Electricity

[Blendight]

Hello everyone! I was hoping to see some topic about this already, but seems its only who has this problem.

I already invested about 15h game time in a single mission, i achieved more then i could ever before. But the same problem i had earlier came again.
Its electricity.
Somehow my electricity capped at 10.7kwm and it does not change, whenever i build more steam engines or not, solars too.
I have couple of accumulators, they dont gather no electricity either.
I even build a mini base away from my main city, with strong defences, made it only for the electricity gathering.
I have about 50-70 steam engines.. And still my electricity is capped..
Anyone can help me out with this? I dont want to end up without electricity and lose my city.
Thank you, Alex.

[ssilk]

Hm.
50-70 sounds for me much more than ever needed after 15 hours. What do you see, when right-click on the steam-engines? Do you have a pic of your electric-network-info screen?

[SilverWarior]

I think it would be better if he simply provides savegame. Thisway we can quickly rule out major design problems he might be using like circular pipe conections.

@Blendight
Also don't forget to tel us which version of Factoorio do you play.

[kovarex]

Yes, the screenshot of the electricity info could be helpful or the savegame.
Maybe, you just don't have the usage for the electricity, steam engines only produced as much as needed.
You can test it by building more radars for example.

[Blendight]

Sorry for the amateur mistakes. I think its the latest one, downloaded it just yestarday. So i suppose its 0.8?
Ye, i might just send the savegame, if only you would point me out on which file i should send, or the whole folder of my savegame name?

[TGS]

Hello everyone! I was hoping to see some topic about this already, but seems its only who has this problem.

I already invested about 15h game time in a single mission, i achieved more then i could ever before. But the same problem i had earlier came again.
Its electricity.
Somehow my electricity capped at 10.7kwm and it does not change, whenever i build more steam engines or not, solars too.
I have couple of accumulators, they dont gather no electricity either.
I even build a mini base away from my main city, with strong defences, made it only for the electricity gathering.
I have about 50-70 steam engines.. And still my electricity is capped..
Anyone can help me out with this? I dont want to end up without electricity and lose my city.
Thank you, Alex.

Okay I'm going to try to be as clear as possible, but forgive me if I am unclear as this is somewhat difficult to explain. There are a few possibilities. I will explain them.

Your Steam generators only generate the amount of energy that is needed. If there is demand for 14kW and you have the capacity to generate 50 kW you will only generate 14kW. This is where you might be getting confused with the 'cap'. It isn't actually capped at the listed amount. It is simply that only the generators needed are actually doing the work. This can be awkward at times as it can make your Factory/base appear as though it isn't getting enough electricity, when in reality it is getting exactly the amount it needs. You prove this in a visual capacity by building about 20-50 accumulators and placing them all in rapid succession. You will notice your 'cap' increase quite considerably as the accumulators start drawing power from your grid to charge themselves. Now another way to visualise this is that you might (or might not) notice that your boilers are not all consuming coal at the same rate. Some will be burning hot and fast. Some will not be burning at all. This is because the generators only generate what they need to supply the grid. There is no point burning coal that goes to waste. This can actually be seen in the lower tech areas of the game as well with other coal fueled things such as the furnace. As soon as there isn't anything to burn the coal stops being actively consumed. Now this concludes 'issue 1'.

Now the second potential issue is that the pumps themselves DO actually have a limit of how much water they can pump and supply. Similarly I believe the boilers also have a limit to how much they can heat. That many steam engines would have to be backed by at least 4-5 pumps. Or you aren't going to be getting enough water to all of them. Now that shouldn't leave you without power because you should still have a good 20 kW of power powering your grid, but certainly not the capacity you could achieve with that number of engines. So again you will not end up without power unless you push beyond the capacity of your (fueled/pumped) engines. This is one of the things that probably could be adjusted in the electricity information GUI in that it should give you your total potential capacity as opposed to simply the capacity that your grid can push out depending on the current rate of coal consumption. This could be tricky as that would start going into the realm of 'guessing', or overcomplicating the calculations based on additional variables such as how many fueled boilers vs unfueled boilers you have etc. The main point is that we cannot actually see what the unused electrical capacity is because we don't know. Now if you know 100% that every one of your engines is properly pumped and fueled then you can simply do 510w*number of steam engines to get your value. 50 fully fueled and pumped engines will provide 25.5kW and 70 would provide 35.7kW. But again this is heavily dependent on whether or not they are fueled and pumped. If they are not, then this calculation cannot be accurately made. That resolves 'issue 2'.

Now issue 3 being your "I don't want to run out of electricity" the most simple solution for that is build a load of accumulators. As quickly as you can. Even if you aren't utilising solar you need to build them. Also build one or two in your general work area regardless of where you are. The reason being quite simple. They perform specific graphical effects when they are idle and uncharged. Idle and charged. Discharging (As in providing power to your grid) and Recharging (Taking power from your grid). Meaning if ever you're in a situation where your engines/solar isn't providing enough power. You will instantly know based on the accumulators graphical effect that you are using more power than you have. Now this obviously doesn't apply to their initial setup or when you are adding additional fluctuations in your power grid. But once their storage capacity is reached it will be key in telling you if/when you are essentially using more than you are producing. They are your backup and your alert system. They will alert you to the fact that you have a problem, as well as providing you a finite amount of backup power until your grid fails. Hopefully your three 'issues' have been resolved.

Sorry for the wall of text, as I said. It can be difficult to explain. But hopefully you'll understand.

[ssilk]

... Or he right clicks on a pole and sees, if the network is satisfied.

... besides from the fact that we (forum-members) don't know if this a real bug: the current display is not understandable on the first view, but I see a change of that as low prio, because it can be explained with two or three screenshots.

Btw, there are many numbers, which are interesting:
- the maximum energy usage
- the standby energy usage
- the maximum possible production (at day, with all engines running at 100%)
- current production
- average production
- max/current/avg. accu capacity
- estimated duration before running out of capacity/completely filled
And some more numbers...

[TGS]

... Or he right clicks on a pole and sees, if the network is satisfied.

... besides from the fact that we (forum-members) don't know if this a real bug: the current display is not understandable on the first view, but I see a change of that as low prio, because it can be explained with two or three screenshots.

Btw, there are many numbers, which are interesting:
- the maximum energy usage
- the standby energy usage
- the maximum possible production (at day, with all engines running at 100%)
- current production
- average production
- max/current/avg. accu capacity
- estimated duration before running out of capacity/completely filled
And some more numbers...

I don't think it is a bug. It's actually very understandable. It's as I said quite simply. Electric demand is met as needed. This is where the 'cap' is. Not where your total electrical output potential is. Which would be a much harder number to calculate because of the way the generators work (This is actually similar to how real generators work in the real world as well). Basically that electricity production sheet/GUI really has no way of determining what your total maximum output potential is. Because it's a very fluid and dynamic value. With many impacts and variables that it doesn't know. It could produce a value based on a best-case guess. IE if all your generators are working at maximum capacity you have a total output potential of x kW. But then the player would be given a false sense of security with regards to their maximum load potential. Not factoring in situations where your generators/engines aren't getting fueled, or aren't getting enough water or aren't under optimum sun conditions.

The point that I'm getting at is that what we'd need isn't realistically possible without a massive huge disclaimer saying "THIS VALUE MAY NOT BE ACCURATE". Really the best and probably only possible solution to this problem would be to add something small to the GUI which when you mouseover the total generators (engines/panels/accumulators/etc) in that it actually shows the total potential output for that number of generators. It probably should never tell you what your total possible output is across all generators because some of them are conditional and that value will change quite rapidly based on the conditions.

This all being said, if you could force your generators to operate at full capacity regardless of the demand you would notice the cap increase to much higher than what you need. And it would give you your 'true' capacity. But you'd also be needlessly burning a lot of fuel. Perhaps that should be an option lol. A little toggle in the electric grid GUI that you can turn on to tell all your generators to supply the maximum power. Which you can then use to gauge your maximum capacity at the expense of burning your fuel.

[FreeER]

Sorry for the amateur mistakes. I think its the latest one, downloaded it just yestarday. So i suppose its 0.8?
Ye, i might just send the savegame, if only you would point me out on which file i should send, or the whole folder of my savegame name?

The entire folder.
Hm, if you haven't already solved it then to send the savegame (I'm going to write the full instructions for a Windows OS, even though it sounds like you've already found the saves folder. Of course if you use linux or Mac the location will be wrong) open up explorer (where you browse your documents and such) and at the top it has the directory path click that and type in, without the quotes, "%appdata%\facotorio\saves" and press enter. Right click the name of the save and go to send to->compressed (zipped) folder (or use the archive method of your choice). If it's small enough (I think 3mb is the forum limit) you can use the upload attachment option when you create a new post, otherwise upload it to a file sharing site (or use something like skydrive or dropbox) and paste the link to the file into a post here.

[ssilk]

...to add something small to the GUI which when you mouseover the total generators (engines/panels/accumulators/etc) in that it actually shows the total potential output for that number of generators. It probably should never tell you what your total possible output is across all generators because some of them are conditional and that value will change quite rapidly based on the conditions.

Measurement could be done by electric network only - you can have many, and me for example uses that very extensively. Just to note, that there could be other problems, like disjunct networks and that such a gui must be told, which network to display (which makes the usage more complicated).

[Blendight]

Thank you fellows! You did make everything clear. Its only been a couple of hours, but im already made the diffrence that was required. All my city is safe now, thanks to you guys!
P.S the fellow who wrote that wall of text, thanks for not being lazy, as for it helped alot.
P.P.S and thank you for the explanation about the save game files, will help in future!
Thank you!