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Realistic electricity

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 4:19 pm
by SPolygon
Just a small idea how to make electricity in Factorio more realistic, yet simplified; All power plants produce and all machines consume DC voltage, but if you want to use large electric poles, it would require transformer to change DC to AC and at the end of power line another transformer would be required to convert it back. I think that mod like this could make game more challengy and interesting. How you ask (yes you do)? Well, for example, there can be a limit of energy throughput in transformator, so transofrming more watts would require more transormers (not realistic, I know). This would change the way you build your power plants; right now it's just "plop steam engine here and there", but with this feature, it would be another aspect of game that you have to (at least a little bit) think about before you start building it.

Re: Realistic electricity

Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 9:38 pm
by seronis
Thats utterly NON realistic though. DC voltage cant transfer long distances efficiently, which is the reason public electric networks are AC. That, and the fact that generators naturally produce power in AC, not DC.

Re: Realistic electricity

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 11:21 am
by joe_da_cro
this mod can still be done by mimicking the actual real power distribution network. having different voltages and using substations as the steppers. although in the real distribution networks power poles regularly carry different voltage types and each street/area has a transformer to step down to local voltages 110/240 depending on locality. Substations in the distribution network would be the equivalent of serving several area codes.

this would make it a challenge to implement in game because the way the power distribution is set up is pretty close to how it is in the real world while keeping actual voltage numbers abstract.