Quote:
Originally Posted by jedidia

Well, it still doesn't change the fact that nothing happens if the power goes out

Well, to think of it, the worst thing that can happen with a fridge being cut from power is overheating... which will eventually cause the loss of resources.
The worst thing to happen is losing power to liefsupports. If the supply of stored consumables isn't big enough for a crew to survive a long period of time (and not to forget about decaying of stores kept in unpowered fridge) they're a bunch of dead UMMUs alright.
In which cases power cut situation may arise? Reactor overheat, manual disabling, anything else?
Speaking of punishment, I can see why you want to make user to feel the pain, but having enough real-life experience of maintenance of different electrical and electronic systems myself I can tell you that all systems like that has a good deal of protection and backup circuits made specifically to prevent 'punishment' situations. That's why I don't see any reason why you need to worry about too little punishment, at least regarding power distribution. Our power system is completely closed-cycle (in all the cases except of external supply situation or using a solar array) and hence should be fully under our control. The cooling system is another matter since it's open-cycle with heat coming from and going to outside.
So much we have only two punishments for a no-power situation: no control over cooling/heating and no control over anything at all. I'd say it is well enogh. (Oh yeah, there's the third - no regeneration. Even better.)
Currently I see the following damage simulation scenarios:
1) Reactor is being overheated to a critical temperature because of a lack of connection to deployed radiators (human error) or radiators cold enough (too close to the Sun, or maybe it's connected to the same radiator as NTR

). It results in automatic reactor shutdown and IMS being powered by batteries. If the reactor isn't being restarted prior to a full batteries discharge the general power fail occurs. Vessel lose control, lifesupports stops to regenerate consumables, MCS stops to deliver heat to radiators. The vessel is either being heated (too close to the sun) or being cooled (too far from the sun) by itself until different modules go out of their temperature range. I'm pretty sure that with the current configs storage modules will be first to fail, and with lifesupports offline it will result in a quick death of a crew. Maybe even too quick. If there's no storage capacity and no regeneration, will they die instantly in the moment it happens?
2) Overheating or undercooling of some separate modules except of a reactor.
What will happen if storages' temp is out of working range but lifesupport is still online? Will it be enough for crew to survive or is at least some little storage necessary?
Lifesupport fail is a clear case. As long as we have our storages in working range everything's OK.
Overheated radiators just stop to radiate heat and it causes a heat-rising avalanche which will result in a general fail pretty quick.
Habitats temperature fail. Sudden death.
Solars array overheat. Well, it's all the same as reactor fail except that they won't cool down by themselves when disabled, at least on the same orbit.
Anything I forgot?
Well, there's a CM of course. Unpowering it will cause the loss of control. Overheating it will result in the same. Some of them also have a crew capacity which will be affected too.