Consumption/Production / Electric Network Info / Power Meter

[Rahjital]

I may be missing something here, but isn't what CreeperDaReeper described the same as the production meter we have now? Both his suggestion and the production meter we have now measure the current consumption and its relation to maximum production, but neither measures how much energy you lack when your energy demand is higher than what you can produce.

I agree that the current way of measuring it is unintuitive and confuses beginning players, but we shouldn't sacrifice the important features to do that.

[CreeperDaReeper]

I may be missing something here, but isn't what CreeperDaReeper described the same as the production meter we have now? Both his suggestion and the production meter we have now measure the current consumption and its relation to maximum production, but neither measures how much energy you lack when your energy demand is higher than what you can produce.
I agree that the current way of measuring it is unintuitive and confuses beginning players, but we shouldn't sacrifice the important features to do that.

Then how about this. Using my idea, if consumption exceeds production, the bar turns red and the far right point changes from Maximum Production to Deficit.
--Deficit (???). With (???) being how much electricity, over your maximum production, your network needs.

Simple enough right?

[Gammro]

There's already a meter that is simple enough: hover over any power pole, and it shows "electric demand satisfaction" in the tooltip. This is basically what you guys are proposing.

As said in a previous topic about this, the meters are possibly badly labeled, but function like any meter in the real world would: It shows the current value compared to the maximum. IMO, the current meters should stay, maybe be relabeled. Then also add the electric demand satisfaction to the power window, and you have both the stats for pros and beginners in one window.

[Ranakastrasz]

Well, Electric demand satisfaction should be in the internal menu as well, as the top item.

Regardless of anything, it needs to be obvious to a first time user what it means.

[Gammro]

Well, Electric demand satisfaction should be in the internal menu as well, as the top item.

Then also add the electric demand satisfaction to the power window,

And I do think it should be user friendly, but all suggestions I've seen besides just adding the satisfaction rating, IMO, won't make it any more intuitive. And I don't know if there really is a solution that could be interpreted by any idiot who has looked at it for only 2 seconds.

[CreeperDaReeper]

Well, Electric demand satisfaction should be in the internal menu as well, as the top item.

Then also add the electric demand satisfaction to the power window,

And I do think it should be user friendly, but all suggestions I've seen besides just adding the satisfaction rating, IMO, won't make it any more intuitive. And I don't know if there really is a solution that could be interpreted by any idiot who has looked at it for only 2 seconds.

Green, Yellow, Red.
Green = Good
Yellow = Not good & not Bad
Red = Bad

Single bar: Left side to current consumption is yellow. Current consumption to max production is green. If consumption is over production, entire bar turns red.

I don't think it could be any simpler than that. Especially since we're trained on those three colors from street lights and other things.

[Rahjital]

Well, Electric demand satisfaction should be in the internal menu as well, as the top item.

Err.. it's already there. The Electric Demand Satisfaction meter is the same thing as the Consumption meter in the window. Same thing, just with a different label.

Single bar: Left side to current consumption is yellow. Current consumption to max production is green. If consumption is over production, entire bar turns red.

I don't think it could be any simpler than that. Especially since we're trained on those three colors from street lights and other things.

That could possibly work, though it would have to be tested. I have a feeling it would be just as confusing to a newbie as the current system.

Maybe the problem is simply that there's no tutorial that explains the window.

[Ranakastrasz]

Oh, well, then the lable is the problem. Once again, anyone who knows about supply and demand, which here is supply and consumption, will know that if you have more demand than supply, you have problems.

[Rahjital]

I would think that anybody who wants to play a factory game already knows about supply and demand. =p The problem we are trying to solve is new players looking at the energy window and being surprised that they don't supply enough production when they have enough, or worse, that they are producing enough energy when their factory barely runs.

[ssilk]

Supply and demand.
This would be a super quick fix. +1

[Rahjital]

Supply and demand.
This would be a super quick fix. +1

I agree completely. Just to be clear, the "Consumption" meter should be renamed to "Supply" and the "Production" should be relabeled to "Demand". That way, when Demand is higher than Supply, you know you have a problem.

[MF-]

Supply and demand.
This would be a super quick fix. +1

I agree completely. Just to be clear, the "Consumption" meter should be renamed to "Supply" and the "Production" should be relabeled to "Demand". That way, when Demand is higher than Supply, you know you have a problem.

Hehe, it took me quite a while to understand,
but that'll indeed work nicely.

+1

[Gammro]

Supply and demand.
This would be a super quick fix. +1

I agree completely. Just to be clear, the "Consumption" meter should be renamed to "Supply" and the "Production" should be relabeled to "Demand". That way, when Demand is higher than Supply, you know you have a problem.

Sorry, that's a bad idea. You want to rename the thing that indicates supply to demand and the thing that indicates demand, you want to rename supply?
That's the opposite of being intuitive.

Hehe, it took me quite a while to understand,

Actually says enough about it not being intuitive.

[CreeperDaReeper]

Supply and demand.
This would be a super quick fix. +1

I agree completely. Just to be clear, the "Consumption" meter should be renamed to "Supply" and the "Production" should be relabeled to "Demand". That way, when Demand is higher than Supply, you know you have a problem.

Sorry, that's a bad idea. You want to rename the thing that indicates supply to demand and the thing that indicates demand, you want to rename supply?
That's the opposite of being intuitive.

Hehe, it took me quite a while to understand,

Actually says enough about it not being intuitive.

Actually he's right.

-Consumption should be relabeled Supply because that's how much energy is currently being supplied to the network by the generators.
--When the Consumption/Supply bar is full, that means the network is getting fully supplied with energy.

-Production should be relabeled Demand because that's how much energy the network is demanding compared to the max output of the generators.
--When the Production/Demand bar is full, that means the network is demanding, as much energy as / or more energy than, the generators can produce.

[Rahjital]

Sorry, that's a bad idea. You want to rename the thing that indicates supply to demand and the thing that indicates demand, you want to rename supply?
That's the opposite of being intuitive.

That's because it's reversed currently. Think abou it for a minute. As it is now, your Production is always lower than your Consumption - unless you don't have enough electricity, in which case Production is higher. That's what is unintuitive and why this topic exists in the first place.

Not understanding why a change is needed is not the same as the end result of the change being unintuitive.

Edit: Whoa, ninja'd by CreeperDaReeper. Thank you for explaining it, you did it a lot better than I did.

[Gammro]

Actually he's not right.

-Consumption should be relabeled Supply because that's how much energy is currently being supplied to the network by the generators.
--When the Consumption/Supply bar is full, that means the network is getting fully supplied with energy.

-Production should be relabeled Demand because that's how much energy the network is demanding compared to the max output of the generators.
--When the Production/Demand bar is full, that means the network is demanding, as much energy as / or more energy than, the generators can produce.

Consumption is the rating of what the network is drawing compared to what it wants to draw. Therefor, dependent on the CONSUMPTION/demand.
Production is the percentage rating of what can be produced vs what is being produced. Therefor, dependent on the PRODUCTION/Supply.

You guys are looking at the graph in a way that it is not meant to be looked at that way.

Anyway, here's what I did to make it clear in one blink of an eye:

[CreeperDaReeper]

Still looks like you're producing 1/3 of what you're consuming.
Or it looks like you're consuming nearly 3 times what you're producing.

(Editing what I said within the quote on your own post? Tsk tsk. Poor show old chap. Poor show.)

[Gammro]

Still looks like your producing 1/3 of what you're consuming.
Or it looks like your consuming nearly 3 times what you're producing.

Really, I can't explain it any other way. Read the labels, numbers etc.
I don't know what your background is, I like to think I know something about (electric)energy because my background is in EE. So I don't know why you can't understand the way the meters work.

psst: you're and your

[CreeperDaReeper]

Really, I can't explain it any other way. Read the labels, numbers etc.
I don't know what your background is, I like to think I know something about (electric)energy because my background is in EE. So I don't know why you can't understand the way the meters work.

I do understand how they work.
The top bar, Consumption, shows how much energy the network is getting compared to how much it needs. When it is full, the network is getting all the energy it needs.
The bottom bar, Production, shows the current output of the generators compared to their maximum output. When this bar is full, Consumption is either equal to, or greater than maximum output.

The problem here is that, (and this is just a guess), most people would assume that at a glance, that the top bar, (Consumption), shows how much energy is being used by the network compared to how much energy the generators can supply.

Compounding that, (again another guess), is that new players don't know that generators, (at least Steam Engines for now), only make as much energy as the network is currently demanding. So they might think that because the bottom bar usually isn't full, that many of their generators, (Steam Engines), aren't working/generating/producing.

[Rahjital]

Remember that this doesn't matter to experienced players like us in any way since we already know how things work. The point of the suggestion is to make it friendlier for the newbies. This very thread is the evidence showing how many people were confused by it in their beginning. It doesn't matter how things go in electrical engineering, Factorio is a game, not a training simulator for Amazon employees. Making the interface easier for new players is important.