Factorio Forums

The following post is about exploiting a bug around multi pole systems exploiting the same energy production.

Actually you can see that two different pole system exploiting the same source has the same production as if there was only one pole system!
Example:
5 solar panel produce exactly the consumtion for 1 radar. Using 2 different pole system you can sustain for 2 radars with the same 5 solar panel. As you can see, to get 2 different pole system, you shall never make a join between the poles and then cute/place coper cables handmade.


Some questions arise:
Could it work with others sources of energy? Yes, you can do it with Steam Engine also. But you can't multiple the energy restitution from a basic accumulator sadly.
How many times can we multiply the production? As many as space allow you to get your pole in range with the same producer.

Fine you can multiply energy from nothing but I use only one pole system to sustain all my bases...
No problem, There is a way to make a join of all yours producer pole systems!

The best way is to use basic accumulators as a join for your main system.
Example: It only give you to handmade multi pole systems and you can multiply your energy production from nearly naught.

Here an example of what I personally achieved with only solar panels/basic accumulator and I get a x9 multiplicator (with 8 independent systems). What's making me laugh is that on my main system I've got basic accumulator has my main energy producer days and nights! Sorry for my poor Shakespearean writings. Hope it would be useful to many of you, dears readers.

EDIT: As your production is multiplied and your storage isn't, you actually have to build many times less producers OR build many times more storages (how many? divide/multiply by the number of independent systems using all the same producers [your main one count as one if attached]).
I advise you to attach your main system in order to have a better idea of your general production when consulting the consuming/producing panel of your main system (You wont have to move to your production site in order to).

That's interesting. At first glance it seems that the power "generation" is at the pole rather than the actual producer.

I'm at work so can't test,
What happens if you use substations instead?
Quick math on the top of my head,
3x3 substations = 6x6 area.
Wire range of 14(?) leaves 6 to be taken with solars touching all substations.
16 solar panels for 9x substations? Instead of the 8 you are using.

If my calculations aren't wrong you can get up to 6800% of power from one steam generator!

As your production is multiplied and your storage isn't,

Hey. Hey. Hey.

What if you were to hook up one accumulator multiplier system to another multiplier system? Then the first system would be getting multiplied 9x, wouldn't it? That means 9 times the storage.

The you hook the second system up to a third system.

Then you hook up the third system back to the first system.

Infinite power. Forever.

@bobucles
I tried to multiply storage by combining systems for one basic accumulator, it doesn't work as intended (doesn't multiply storage ability).
I think it's a good thing since it allows you to have an object to communicate the energy across systems.
That's why I said it works only for solar panels and steam engines.

@PiggyWhiskey
Maybe you can get an optimal space production with substations or even get more subsystems to increase the multiplier. I really don't know which one is the best but now I've got so much energy that doesn't interest me to make it optimal even with Marathon' mode...
The system that I use is clearly not an optimal one. Just an example of implementation.

@all
About the consumer object routed on multiply system (as Basic accumulator in our case) just get the energy from every subsystem. It doesn't consume more nor goes more efficient just have many different sources.
But didn't try others than basic accumulator if someone want to go ahead of us

Shouldn't this be posted in Bug reports, instead of Gameplay help? Especially since the title contains the words Bug/Exploit

Gameplay Help is for understanding how the game works (what machines/entities do and how things like trains work) and for help if you're stuck.
This seems to me to be a reproducible bug, moved to Bug Reports.

This is not a bug report even if I said "exploit bug".
It's just working as dev doesn't intended to

I think it's a nice trick since all poles connection has to be handmade. It's time consuming to put in place and really promote the use of adding/deleting poles copper cable (since nobody will use it otherwise).

If dev wants to delete this, maybe just make it an option

I knew about this, but I was lazy to fix it, and I was hoping no one will ever notice. Silly me

Ok, so it is fixed for 0.12.11. The energy of solar panel is now split between the networks evenly.

Was it a solar panel exclusive issue? One of the comments further up mentioned steam engines.

PiggyWhiskey wrote:Was it a solar panel exclusive issue? One of the comments further up mentioned steam engines.

Yes, it is solar panel exclusive, and it is related to the optimisations made for it.

kovarex wrote:Ok, so it is fixed for 0.12.11. The energy of solar panel is now split between the networks evenly.

Are only the solar panels affected by this?

EstebanLB wrote:

kovarex wrote:Ok, so it is fixed for 0.12.11. The energy of solar panel is now split between the networks evenly.

Are only the solar panels affected by this?

Yes, as they have custom kind of optimisation. (The optimisation counts the overall count of solar panels of each type in the network as they are built, but during the energy simulation, it just works with the calculated number instead of going through all of them every tick).