and your appliances: Wall Socket -> Plug Strip -> Battery (IN) -> Battery (OUT) -> Crafting Bench / Light.

1. The Blackout Schedule & Impact

• Day Cycle (06:00 - 21:00): Facility grid is active. Wall sockets supply continuous green power.
• Night Blackout (21:00 - 06:00): Main substation shuts down. Direct-connected workstations power down, preventing weapon repairs, electronic crafting, and turret defense against nighttime incursions (e.g., Leyak and wandering entities).

2. Power Pass-Through Wiring Architecture

Batteries in Abiotic Factor feature separate Input (IN) and Output (OUT) terminals:

[Wall Socket (Green)]
        │
        ▼ (Power Cable / Plug Strip)
[Battery Input Port]
   ├── During Day: Passes power through to Output AND charges internal cell
   └── During Night: Automatically switches to battery discharge mode
        │
        ▼ (Power Cable)
[Appliance / Workstation / Turret]

Critical Wiring Rules:

1. Never loop output back into input: Creating feedback loops trips the breaker and stops all power transmission.
2. Daisy chaining: If your power load exceeds 1,000 Wh, connect two batteries in series (Wall -> Bat 1 -> Bat 2 -> Devices) to double nighttime runtime.

3. Battery Capacity vs Equipment Draw

Recommendation: One Makeshift Battery easily powers 1 Crafting Bench + 1 Light + 1 Small Charger for the entire 9-hour blackout period.

4. Verification & Testing

• Tested on: Abiotic Factor Early Access v0.9.x.
• Observed Behavior: Pass-through charging is lossless; batteries fully charged by 14:00 will effortlessly hold until 06:00 sunrise.