[1.1.53] How much does a lot of electric networks negatively affect the UPS?

[spiral_power]

I'm playing Space-Exploration.

I know that a large number of electric networks can have a negative impact on the UPS, but I don't know to what extent.
My factory has probably hundreds of electrical networks to relay circuit networks.
Copper wires were cut because it looked bad.
How much of an improvement do you think UPS would make if these large numbers of independent electric networks were connected?
It's hard to test it myself, so if you have a general sense of what I'm talking about I'd like to know in advance and post it.

Note that the train path finding figure is also high, but this is adjusted separately.

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[spiral_power]

I re-estimated the number of electric networks in the building statistics, about 1.6k.

[boskid]

Well, the best case for performance is if all electric poles would be part of a single huge electric network. Amount of electric poles in one network does not matter for update because all electric energy sources of entities powered by or supplying electricity are in a single long vector of energy sources of a network so it should not matter.

By having disconnected electric poles, you basically create separate electric networks. This is bad for couple of reasons: every electric network needs to maintain its own flow statistics which need to be updated every tick, if you have entities in range of those electric poles then you have entities belonging to multiple electric networks which triggers some extra checks (required because separate subnetworks may still be part of one network due to power switch connections, without those checks some entities would get too much energy from the network or would produce too much energy) and they are relatively expensive. Also every electric network has to visit all energy sources of machines in their range to count the energy provided and energy required. Its hard to estimate the UPS impact of having many separate electric poles, its is something you may want to consider not worth doing.

If you want to hang wires from one place to another in a UPS friendly manner without connecting copper wires, i would suggest using empty chests or empty constant combinators - their control behaviors are not consuming UPS'es (they only transmit deltas to circuit network as a reaction to events) and they are not creating new electric networks. I guess it could be modded by someone to have a "circuit only poles" based on the container prototype.

[spiral_power]

Thank you for your response.
I guess what I should do is connect the independent poles with copper wire, or use an empty box or something to connect the circuit cables.

If I eventually do that, I will report back on the results.

[Qon]

I am of the opinion that you should never have power poles in a circuit for carrying signals, and that is before considering the UPS impact of extra electric networks that poles might introduce. I use empty constant combinators as poles for circuit wires. They are compatible with circuit network mods that only allow handle combinator entities and their circuit connection is lower to the ground so the wires aren't stretched needlessly away from the combinators into an unreadable mess. I guess boxes would do about the same thing but I can't place boxes on "circuit only surfaces" etc.

[spiral_power]

Very good result.
Number of networks (approximate): 1.6k to 50
time usage: 8.3 to 1.7

I am not familiar with that mod.
But I have often wondered about the difficulty of deciphering the appearance of circuit networks.

[Qon]

But I have often wondered about the difficulty of deciphering the appearance of circuit networks.

How hard a circuit network is to read depends on how well it is written, like all code. Yes the language isn't very readable (values are hidden behind menus, hard to see if vertical wires connect or just pass over, variables have icons instead of descriptive names etc), but if you are very meticulous then you can standardize the layout and make things quite readable.

Always using constant combinators and never using power poles for circuit wires is one such rule that makes circuits more readable.
Chose a time axis and have combinators positioned sorted on this dimension so that it is clear what combinators get a signal first and so it's easily visible how many ticks a circuit requires and that all paths within it are the same length. So you get something like "lines of code".
Make blueprints of common circuit functions. Leave space between different parts.
Comment your code when necessary.

When you get used to it enough the standard you use becomes like its own programming language. So reading someone else's circuits can be tricky since they might organize their circuits differently and have different ideas of what the most obvious way to select signals from imagined variable names should be (and how to do the reverse).

[spiral_power]

I completely agree with you about being creative in how you implement it rather than complaining about factorio itself, and I try to do that as well.
Adjusting the position at the timing of the tick was helpful because I hadn't thought about it.
However, space can be limited, so in that case there is a trade-off between ease of viewing and compactness.

[Qon]

However, space can be limited, so in that case there is a trade-off between ease of viewing and compactness.

If it's something that needs to be small I reduce the size after having completed the circuit and tested it. Nexelas Picker Dollies mod can be used to move single things around without breaking wires so is a lifesaver for making advanced circuits more readable and for making them more compact when you are done. Not sure if it's even practically possible without that mod to make complex circuits.