Factorio Forums

Problem...

I'm playing in a scarce resource world. As my coal reserves were depleting, future blackouts became a huge concern.

The largest power consumers are my radars (9 of them). It occurred to me: Why don't I just cycle them to lower their average power requirement?

I setup a circuit such that my Radars only Rotate & Radiate (*) 20% of the time. Right now it's 6 seconds (180 ticks) out of every 30 seconds.

Master Control Circuit

CC - Constant Combinator / AC - Arithmetic Combinator / DC - Decider Combinator

Shorthand Notation: Condition ==> Output

Using CC:

   0 (Signal Zero) set to 1 for use in clock circuit
   C (Cycle Percentage) set to 20
   P (Period) set to 1800 (30 seconds)

Using 1st DC:

   Setup a standard clock circuit with 1st DC (0 < P ==> Input Count of 0)   

Use 2 ACs to Calculate T (Time) by multiplying P by 20 then dividing by 100

1st AC

   P * C ==> Signal 1

2nd AC

   Signal 1 / 100 ==> T

2nd DC

   if clock (Signal 0) less than T (Time to operate) then output Radar = 1
   0 < T ==> Radar 1

I then run the result through green wire connected to my main electrical network.

Local Power Switch

Each place there's a radar, I add a power switch between a Small Electric Pole and the nearest power source (generally a Large Electric Pole). Connect the Green Wire to the switch and have Enabled condition set to Radar = 1

Results

Significantly reduced the average power usage of my radars over time. At any time, when near the Master Control Circuit, you can slide the C(ycle) time value up to 100 which causes them to stay on all the time.

Flaws & Future Improvements

My current method turns them all on at the same time, so there's a power spike from no demand to 2.7 MW. It would be rarely trivial to set it up so that only one was on at any given time.

• Rather than specifying the Period, calculate it by multiplying the desired "On Time" by the number of radars.
  (For example, I have 9 radars. Assume I wanted each one to be on 5 seconds (150 ticks), P = 9 * 150.
• Using an AC, divide the clock counter (SIgnal 0) by the number of Radars (resulting in a sequence of 0 to 8)
• Either number the Radars starting from zero, or use a 2nd AC to add 1 to the above sequence
• Change the Enabled condition for each Power Switch to Radar Signal = [X] where X is the ID assigned to that Radar station

(*) A phrase from my time in the U.S. Navy submarine force

Circuit Depiction



Example Power Usage @ 1 Hour Scale

For cycling radars I would do the following:
Combinators (all arithmetic unless otherwise stated):

• Combinator 1: A + 1 = A (timer that counts ticks, output goes to input)
• Constant Combinator (C): P = 1800 (30 seconds), R = 10 (number of radars)
• Combinator 2: P / R = D (number of ticks 1 radar is active, in this case 180)
• Combinator 3: A % P = C (divides the number of counted ticks by the period and only uses the remainder, resulting in a number between 0 and 1799 = cycle)
• Combinator 4: C / D = S (divides the cycle by D, giving a number between 0 and 9)
• Combinator 5 (optional): S + 1 = T (adds 1 to the result to get a number between 1 and 10)
• Power switch (6): set to T = 1 (for the first radar), set it to a number between 1 and 10 for every other radar

Given the input P = 1800 (30 seconds) and R = 10 (10 radars) this will produce a result T that will iterate over the numbers 1 to 10 so that every radar is active for 3 seconds (180 ticks).

Since you stated that blackouts were a concern, you can also do the following:
Place a single accumulator on the main grid and connect it using red/green wire, you can set it so it will output its current charge (0-100). Add a decider combinator that will output 1 if the charge is 0 (empty accumulator), then add an arithmetic combinator that will subtract 1000 from T. That way T will be negative and no radars will be activated when power is low.

daniel34 wrote:For cycling radars I would do the following:

Thanks. I see how that works.

I saw "Rotate and Radiate" and, even before reading the footnote, knew that was from a sub sailor.

Parmenio wrote:I saw "Rotate and Radiate" and, even before reading the footnote, knew that was from a sub sailor.

I am a surface sailor and we use the same term. Mostly when men were working aloft (up high on the superstructure).

I wondered how subs used radar when they were under water.

[Koub] Moved to Show your creations > Energy production (I understand it's "less energy consumption", but I feel this creation suits better the spirit of this subforum than combinator subforum)

IMHO it's much more effective to work with a period of 8 seconds. It takes roughly that long for the fog of war to settle on a terrain that's no longer observed. Keep switch active for ~45 ticks out of every 480, and you have a radar that's consuming ~33 KW (including combinators) and keeps territory under observation 100% of the time.

Setup:

1. Incrementing arithmetic combinator: A = A + 1
2. Modulus arithmetic combinator: B = A % 480
3. Switch: active when B < 45