[Twinsen] [1.1.6] Electric energy interface tooltip (again)

[Deadlock989]

So after these tweaks the EEI tooltip was in a state where it was doing exactly what I needed it to do:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=90779
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=91769

Then this happened:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=92544

As a result my custom EEIs now show "Consumption: 0 W" when they are merrily chomping through 8 MW. They are set to be secondary-input priority, i.e. they don't ever output any power at all, they just charge, and the charge is then used up in rare scripted events. But that charge rate (defined by input-flow-limit, which was correctly shown before the third link above) is now apparently ignored.

I appreciate this one is difficult to get right because EEIs are so customisable and vague, and people are using them for very different things. I am on the verge of using some other entity but that brings its own issues and before I go down that road I'm reporting this in the hope there is something that can be done.

[Deadlock989]

I've also just noticed that for this configuration of EEI (secondary-input with a capped input flow limit) the tooltips are different for the entity's placeable item in an inventory and for an entity in the world.

The item (which is correct and showing the desired set-up):

Untitled1.jpg (8.99 KiB) Viewed 3961 times

The entity (which is incorrect):

Untitled2.jpg (11.17 KiB) Viewed 3961 times

[orzelek]

It might be correct.

It's energy is full so it's not conusming power atm = consumption is 0?
If you drain the buffer will consumption go up to 8MW?

[Deadlock989]

No, it says 0 W no matter what the state of the buffer or whether it is charging or not.

"Max consumption: 8 MW" was the correct and useful information and that's what it said until the most recent change.

[Twinsen]

Problem is the actual power usage if the EEI it's self is set to 0, so theoretically the entity should consume 0, not accounting for scripted events emptying the buffer.
Can't the consumption be done through the entity's consumption logic, instead of scripted events?

The fix I see would be to revert the fix for 92544.
It makes more sense to leave it as it is, as in the previous state, consumption would have been shown twice(once for prototype definition and once for EEI consumption logic), making the tool-tip confusing.

[Deadlock989]

Problem is the actual power usage if the EEI it's self is set to 0, so theoretically the entity should consume 0, not accounting for scripted events emptying the buffer.
Can't the consumption be done through the entity's consumption logic, instead of scripted events?

I think part of the problem is that EEIs don't represent anything concrete, just some vague abstraction that people are using for different things. Many people seem to use it as a "creative mode" energy source or sink. My use case is not that. The specific entity that most closely resembles the behaviour I need/want is an accumulator - those don't even talk about "consumption" at all, instead they show "Max input" and "Max output" on the tooltip. In my case, the machine never outputs (it is set to "secondary-input" priority). But its input is capped by the flow limit, which is what accumulators show as "Max input" and what the EEI showed as "Max consumption" until this most recent breaking change. Consumption, input - those might have fixed, clear meanings for the developers but for us punters it's just semantics. I would have used real accumulators instead, but EEIs have a lot more flexibility in their sprite composition options, and the tooltip for an input-only accumulator is also a bit weird because without any scripting to use anything up, an input-only accumulator is pointless.

I'm not sure what you mean by an EEI's "consumption logic". Unless I've misunderstood, I didn't think EEIs had any "logic" as such, either they just continuously burn power away to no effect or they create it out of moonbeams or they store it from the network, and I'm doing the latter. My entity only uses up any power when a player takes action by pressing buttons on a custom GUI (it's a teleporter). What I had understood was that the reason EEIs exist is that they are runtime-scripted energy consumers/producers.

The fix I see would be to revert the fix for 92544.
It makes more sense to leave it as it is, as in the previous state, consumption would have been shown twice(once for prototype definition and once for EEI consumption logic), making the tool-tip confusing.

From my point of view it was all good after 91769 and broken/confusing after 92544. I also don't get why the item tooltip (which still shows today what I want it to show, as it did after 91769) is now different from the entity tooltip (which doesn't).

If there is no solution that pleases everybody then I understand that you need to do what you think is best.

[Twinsen]

By "consumption logic" I mean ElectricEnergyInterface logic looks something like this.

Code: Select all

void ElectricEnergyInterface::update()
{
  if (this->powerUsage > 0)
    this->electricEnergySource->extractEnergyAndPollute(this->powerUsage);
  if (this->powerProduction > 0)
    this->electricEnergySource->buffer += this->powerProduction;
    ...

Meaning it has configurable powerUsage and powerProduction; these can be set through the GUI or in LUA using power_usage and power_production.

So as far as I'm concerned, this is the intended function of the entity and it should be reflected in the tooltip.
I'm afraid it will stay like that.

[Deadlock989]

Fair enough. It looks like I can use an accumulator instead if I abuse integration_patch sprites (they have render layer control while the accumulator's main sprite doesn't, which is why I picked EEI in the first place) and tweak the visual effects.

[Deadlock989]

I tried using an accumulator instead but that created all kinds of issues with usage priorities. I tried lamps but they don't seem to have any kind of energy buffer. So I just gave up, went back to an EEI and put all the info players need in the localised description, which will have to do.

For the record, it's really odd to see "Consumption: 0 W" immediately followed by "Min. consumption: 25 kW" because 0 is less than 25 - and still odd to have "Max. consumption: 8 MW" shown on the item tooltip but not the entity. But it's not game-breaking so I'm accepting this as it is and moving on.