Power production and accumulators

[roy7]

My friend disagrees with me that this is a bug, but it drives me up the wall. In a nutshell, if your accumulators are fully charged then your bar line on the power page showing % of available power production being used will be based on your max power production plus the maximum draw from the accumulators, but the accumulator max draw (300kw per accumulator) isn't factored in while they are empty, charging, or being used. Only when they are fully charged and not being drained.

To me, this makes the power utilization % bar useless once you have a large accumulator farm built. You can no longer glance at this page and see how much of your max power production is being used during the day unless the batteries aren't fully charged.

Examples:

You consume 3 MW, produce 3 MW, no batteries, production bar will show 100%.
You consume 3 MW, produce 6 MW, no batteries, production bar will show 50%.
You consume 3 MW, produce 6 MW, 294MW max draw in batteries that are empty or charging, production bar will show 50%.
You consume 3 MW, produce 6 MW, 294MW max draw in batteries that are fully charged, production bar will show 1%. (Using 3 out of 300.)

Suggestion:

Remove accumulator max draw from the production utilization % line on power page. Add something new and more helpful related to stored battery power. A new line for accumulator power draw rate, perhaps. So we'd have consumption, production, energy stored, and battery energy drain.

Examples with suggested change:

You consume 3 MW, produce 6 MW, 294MW max draw in batteries that are empty or charging, production bar will show 50%, stored power % is whatever it is, power drain % is 0%.
You consume 3 MW, produce 6 MW, 294MW max draw in batteries that are fully charged, production bar will show 50%, stored power 100%, power drain 0%.
You consume 9MW, produce 6MW, and have 3 MW max draw in batteries (10 accumulator). Production bar will show 100%, stored power % going down as power is drawn from storage, battery drain is 100% (using 3MW per sec which is max you can draw from batteries).
You consume 9MW, produce 6MW, and have 6 MW max draw in batteries (20 accumulator). Production bar will show 100%, stored power % going down as power is drawn from storage, battery drain is 50% (using 3MW per sec which is half of the max you can draw from batteries).

I also suggest, if the above changes were done, that a # of seconds to the right of the battery drain line be shown whenever batteries are being drained, such as "X seconds of power remaining". If you like, you could show the line is one color for "charging" and another color for "draining", and also have a "X seconds until fully charged" message while charging. By seeing a visual % when batteries are charging, you'd know if you need more excess power to charge them faster, or if they are already charging at the max rate. ie: 10 accumulators can charge at 3 MW. If you have 3 MW extra production, you have 100% charge rate. If you have 1.5 extra production, you have 50% charge rate.

Now you can more easily see visually on the power screen if you are using 100% of production or what % you are using without accumulators confusing things. And you can see at a glance how long your batteries will last at current drainage, or how long until fully charged, and what % of the max draw/charge rate you are using at midnight or noon.

Edit: Followup extra suggestion for more useful info on the power screen. Color the production bar usage line based on what is being consumed (Green as now) or used to charge batteries (blue). So consume 3MW out of 6MW, but 10 accumulators charging, you'd need a green line up to 50% point and a blue line from there to 100% point. You'd see batteries are charging, production capacity is at 100%. To know if you need more power production to charge faster, you'd look at the energy drain/charge line to see if it's at 100% or not. Or if you had 5 accumulators, you'd see 0-50% colored green, 50%-75% colored blue. At a glance you know charging your batteries only uses half of your excess power production, and that 25% of your power production is idle.

[immibis]

Agreed, this is silly and useless.