Connect power to lamps through wiring

[Xeteth]

This is a simple and (hopefully) easy to implement feature that I believe should be in the base game.

The ability to connect power to lamps through wiring. Why would this be needed? Let's take a look at the recently featured Dancing Girl build that was in the Friday Facts #103. Really cool build and shows what's possible with the power of combinators for making advanced signs.

The issue I see is that the substations that need to be scattered throughout the sign are ugly and if you are trying to get detail into the sign these can often get in the way.

I can see this suggestion working in two ways;

• Manually connecting the lights with the use of copper cable, or;
• Allowing power to flow through red/green cable that might be being used already to carry a signal (provided of course that the red/green cable somewhere come into contact with a powered pole)

I feel like this would be balanced as there is no real benefit of using lights to connect things in other situations as it would have to be connected manually (unlike poles) and setting a 'range' on the wire connection to 1-2 tiles would mean they were never better than even the small power poles.

This would allow for nice large signs without the interrupting substations in the way.

[codewarrior]

In fact, we should be able to use copper wires to connect any machine to any other machine, so we won't need power poles at all!

[lancar]

In a way, I agree. This should be a possibility, though I can imagine it'd be quite a bit of work to implement.

[TuckJohn]

Yes please. Not only will it allow more flexibility with displays and whatnot, we will be able to make even MORE space-efficient designs, because we will not need room for power poles

[Peter34]

I disagree about allowing Copper Wire to connect anything to anything else, or anything to Electric Poles, because Electric Poles are an intrinsic element of Factorio base building, but I do see the point in specifically allowing the drawing of Copper Wire from Poles to Lamps, for the purpose of making large many-pixeld displays (too large to be in between 4 Substations).

Two alternatives, though:

1. A floor surface area that conducts electricity to anything placed in it (which would be fairly costly to build) which seems to me like something that the devs would be able to implement now that they've implemented Brick/Concrete floor surface areas.

2. Electric Poles with Lamps on top (which has been proposed before).

[ssilk]

1. A floor surface area that conducts electricity to anything placed in it (which would be fairly costly to build) which seems to me like something that the devs would be able to implement now that they've implemented Brick/Concrete floor surface areas.

Very cool idea. That would make the whole stuff a lot easier for big factories.

[hitzu]

I disagree about allowing Copper Wire to connect anything to anything else, or anything to Electric Poles, because Electric Poles are an intrinsic element of Factorio base building

In my mind rules of power supply should be like this:

1) If a power pole is connected only to another power pole it should "emit" electricity just like it does now.

2) If something is connected to the pole via the copper cable then this pole loses its electric field and provides electricity only to the entities it is connected to.

3) If the entity is connected directly to the electric network via a cable then it sends its ID to the network and can be remotely turned off by a relay.

4) Some entities like lamps, combinators and inserters can connect directly to each other via cables.

[Peter34]

1. A floor surface area that conducts electricity to anything placed in it (which would be fairly costly to build) which seems to me like something that the devs would be able to implement now that they've implemented Brick/Concrete floor surface areas.

Very cool idea. That would make the whole stuff a lot easier for big factories.

Well, part of my idea is that such flooring is costly, and so it shouldn't be feasible to cover the entire factory in it. Only selected areas.

[hitzu]

Well, part of my idea is that such flooring is costly, and so it shouldn't be feasible to cover the entire factory in it. Only selected areas.

The cost actually doesn't matter. Eventually you can cover everything if you invest enough time and patience. There should be other non-linear limitations like power loss over distance.

[Peter34]

Well, part of my idea is that such flooring is costly, and so it shouldn't be feasible to cover the entire factory in it. Only selected areas.

The cost actually doesn't matter. Eventually you can cover everything if you invest enough time and patience. There should be other non-linear limitations like power loss over distance.

Sure, given almost-infinite resources you can cover your entire factory, evne if it's a gigantic one, but it should be costly enough to make it impractical.

Also there should be a choice of flooring, so that you can either use tiles that give a speed bonus or tiles that distribute electricity.

[TuckJohn]

2) If something is connected to the pole via the copper cable then this pole loses its electric field and provides electricity only to the entities it is connected to

That would just be really annoying. Plus it would take much longer for the feature to actually be implemented.