Accumulators in MJ

[zypah]

I really love this game. It's awesome.

However, there is one thing that really annoys me.

The capacity of the accumulators is given in MJ. If the capacity would be in MWh (instead of MWs) I could use the term more. I'd still need to know how many hours one day/night has. However, it would be a big step forward for me.

I know I can just take approx one forth to get kWh from Joule... but still.

Thanks for reading, Thanks for your time.

[zypah]

One addition to that.

The numbers must be wrong.

I got 250MJ capacity, that's 0.069MWh. In the energy tab, the whole night the accumulators "gave" 1-2MW. That can't be right.

[DaveMcW]

There is no time conversion for day/night.

One megawatt-hour in accumulators will last one realtime hour if you only pull 1 MW.

[goertzenator]

One addition to that.

The numbers must be wrong.

I got 250MJ capacity, that's 0.069MWh. In the energy tab, the whole night the accumulators "gave" 1-2MW. That can't be right.

Expressing in joules works out pretty good for Factorio as the night is only a few minutes long. Divide joules by watts and you get seconds; 125-250 sec in the scenario you outlined above. I don't know how long the night is but it must be in that ballpark.

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, 1 MJ is 1 MW for 1 second. MWh would be less useful because you rarely operate on hour timespans. Note that this is real seconds, not some strange sped-up time. I just wish it said somewhere how long a night is (and how long sunrise/sunset take) so you can calculate how much capacity you need to last through the night.

[drs9999]

I just wish it said somewhere how long a night is (and how long sunrise/sunset take)

Do not quote me here, but if I am not missleading a whole day is 700 seconds. With 3/6 of it being daytime, 1/6 dusk, 1/6 dawn and 1/6 night

[zypah]

AH!

The capacity is given in real time? Meh... I should have been able to figure that out on my own Tanks alot!

And thanks alot for the 700 sec per day; 1/2 daylight and each 1/6 part dusk, dawn and night. I'll test that too. I wish it would be 600 sec

[Teurlinx]

I just wish it said somewhere how long a night is (and how long sunrise/sunset take)

Do not quote me here, but if I am not missleading a whole day is 700 seconds. With 3/6 of it being daytime, 1/6 dusk, 1/6 dawn and 1/6 night

Pretty sure the 'night' is 60 seconds exactly:

Energy consumption over a night was 38 MW, this drained 2,3 GJ of accumulator energy (no steam engine power)
That gives 60 MJ consumed per MW. --> The night must have lasted for 60 seconds*

*At the very least in game time, if different from real time.

[tetkris]

Yes MJ is "secret " value better change on MWs or MWh

[Teurlinx]

Yes MJ is "secret " value better change on MWs or MWh

MWh is not appropriate for this game. MWs is not a usual unit and never will be as it is the exact same as MJ.

[tetkris]

ok maybe MWh , MWs is stupid , but KWh is good idea i think

[ssilk]

Don't you understand, that calculating with hours us useless in Factorio? Seconds make sense, minutes makes sense, but hours? What will happen in an hour in Factorio?

And what is so difficult with it? A kilojoule is a second of a kilowatt. Two kilojoule is two seconds of a kilowatt. And so on. Easy. I really dunno, what I should convert here...

[Gammro]

Simple, the time scale on which factorio works makes kWh or MWh highly impractical. MWs is so unused, and literally the same as MJ, I don't think it should change.

I think more people would be confused by the MWs(highly unusual) unit than MJ(easily recognizable by anyone who's been to high school).

[therapist]

What about something like Megawatt/days? (ingame days of course)

Edit: to me, megajoules is more confusing than megawatt hours (days) and yes I graduated highschool. Where I live, we deal with our electric bills in megawatt hours and my own experience getting my girl to TURN OFF THE FLIPPING LIGHT WHEN YOU LEAVE A GOSH DARN FLIPPING ROOM transfers over to managing my factorio electric systems quite nicely.

[Teurlinx]

What about something like Megawatt/days? (ingame days of course)

Edit: to me, megajoules is more confusing than megawatt hours (days) and yes I graduated highschool. Where I live, we deal with our electric bills in megawatt hours and my own experience getting my girl to TURN OFF THE FLIPPING LIGHT WHEN YOU LEAVE A GOSH DARN FLIPPING ROOM transfers over to managing my factorio electric systems quite nicely.

I doubt you have your bills in MWh, they are almost always in kWh (= 3.6 MJ)

Anyone who's ever eaten food is likely to have encountered the MJ, it's printed on virtually every food label.

[therapist]

Sorry, you are correct kWh, and 1000 kWh would equal 1MWh.

[Schmendrick]

MJ seems fine to me; the second is the most referenced time unit in-game.

But since it came up earlier:

1 Factorio day is 7 minutes (25200 ticks)
Full sunlight is 50% of the day, 3.5 minutes
Blacked night (solar panel output 0) is 0.7 minutes (2520 ticks), or 10% of the day.
In between, solar output increases or decreases linearly.

Each day a solar panel can output 17.64 MJ, for an average of 42 kW.

[Gammro]

What about something like Megawatt/days? (ingame days of course)

Then you're heading into artificial time unit territory. I doubt it would be less confusing. Also, Megawatt/day would result in a base unit of J/s². It should be Megawattday.
I already explained why I think kWh and MWh is not feasible. I was responding to kWs and MWs, which is a higly unusual unit to use, even more because it's exactly the same as kJ/MJ, but with a name nobody uses.

Edit: wolfram alpha doesn't even know the (mega)Wattsecond

Also Schmendrick: Days aren't 50/50 in division between light and dark. It's about 1 minute of total dark and the rest of the time at least some light.

[kovarex]

Day has 25000 ticks.
This is the cycle (realtively speaking)

0.75 -> 0.25 (half a day), 100% bright
0.25->0.45 getting dark (evening)
0.45->0.55 night
0.55->0.75 get light (morning)

[Teurlinx]

Day has 25000 ticks.
This is the cycle (realtively speaking)

0.75 -> 0.25 (half a day), 100% bright
0.25->0.45 getting dark (evening)
0.45->0.55 night
0.55->0.75 get light (morning)

And how long is a 'tick'? The problem is that the units in-game use seconds, we are accustomed to hours in the real world and the game engine - apparently - uses ticks. Furthermore the day - night cycle isn't explained anywhere in-game. It's not hard to see where all the confusion is coming from.

It would help if:

A) The info would be easily available in-game
B) There would be consistent use of units.