Production times dependent on power output

[THENIRL]

Tried a search, didn't really find any suggestion for this.

So far power seems to determine wether our plant is able to run or not. But what about having it determine how fast it runs? I suggest binding power supply to the machinery's efficiency. Minimum power could allow production at, let's say, 75% efficiency, while maximum would provide 100% efficiency. So, as an example, an item that requires 10 seconds to be produced with 100% power supply would require 12.5 seconds to be produced at 75% efficiency.

I feel this would add a justified and fun challenge to power management of the player's plant.

[kovarex]

Actually it works this way, didn't you notice slow inserter animations when you have low power?

[THENIRL]

I had not, and I appologize for it. So far I've been falling back to fast inserters when I spot backups in production lines. Guess this topic is ready for a shutdown

[kovarex]

Well, don't feel bad, when you did miss it some others will as well.
Maybe some yellow power indicator to show, that the entity doesn't have full power supply could be useful.

[THENIRL]

Well, that would help out a lot... a little spark symbol when you mouse over an entity: green for full power, and yellow for inefficiency?
There's still the steam engine nomenclature problem, that thing is really not very clear, but I'm sure the suggestions in that other thread about it have probably resulted in a more intuitive system.

[MF-]

Hmm.. What about turning this around into
"Power consuption depends on production speed"

So one could "underclock" her facilities to save up on power, where one would save /more/ % of power than lose % of speed
I am not sure whether this principle applies outside of CPU scope, though.

[SilverWarior]

I am not sure whether this principle applies outside of CPU scope, though.

Yes it does. It aplies to every electric motor as it uses less energy when running at lower speed. Controlling speed of electric motor is usually done in one of the two wys:
1. You reduce the electruc current strenght by using potentiometers. This does save so,me energy but is not verry eficient becouse potentiometers have their own resistance and are causing energy loses. Also when you reduce the electric current it causes electric motors to lose power exponentionally. Most electric motors need electric current strenght of athleast 70 percent of intended to even run.
2. Instead of reducing the electric curent levels you simply controll electric motor speed by rapidly turning on and off the electric current (impulse diven speed controll). This is done using special speed regulators designt just for that. The advantage of this aproach is that electic motors can run atlow speed and still retain most of their power. Also it great for saving energy as regulator itself has almost no losses and energy consumption is almost linaer to the desired speed.