bigger power poles

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Dakkanor
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bigger power poles

Post by Dakkanor »

ideally, id like two more sizes for the power poles, the small ones just get really annoying

possibly have a medium one with a radius of 5 (as opposed to the 3 from the small) made with stone iron and copper
and then a large with a mssive range of like 7 or 10, it'd be expensive sure like 5-10 pieces of steel with heaps of copper possibly be 2x2 in size as well....

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Blackmoor »

Industrial power-lines would be a good addition.

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by ficolas »

This can be really usefull if you run out of resources and neet to send power far away

Dakkanor
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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Dakkanor »

on the idea of power i also think somthing like "capacitor solar power" would be good,
i.e a solar panel that only outputs 30 power because half its power gets sent into a charger so it can power things at night.

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by kovarex »

All I need for bigger power poles is to get graphics for it :)
P.S. The guy that is making graphics is just moving from Spain to our apartment for some time, so this might speed up the process a bit for some time :)

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Nova
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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Nova »

Bigger power poles are in my opinion definitely necessary for the game. It gets fast annoying to build power poles anywhere in your construction rows.
  • Small power pole - The current, maybe the image could be a bit smaller if more power poles are implemented.
  • Big power pole - 1x1 tile, bigger image, thicker cable, is created with some steel and more copper.
  • High current power pole (pylon?) - 2x2, very big and high image, needs much steel and even more copper. Is not intended for connection buildings, but large distances (connecting the second base with the main base or so)

An alternative would be a system like in SimCity: Any buildings has its own power pole (invisible/underground), but with only a very limited range. This would make any attached building be powered, but no building a few tiles remote. That building has to be connected by power poles (even this "small ones").
Greetings, Nova.
Factorio is one of the greatest games I ever played, with one of the best developers I ever heard of.

Dakkanor
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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Dakkanor »

Nova wrote:
  • Small power pole - The current, maybe the image could be a bit smaller if more power poles are implemented.
  • Big power pole - 1x1 tile, bigger image, thicker cable, is created with some steel and more copper.
  • High current power pole (pylon?) - 2x2, very big and high image, needs much steel and even more copper. Is not intended for connection buildings, but large distances (connecting the second base with the main base or so)
could also include stone for the huge ones(for foundation)
but i would say iron for the middle one to make a progression
Wood ->Iron->Steel

and i REALLY want bigger poles that can connect at larger distances so that there is less risk of my car running them over......

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by MF- »

wood-iron-steel seems like the good approach.

I think that even the wooden one should have a piece of stone in the recipe to account for it's stone part
(It's a concrete frencepost with a wooden rod screwed in parallel to it)

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by kovarex »

I'm just thinking about balancing.
If the iron pole is better (no downsides = same bounding box, bigger radius) and not too expensive, the wooden pole would be almost useless and never used (as burner inserter in later stages).
I would love to avoid it, this is one of the reasons express transport belts are so expensive, you can use these either in very late game or just on places you need them bad.

There could be different ways to solve this problem
  • Make it cost lot of iron
  • Make it cost steel (so the tier 2 pole will be steel)
  • Make it not so easy to research, but when you research it, the wooden pole will have no usage.
  • Make some downsides (I can imagine having tier 3 pole, that would be used to connect long distances with very large wire connection radius but it would take 2X2 tiles)
What if we made 2 more connecting devices, both would be 2X2 tiles:
1) Substation (not very large wire connection radius, but bigger (7X7 - 10X10) radius of machines that gets electricity from it
2) Long distance connection pole, small or none radius of connectable machines, but big radius of wire connection.

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Dakkanor »

kovarex wrote:I'm just thinking about balancing.
If the iron pole is better (no downsides = same bounding box, bigger radius) and not too expensive, the wooden pole would be almost useless and never used (as burner inserter in later stages).
I would love to avoid it, this is one of the reasons express transport belts are so expensive, you can use these either in very late game or just on places you need them bad.

There could be different ways to solve this problem
  • Make it cost lot of iron
  • Make it cost steel (so the tier 2 pole will be steel)
  • Make it not so easy to research, but when you research it, the wooden pole will have no usage.
  • Make some downsides (I can imagine having tier 3 pole, that would be used to connect long distances with very large wire connection radius but it would take 2X2 tiles)
What if we made 2 more connecting devices, both would be 2X2 tiles:
1) Substation (not very large wire connection radius, but bigger (7X7 - 10X10) radius of machines that gets electricity from it
2) Long distance connection pole, small or none radius of connectable machines, but big radius of wire connection.
your point in the ways of balancing are more than fair, although "long distance connection pole" is a name that needs some work.
how about Overhead Power Line??
just like in real life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_power_line
i think its a better name while still showing what it means

if you follow how it works in real life you could have a transformer/substation required to link it up to the normal power grid, making it a cheaper long distance method, but having an expensive building to take the power away for factory use.

all of this im just grabbing from the wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_p ... ansmission

as always the executive decisions belong to the creators, hopefully some of my ideas are useful :D

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Nova
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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Nova »

The current "list" in my opinion:

Small electric pole
  • Ressources: (you get two poles for every resource package)
    • 2x Wood
    • 2x Copper cable
  • Needs 1x1 tiles
  • Connects in a radius of 3, both maschines and other poles.
Medium electric pole
  • Suggested ressources:
    • ?x Iron rod
    • ?x Copper cable (more than the small electric pole)
    • Maybe ?x Stone for the base. That would make the pole a bit more expensive. (Same idea as of the faster conveyor belt: Only use the medium pole where it is inevitable, otherwise they are to expensive.)
  • Needs 1x1 tiles
  • Connects in a radius of ca. 5 ~ 6, both maschines and other poles.
Big electric pole
  • Suggested ressources:
    • ?x Iron rod
    • ?x Steel
    • ?x Copper cable (more than the small electric pole)
    • Maybe ?x Stone for the base. That would make the pole a bit more expensive and make stone more useful.
  • Needs 2x2 tiles
  • Connects in a radius of ca. 7 ~ 10, both maschines and other poles.
Long distance connection pole / Overhead Power Line
  • Suggested ressources:
    • ?x Iron rod (more than big electric pole)
    • ?x Steel (more than big electric pole)
    • ?x Copper plate (To make the pole more expensive. Used for the connections of the cable with the tower itself.)
    • ?x Copper cable (more than big electric pole)
    • Some material for the base, like ?x stone.
  • Needs 2x2 tiles
  • Connects in a radius of ca. 25 ~ 35, but only other long distance connection poles. Other poles can connect to long distance connection poles with their normal radius (3 ~ 10) and then connect the maschines.



We can select all four power poles or just three of them. (Medium electric pole OR big electric pole)
The long distance connection pole has more than 4 ingredients. If this is not desired, we could remove the Iron rod and add more steel / remove the copper plates.
Please suggest a improvement if you have something to criticize. This list was created only by me and therefore contains only my own opinion - some other opinions would be nice. ;)
Greetings, Nova.
Factorio is one of the greatest games I ever played, with one of the best developers I ever heard of.

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Dylems »

For a radius of ca. 25 - 35, the pole should take 2x3 tiles I guess, otherwise it is perfect.
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Dakkanor
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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Dakkanor »

Nova wrote: Medium electric pole
  • Suggested ressources:
    • ?x Iron rod
    • ?x Copper cable (more than the small electric pole)
    • Maybe ?x Stone for the base. That would make the pole a bit more expensive. (Same idea as of the faster conveyor belt: Only use the medium pole where it is inevitable, otherwise they are to expensive.)
  • Needs 1x1 tiles
  • Connects in a radius of ca. 5 ~ 6, both maschines and other poles.
if a medium pole is included for the sake of balance it should be made with the small pole + iron +stone + copper wires.
in the late game cost doesn't mean more to me than how much of my overflow can i get rid of, so having the previous pole being an ingredient stops it from being redundant
Big electric pole
  • Suggested ressources:
    • ?x Iron rod
    • ?x Steel
    • ?x Copper cable (more than the small electric pole)
    • Maybe ?x Stone for the base. That would make the pole a bit more expensive and make stone more useful.
  • Needs 2x2 tiles
  • Connects in a radius of ca. 7 ~ 10, both maschines and other poles.
Long distance connection pole / Overhead Power Line
  • Suggested ressources:
    • ?x Iron rod (more than big electric pole)
    • ?x Steel (more than big electric pole)
    • ?x Copper plate (To make the pole more expensive. Used for the connections of the cable with the tower itself.)
    • ?x Copper cable (more than big electric pole)
    • Some material for the base, like ?x stone.
  • Needs 2x2 tiles
  • Connects in a radius of ca. 25 ~ 35, but only other long distance connection poles. Other poles can connect to long distance connection poles with their normal radius (3 ~ 10) and then connect the maschines.
for this i think that the idea was that the Long distance power line would be relatively cheap and have a large connection distance with no connection to a factory

i had put forward of making the substation necessary to connect to the long distance power line, substation would have a fairly small connection radius to power supplies BUT have a large connection to a factory.
It would also be really costly, which makes up for the low cost of the overhead lines, its like dirt cheap power cable connecting to an expensive power supply this means you can use the cheap lines to quickly move power from one base to another but its more costly to make laser turret stations in the wilderness (we dont want theis game to be too easy after all)

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Re: bigger power poles

Post by Cordylus »

Necromancy - continuation.

Implemented in 0.4.0

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