GG's Starlog 7 - Recharge

[GG Cannon]

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Entry Number: 7 - [Creation: 01/11/2019 || Last update: 01/11/2019]

                                                         Recharge

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+Wireless Electricity Transmissions

• Allows for Drones, Power Armors and Electric Cars* to recharge their batteries when within any power poles or substations energy fields. [Upgrades all types of power-poles automatically when researched]
  Also makes all power poles and substations consume a very tiny amount of electricity permanently and constantly each in order to produce the wireless energy field.
  
  Real Technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG0pXv9WTUQ
  • Required Technology: Electric energy distribution 2 + Electric Engine + Battery
  Research: 45 + [ + + ] * 200

+Electric Cars*

• Electricity Powered Non-Combatant Personal Vehicle
  • Required Technologies: Electric energy distribution 2 + Automobilism + Electric Engine + Battery
  Research: 45 + [ + + ] * 150
  • Effect: Electric Car [but red instead of yellow]
    Cost: 10 + 8 + 20 + 5

+Railway Electrification System

• Electricity powered trains, trams and electricity transmission through the rails + Rail Power Poles.
  Rail Power Poles can be used as input, to electrify rails and also send signals through them over a certain distance that can be extended by placing more Rail Power Poles, or output, to extract electricity and signals from electrified rails.
  Rails can only be used to send signals if they are electrified.
  Electric Trams are manually controlled only transportation for inside a factory or factory-to-factory movement with their own unique rail system and a car sized inventory [].
  Locomotives can't be placed on Tram Rails and neither can Trams be placed on normal Rails.
  • Required Technology: Electric energy distribution 2 + Electric Engine + Railway
  Research: 45 + [ + + ] * 150
  • Effect 1: Electric Locomotive
    Cost: 20 + 10 + 20 + 30
  • Effect 2: Rail Power Pole
    Cost: 0.5 + 1 + 6 + 6 + 3
  • Effect 3: Electric Trams
    Cost: 10 + 8 + 15 + 20
  • Effect 4: Tram Rails
    Cost: 0.5 + 2 + 2 + 1

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[ssilk]

Wireless energy transmission: means, that every bot/vehicle etc. needs to check when moving, if it is in range of electric network every tick. Without offense: No way to do this.

I miss also the why. How does this increase gameplay value?

[GG Cannon]

Wireless energy transmission: means, that every bot/vehicle etc. needs to check when moving, if it is in range of electric network every tick. Without offense: No way to do this.

I miss also the why. How does this increase gameplay value?

I didn't know it could take that much processing power =/

One common problem I found in factorio is that I usually have a LOT of robots, a LOT of roboports and a factory making drones and already inserting them to a roboport into the grid. Which then causes too many drones to stand in line in order to recharge in a roboport.

I even have a print in which there are so many drones waiting to recharge in a roboport that they drew a wanning moon.

Having wireless electricity would help solve the problem of when you have too many drones for your roboports to take care of and allows for electric personal vehicles to recharge without being inserted into a recharge station.
Also it allows for the drones to work infinitely as long as they are always connecting to an energy grid.
Edit: And it recharges your powersuit and keeps it full as long as you are inside the energy grid, which helps a lot.

Processing power could be reduced if only drones below a certain battery charge try to check if they are within an energy grid and the recharge to full battery without stopping.
That way, only drones below X battery would be making that check, cutting down on your computer's processing power needs.

Having the option of using electric vehicles only without having to bother to recharge them all the time, depending on which sort of energy production you have, severely cuts down on your pollution rates.

[GG Cannon]

Another possibility to reduce processing power consumption would be to make the energy grid check when the drones come in and out of it instead of the opposite.
Whenever a drone comes into the energy grid, it adds a status to that drone which gives it permanent full battery and converts its energy usage into direct gris usage, like any machine and, whenever it comes out, it loses that status and than starts to run on its battery.

That way, each drone is only gonna be checked when it comes in or goes out of the grid, even if that is by placing or removing new power poles.

Grids would only need to check their edges and when a pole is added or removed to make sure no drone has or does not have that status undeservingly.
Drones picked by the player turn back into an item, so they would already lose the status.

[ssilk]

Too many robots. Hm. I don't see this as a problem, because there are several other solutions:
- Make more roboports
- Use less robots (more belts, trains)
- Use other types of roboports. I use this mod, which I really recommend: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Robocharger
( I use this roboport mainly for construction-purpose, to make construction of very big structure much faster with less robots and most times I remove them, when all is built)

In general I can say, when you have so many robots waiting, there is obviously something wrong in the layout of your factory. One hundred express belts replaces - estimated over the thumbs - obout 50 bots. 50 bots in action need one roboport to load. So if you just use 1000 express belts to transport stuff instead of 500 bots you need 10 roboports less (and a lot of power). This is not accurate, Pi is here 3 to 4 and depends also very strongly on the research you have been done. But distance is a very nasty factor for robots, which many player forget about, when they transport bulk items.

Gameplay-wise, using mostly robots is not targeted for Factorio. There are a lot discusion about it, and my opinion is also, that the real fun comes, when using all types of transport. Strongly recommened.

To your suggestion to reduce CPU power by checking only for the borders of power-grid: There are many arguments against it, but the most destroying is, that the the power grids can be in different power-networks, with different power supply (or completly turned off power).

There are mods, that use the power grid for loading power armor or for trains (and I gues some more).

[GG Cannon]

Gameplay-wise, using mostly robots is not targeted for Factorio. There are a lot discusion about it, and my opinion is also, that the real fun comes, when using all types of transport. Strongly recommened.

There are mods, that use the power grid for loading power armor or for trains (and I gues some more).

I understand... =/

What would you think then about only the third suggestion? About the possibility of having electric trains with rail power poles to electrify the tracks and a slimmer second option of electric tracks transportation system in order to move around inside of factories, that fits better with the ground tiles, such as concrete and stone bricks, as you only see the rails, that is also easier to place between buildings than the normal train tracks?

It doesn't require the wireless electricity at all and give another option to send simple signals through train tracks but with no signal "direction". Just by inputting it somewhere you can output that signal both from its left and its right.

That is just about the same way that subway train tracks work.

+Railway Electrification System

• Electricity powered trains, trams and electricity transmission through the rails + Rail Power Poles.
  Rail Power Poles can be used as input, to electrify rails and also send signals through them over a certain distance that can be extended by placing more Rail Power Poles, or output, to extract electricity and signals from electrified rails.
  Rails can only be used to send signals if they are electrified.
  Electric Trams are manually controlled only transportation for inside a factory or factory-to-factory movement with their own unique rail system and a car sized inventory [].
  Locomotives can't be placed on Tram Rails and neither can Trams be placed on normal Rails.
  • Required Technology: Electric energy distribution 2 + Electric Engine + Railway
  Research: 45 + [ + + ] * 150
  • Effect 1: Electric Locomotive
    Cost: 20 + 10 + 20 + 30
  • Effect 2: Rail Power Pole
    Cost: 0.5 + 1 + 6 + 6 + 3
  • Effect 3: Electric Trams
    Cost: 10 + 8 + 15 + 20
  • Effect 4: Tram Rails
    Cost: 0.5 + 2 + 2 + 1

PS: loved the mod suggestion <3
Seems like one of the mods I would just wish would be made "vanilla" and the creator rewarded someway, if possible.

[ssilk]

There are already some mods which implement electric trains. No link, surely you’ll find em.

[GG Cannon]

There are already some mods which implement electric trains. No link, surely you’ll find em.

I have only been playing whole vanilla game with not even texture mods, as it halts the possibility of receiving steam achievements, as I am sure a lot of new players will for a long time...

I understand the reasoning behind why you wouldn't want to spend time, money and personnel to adding something that a mod already adds, but that is also partly why in GG's Starlog 4, at the very bottom, I suggested for some sort of crowd-sourcing agreement between the company and the mod developping community in order to officialize and implement into the vanilla game some mods that either feel like they already should be a part of the game, greatly add to the game or fix certain non-bug issues improving the quality of gameplay of the player.

I truly believe a quid pro quo legally binding agreement between the modders and the company would greatly benefit the players, the modders, the company and the game's development alike, besides being very innovative in terms of game development as no game company currently involves modders that much to the point they feel like they are actually transforming the official game and getting something out of it.

You get new content for a very reduced cost, modders get rewards and recognition while every gets a better gaming experience with an ever growing game at a rate no other company would be able to compare.

[PyroFire]

+Wireless Electricity Transmissions

• Allows for Drones, Power Armors and Electric Cars* to recharge their batteries when within any power poles or substations energy fields. [Upgrades all types of power-poles automatically when researched]
  Also makes all power poles and substations consume a very tiny amount of electricity permanently and constantly each in order to produce the wireless energy field.

Been done
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/wireless-power

Though vehicles do not consume power.
Maybe you're looking for https://mods.factorio.com/mod/VehicleGrid ?

+Electric Cars*

Vehicles cannot connect to the electrical grid like that.

+Railway Electrification System

• Electricity powered trains, trams and electricity transmission through the rails + Rail Power Poles.
  Rail Power Poles can be used as input, to electrify rails and also send signals through them over a certain distance that can be extended by placing more Rail Power Poles, or output, to extract electricity and signals from electrified rails.
  Rails can only be used to send signals if they are electrified.
  Electric Trams are manually controlled only transportation for inside a factory or factory-to-factory movement with their own unique rail system and a car sized inventory [].
  Locomotives can't be placed on Tram Rails and neither can Trams be placed on normal Rails.

There used to be a power path mod but it's obsolete.
There's also no mod that does it to rails.

Additionally there are no mods that add different types of rails for specific types of trains -- this is because different trains wouldn't behave any differently from the normal ones without special scripting, and the question there is - scripting to what end?
Electrical usage on it's own really doesn't do enough.


Sin Count: 2

Sentence: Solar powered electric chair

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/wireless-power

*No suggestion is without sin*