Factorio Forums

How long is the day/ Night time ?

I'm trying to make and accurate calc of solar panel / accumulators ratio
but i think i miss some info....

i have a 30 MW consumption during daytime full load powered from steam engines.
I want to get rid of steam engines :

1) To match 30 MW i need 500 solar pannels ( 60kW each ) to cover consumption under daytime.

2) How many accumulators i need to cover the night time ?

-Full night is 41 s
-Sunrise + Sunset are around 36 sec in total i consider half of their durations and add it to night time
-Total Night = around 59 sec

An accumulator keeps 5 MJ Energy and a max input/output of 300 Kw power so it can give 300 kw output for 5000/300 = 16,66 sec.
So for 30 MW i need 30000/3000 = 100 Accumulators
so for night time ( 59 seconds ) 59/16.66 = 3.54*100 = rounded 355 accumulators.

3) How many solar pannel i have to add to the 500 to replenish the accumulators during daytime ?

Total Night is 59 sec
Total full day is ( 416,6 - 59 ) = 357.6 s

59 is around the 16.5% of 357.6
so ill' add 16.5% to my solar pannels with the only purpose of refilling the capacitors.



So at the end : 580 solar pannels and 355 accumulators

Rougly you can say 1 accumulator every 2 solar pannels.


Is that right ? Someone can Confirm This Pls.




Tnx For help.

Your calculations are correct, but for one point: the night is MUCH shorter (somewhere in the region 3/4 day, 1/4 night). And at dawn and sunset there is some sort increase and decrease in solar power production, maybe someone could specify some numbers.

Try to build half the accus and 3/4 of the solar collectors you mentioned and give it a try. 30MW is already quite a lot, do you have used every free module-space with efficiency modules where you dont need other modules? Even if you just build solar collectors and no accus at all, your need for fuel will drop to 25% or less, because the steam engines will only work at night.

Edit: I took a look at one of my factories, I need 20 MW power, and at the moment I am working with 400 solar collectors, 8 steam engines and 700 accus.

BurnHard wrote:Your calculations are correct, but for one point: the night is MUCH shorter (somewhere in the region 3/4 day, 1/4 night). And at dawn and sunset there is some sort increase and decrease in solar power production, maybe someone could specify some numbers.

Try to build half the accus and 3/4 of the solar collectors you mentioned and give it a try. 30MW is already quite a lot, do you have used every free module-space with efficiency modules where you dont need other modules. Even if you just build solar collectors and no accus at all, your need for fuel will drop to 25% or less, because the steam engines will only work at night.

Edit: I took a look at one of my factories, I need 20 MW power, and at the moment I am working with 400 solar collectors, 8 steam engines and 700 accus.

i have made and error. i need 2593 accumulators to have 300kw output for 12h Supposing (night time is 12 h)
to have 30 MW i need 30000/300 * 2593 = 259300 accumulators..........
so i think there is something wrong with day/time durations.

Yes my base is very large , is a test base. full of speed/effectivity/productivity lvl 3 modules.

Dont mix up real time hours with ingame hours. A ingame night is maybe only 100 (real-time)seconds long. So you need just enough accus to get 30MW for 100 seconds = 3 Gigajoules = 3000 MJ + reserve

Just give it at try with eg 750 collectors and 1000 accus, it should already work with less.

BurnHard wrote:Dont mix up real time hours with ingame hours. A ingame night is maybe only 100 (real-time)seconds long. So you need just enough accus to get 30MW for 100 seconds = 3 Gigajoules = 3000 MJ + reserve

so the info i'm missing is how long is a INGAME full day , and how is splitted day/night =)

viewing the energy consumption graph , with a 1 min scale ,solar pannels are all shut down for around 40 secs.

I wolud like to know the real timings.

Maybe you will get the quickest results if you open the electric network ingame, take a stopwatch, wait one full day, one full night, and write down your results ^^ also measure the ramp up- / ramp down times.

I just skim through it, but this thread should contain all needed information:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =18&t=1687

BurnHard wrote:Maybe you will get the quickest results if you open the electric network ingame, take a stopwatch, wait one full day, one full night, and write down your results ^^ also measure the ramp up- / ramp down times.

=)

This picture shows me you have more than double the amount of solar collectors you actually need

BurnHard wrote:This picture shows me you have more than double the amount of solar collectors you actually need

yup about 5 times the needed =)

Maybe the devs have time to gift us with the exact numbers

I said in that thread (mentioned above) night/day ration is 0.3060 but it was wrong, because I divided it with fullday.
Its more likely 0.436

My test setup to replace 10 steam engines end up with (85+37=) 122 solars and 102 accumulators. I used 16 radars and 23 lasers to create consumption close to 5.1 MW
(37/85, now it is close to night/day ration)

rk84 wrote:I said in that thread (mentioned above) night/day ration is 0.3060 but it was wrong, because I divided it with fullday.
Its more likely 0.436

My test setup to replace 10 steam engines end up with (85+37=) 122 solars and 102 accumulators. I used 16 radars and 23 lasers to create consumption close to 5.1 MW
(37/85, now it is close to night/day ration)

try my calcs

with 10 steam engine = 10*510 Kw = 5100/60kW = 85 Solar pannels

85 +15% = 98 Solar pannels

Accumulators = Total Solar Pannels * 0.6 = 59

BurnHard wrote:Maybe the devs have time to gift us with the exact numbers

I Found that a full day is 25.000 ticks , 60 ticks/s = 416.6 realtime seconds.
And the night with sunrise and sunset is 138 seconds
those from developers notes
So i'll assume :

full day : 416.6 sec
full dark night : 40-41sec ---->41
dark night+sunrise+sunset = 75-76 s ---> 76 s
so full light is 340.6

@OP: The night is much longer then 73 seconds.

The data I collected (by having a single solar power a radar) is that night 43~ seconds, dawn and dusk are both 85~ seconds, and day is 207~ seconds, for 420 seconds total (or exactly 7 minutes). This means you need 128 seconds power stored in accumulators to power your factory through the night (including dawn/dusk). To skip to the end, let's say P = avg power usage of your factory in MW. You need P * 25.6 accumulators, and P * 24 solar panels (approx). I like to just round it off to P * 26 for both, since having extra solar power is good, and it's easier.