Power Cores: What exactly are they?

[Ricardus_Arantium]

Hi,

This is mostly a lore question. I'm not interested in the purpose of the Power Core item gameplay wise, just what they are meant to be, in the world of Kenshi.

Are they some sort of large capacity energy storage (like a battery)? Are they generators (like a miniature fuel based generator)?

Would they be generating electrical power using the Oil of Skeletons and other robots? I suppose this would fit in with the "Some sort of Skeleton heart" description, if we consider the Oil to be their "blood". The fact that Oil doesn't get depleted when they run around somewhat contradicts this interpretation, but I can accept this may be just for gameplay reasons.

I'd like to hear other peoples' thoughts on this. What is known about these Power Cores?

[Full Frontal Yeti]

It's just old junk that some fools pay a lot for but nonoe's ever found anything useful to do with.
Not even sure why they call them power cores, sense no one has ever used one to power anything.

Some fools like to imagine these are Skeleton parts, equivalent to some of our own internal organs. But even skeletons don't know what to do with them anymore than anyone else does.

So they are useless junk for the most part, but worth a bit of pocket change if you can find a sucker to buy them off you.

[mslft]

This is all speculation, but I think it is just a large battery, specifically a RTG (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator). It generates electricity from the decay heat of radioactive elements inside. An RTG has no moving parts and comparatively low power output. They are used on space probes.

I think this object would be too large to fit inside a skeleton, if you drop one on the ground you can see they are rather large. I think it is likely Skeletons have a smaller integrated power supply OR have internal batteries that are recharged by the skeleton repair bed.

I believe "oil" for in-game skeletons refers to hydraulic fluid. This is what enables them to move. (description of skeleton muscle). As they sustain damage the fluid can leak out of the hydraulic cylinders. If a cylinder is empty it won't work anymore.

However, you bring up an interesting point. It is relatively common in today's world for hot fluids to be circulated through a heat exchanger, and this waste heat to be recaptured and transformed into usable energy.

Now this is a science-fiction setting, so I can speculate all day on how to supply enough power to a mobile machine the size of a man to keep it running for hundreds of years. The best thing a creator of content can do here is to know roughly what modern machinery looks like and roughly how it works, and to repeat and extrapolate some of these motifs in design of a futuristic technology.