Factorio Forums

Hello,

this might be a small improvement, but I'd like to have a property for "Prototype/ElectricPole", that, when set, makes the energy ignore those poles when doing energy distribution.

Currently I know of two mods that alter energy distribution for a more realistic structure:
FlowNetwork (0.13)
High Voltage (0.15)
Both can easily be adapted to work on 0.18, and I want to update them.

Both of those mods have the same issue: When two power poles are connected by a copper wire, mods can't modify / limit the flow of energy through them. Both mods resort to connecting power poles with red cables instead.
Now that comes with its own issues, notably that the power grid can't be displayed properly - because no copper wire connection means no power connection to the game.

My solution would be to flag energy poles to prevent the engine from including them when distributing power, leaving the job to the mod. That way, we could mod energy poles connected with copper cables, and the power grid would still show those poles as connected as well.

What do you think about that?

Regards,
DarkShadow44

Electric poles don't work like that. If they connect, it merges the set of electric poles so they are all on the same electric network. So, there's no distribution logic there's just "if connected, merge them" and that's not going to change.

Rseding91 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:58 pm

Electric poles don't work like that. If they connect, it merges the set of electric poles so they are all on the same electric network.

I know, maybe I didn't word it correctly. What I mean, is a flag to prevent the poles from merging into the same network - just leave them connected by copper cables without including them in the network. That way mods could use them for "manual energy transmission".

DarkShadow44 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 4:36 pm

Rseding91 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:58 pm

Electric poles don't work like that. If they connect, it merges the set of electric poles so they are all on the same electric network.

I know, maybe I didn't word it correctly. What I mean, is a flag to prevent the poles from merging into the same network - just leave them connected by copper cables without including them in the network. That way mods could use them for "manual energy transmission".

Sorry, I think I wasn't clear enough. The logic works under the assumption that being connected to any electric pole means the pole is on the same electric network. That logic is baked into the entire set of logic that makes up electric poles and electric networks. To change that is not something that any of us are interested in doing.

Would it theoretically (already yet?) be possible to clone the whole electric-pole/substations logic to a new, mod-specific prototype/entity-type (or even family?) and use another item (f.E. iron-cables, signal-cables) instead of the copper cables? or even one of the 2 signal-cable but not copper? Poles which use then the same logic, and emerges - /or connects - to all other poles of this new type/its new, separate network but not the vanilla-one? this way a mod could make at least 3 different networks which should be possible to differentiat and so identificate as separate cable-networks and so give the new pole-network another „amount of energy“(or whatever)?

My question now is: Is this probably already doable and worth looking on it these days or is it just plain said not possible because the logic just too mich hard-coded?

doppelEben wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:37 pm

or even one of the 2 signal-cable but not copper? Poles which use then the same logic, and emerges - /or connects - to all other poles of this new type/its new, separate network but not the vanilla-one? this way a mod could make at least 3 different networks which should be possible to differentiat and so identificate as separate cable-networks and so give the new pole-network another „amount of energy“(or whatever)?

As I said, that's what those two mods I mentioned do. However, this breaks the power grid view - because it's not really a power grid anymore.

DarkShadow44 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:41 pm

doppelEben wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:37 pm

or even one of the 2 signal-cable but not copper? Poles which use then the same logic, and emerges - /or connects - to all other poles of this new type/its new, separate network but not the vanilla-one? this way a mod could make at least 3 different networks which should be possible to differentiat and so identificate as separate cable-networks and so give the new pole-network another „amount of energy“(or whatever)?

As I said, that's what those two mods I mentioned do. However, this breaks the power grid view - because it's not really a power grid anymore.

sry, overflew initial post earlier today on mobile only, thought the mods work in a way to alter the grid-logic. but I guess you only need a copy from the whole pole-concept but without the copper cable displayed?
then maybe why not alter poles likes these mods do and use an item with 0 visibility for connection? has the cable-rendering somewhere a point to inject more/full transparency or 0 opacity? invisible fully transparent sprite maybe? would need only 1 first connected pole somewhere in grid and could possibly deliver your cable-less pole network?

doppelEben wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:13 am

but I guess you only need a copy from the whole pole-concept but without the copper cable displayed?
[...]
would need only 1 first connected pole somewhere in grid and could possibly deliver your cable-less pole network?

I think that is a misunderstanding, I don't want cable-less pole networks. I want a copper-cable electric network that is mod-able, which it is currently not.