Simple Question about Solar

[nuhll]

Hi,
when i install solar and accumulators... will the steam enginges automaticlly work less? (or even stop working when i have enauhgt solar power)?

[neolithos]

Simple answer: Yes.

[nuhll]

Thank you very much!

[Koub]

Beware though : if you install solar, accus and steam on the same electric network, without any kind of switching, priorities are solar > steam > accus, whiwh means that when not enough solar, your steam will kick in, and when not enough solar and steam, your accus will start providing back what they have stored.

[nuhll]

Only one question, why?

Thats kinda dumb!?

Anyway, easy fix for it?

[Mehve]

The default design for accumulators is to either accommodate brief spikes in power use, or as a last-ditch source of power, and their priority reflects that. You CAN use accumulators before steam, but you'll need to do a little work with circuits to make it happen.

If you're interested in going that route, you can take a look at This Thread.

[DaveMcW]

That thread is obsolete. The simplest method now is to isolate your steam engines with a power switch, and only turn it on when accumulators are low.

[nuhll]

The default design for accumulators is to either accommodate brief spikes in power use, or as a last-ditch source of power, and their priority reflects that. You CAN use accumulators before steam, but you'll need to do a little work with circuits to make it happen.

If you're interested in going that route, you can take a look at This Thread.

THAT seems way to complicated for me

But anyway many thanks for you help.

[nuhll]

That thread is obsolete. The simplest method now is to isolate your steam engines with a power switch, and only turn it on when accumulators are low.

Your right, its easier and even i get it working. Just need to now how to place the switch? i connectet switch with one acumulator and said enable if A < 10 (10%), that should do the trick!?

Edit, i cant believe its working.

And so easy. I jsut had to connect it with the copper cable... lol, thanks very much, as soon as the accumulators are < 10% the engines start...

edit2: so now i canged it this way that all my "not so important" things like my outer bases where i just have electric furnaces disable when under 10% too save some energy.

[Mehve]

That thread is obsolete. The simplest method now is to isolate your steam engines with a power switch, and only turn it on when accumulators are low.

I thought you still had to use a little circuitry to keep things from rapidly switching as the accumulator cycles between the target point and target +0.1%?

[nuhll]

I dont see any problems till now. Thats how i did it:

1.jpg (1.37 MiB) Viewed 5781 times

2.jpg (3.94 MiB) Viewed 5781 times

3.jpg (3.94 MiB) Viewed 5781 times

To disable the boilers when not needed i simply set it to enable when < 10%. (remove all other connections)

[Mehve]

What about a situation where the accumulator charge drops to 9.9%, so the steam engines are connected, which immediately charges the accumulator back up to 10%, disconnecting the steam engines, which lets the accumulator chrage drop down to 9.9% again, and so on?

[Hannu]

What about a situation where the accumulator charge drops to 9.9%, so the steam engines are connected, which immediately charges the accumulator back up to 10%, disconnecting the steam engines, which lets the accumulator chrage drop down to 9.9% again, and so on?

I think that rapid switching makes no harm in Factorio. However, switching of the electric network caused me some problems with history curves in some early version. I use circuit to control water pumps instead of power switch. I do not know if problem is fixed.

I use hysteresis for role game purpose in power control, fluid tank contorl etc. It is very easy to implement with 2 combinators.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32432#p204599

[Hannu]

Only one question, why?

Thats kinda dumb!?

Anyway, easy fix for it?

The priority is just a choice which must be done. I think that current priority has been chosen because safety and easiness for players without understanding of combinator logics. Full accumulators give the best possible energy reserves for laser turrets. If you let your accumulators drop down to 10 % you should think its effect to defenses. It would not probably be a problem if you have a large late game base and huge number of accumulators compared to lasers, but it would certainly be a problem in a medium sized mid game base which relies on lasers as a main defense. I would not say that current choice is more dumb. It is more probable that player can change priority with circuits in later phase than immediately after inventing lasers and accus.

[nuhll]

If you want to make it easy for beginners i think the other way would be more smart. But anyway, the fix is so easy, that its no problem.

It really runs nice, and i like how the furaces stop working so my whole base dont get dark..

With the knowledge you guys gave me i even build a optical display of the loading status (accus) great thing!

[Ducker]

It's a little working example viewtopic.php?f=18&t=34523
Steam work if accumulator charge < 10 until charge wil be > 35. You can try to find topics on forum with word "hysteresis".

[nuhll]

Why so complicated? My sample work perfect. I even had it one time it was flickering, but still whole factory working. But it only happend once in 10 h playtime.. so no real problem.

I didnt try, but if you seperate the accu with a power switch from the other network if energy is <35% you should have a scenario where steam is enabled between 10 and 35% (even know i dont know why you want to do that) because it works perfect this way...

And if you also add power switches to highly power consuming setups (like i did for furnaces) you will never ever have any problems with power again..

[GlassDeviant]

There is a difference between perfect and good enough, and this is Factorio so good enough is not good enough for everyone.

I only learned this recently, but I have been convinced that the SR Latch solution is better than the others mentioned in this thread; perhaps not by a huge amount, but still better. Besides, if you find setting up an SR Latch difficult, then you have an opportunity to learn something.

[Deadly-Bagel]

If you want to make it easy for beginners i think the other way would be more smart. But anyway, the fix is so easy, that its no problem.

Not true, say you want to use steam power primarily (you might still have a few solar panels scattered about), you'll still need accumulators to cater for when a huge mob of biters runs up and is taken out by laser towers. This consumes an absurd amount of energy, and I think the spike is far greater than the rate at which steam engines 'speed up' to meet the new demand.

Therefore regardless you are going to want a bunch of accumulators to deal with that spike in demand to either deal with the whole thing and be slowly replenished, or to just deal with the spike until steam power can catch up.

Now, if your suggestion of swapping this priority is implemented steam engines will never charge accumulators. Even if you have more than enough supply, the accumulator will drain before the steam power is allowed to be used so they will always be empty. Rather than making it easier for newbies, you're making it very unintuitive and destroying a lot of potential gameplay. While there is a means to prioritise accumulators over steam, there would be no efficient way to do the reverse.

[nuhll]

If you havce enaught steam enginges np, you wont see problem.