Laser turrets allways cause blackouts.

[ficolas]

Laser turrets allways procude blackouts, no matter how many energy you produce, I have 22 steam engines, and only 5 of them are using perfomance, so I have 17 engines that arent doing anything, just for the turrets to dont cause blackouts, but they still cause them :S

Also, I guess, acumulators will fix this?

[kovarex]

Also, I guess, acumulators will fix this?

Yes
And when accumulators are available, there is big chance we will even increase the energy consumption of laser turrets.

[ficolas]

D:!!!!!! I have like a million turrets on my base :S

[Holy-Fire]

22 engines isn't a lot... How many turrets are simultaneously firing?

AFAIK performance should be distributed equally between the engines, what do you mean by only 5 engines using performance? Do these 5 use 1 square and the others 0? Or maybe the other engines aren't connected to the power grid?

[ficolas]

5 use almost full and the others use 1 or 2

[kovarex]

5 use almost full and the others use 1 or 2

This is strange, they should all have the same usage, maybe they are not connected.

[SilverWarior]

5 use almost full and the others use 1 or 2

This is strange, they should all have the same usage, maybe they are not connected.

Maybe he isn't supplying them properly with water. Based on the fact that 5 of his steam engines are woking with full capacity and others are not it is posible he doesn't have enough water pumps to supply enough water for all the engines.
NOTE: Higher utilization of the steam engines (bigger power usage) more water you require. SO even when your steam engines show full performance during low utilization it doesn't mean they will achieve full performance during high utilization.

When I'm designing my power supply I always have 1 water pump for every 5 steam generators, and 1 boiler for every 2 steam generators (minimum of 5 boilers even when I conect them even to single steam engine so they can warm the water fast enough)..
I'm always placing normal pipes between steam engines to quickly see the water temperature (if they are not red then I know someting is wrong).
I always avoid making ciklical conections as it cuses problems with waterflow (engines furthest from the pumps react as there isn't enough water for them, even thou the water temperature is still 100 degres).

So far this worked for me nicely, and having 10 steam engines is enough to power 4 laser turets even thou you can still see very short light dimings during the time when turets are fireing.
Having 20 adequently suplied steam engines makes this almost unnoticable.

[MF-]

Hmm.. I haven't realized that it's unclear whether he talks about "current power production" or "available max power production"
While uneven values of the first one means multiple disconnected power grids, uneven values of the second set means insufficient water supply.

[Dakkanor]

agreed, either some of the engines are not properly connected, OR some are not properly fueled.

i have a pump : boiler : engine ratio that seems to be quite effective and also scales easily once resources start to flow,
1 pump :10 boilers : 8 engines

once repeated 10 times that provides a large amount of power, after that i run out of resources....

[rk84]

D:!!!!!! I have like a million turrets on my base :S

I have done some math now that we have accumulators.
1 idle laser turret uses 20 energy per second.
1 shot cost 200 energy. laser turret shooting rate is 3 shots per second.

30 idle laser turrets is same as 1 laser turret constanly firing which is 600 energy per second.
Day last ~416.67 seconds.
30 idle laser turrets will use 250000 energy in one day
1 solar panel can generate ~17476 energy in one day.
So you need ~15 solars just to keep them idling.

If for example you expect attack of 100 creepers in one day. 1 creeper needs 3 shots to put down. You will need 60000 energy to kill 100 creepers.

You would need ~18 solar panels to get (250000+60000=) 310000 energy

Now for storing energy for night time.
Night time solars are off for ~42 seconds and their power is lineary decreasing/increasing between 0 and 60 for 167 seconds. You will need to store energy for (42+167/2=)~125 second idling + shots for possible creeper attack.

So that is (600*125+60000=) 135200 energy for night with 30 laser turrets against 100 creepers.
1 basic accumulator can store 2500 of energy.
55 basic accumulator should do?

ps. there might be some extra energy, if turret don't consume idling energy while shooting.

[SilverWarior]

I have about 40 laser turets, 20 basic acumulators and 8 8 steam engines and 12 boilers and 4 pumps in my base (no solar panels yet) and so far I got my acumulators depleted only once during the attack. Luckily it was just before the attack ended so I didn't expirience total power blackout but for the short time my base functionality was limited.
I plan on moving my poer suply to different part of my base since current location is a bit cramped and it is preventing me the needed expansion. Luckily I have built my base near verry large coal field which should be suficient for quite some time. I'm afraid I will be running out of iron much sooner.

Anywhay while your mathematical calcualtions are interesting you should note that it si quite unlikely that during the attack all of your laser turets would be shooting at the same time. So your calculation could be cosidered as solution for worst case scenario.

[ficolas]

acumulators have a so small capacity

[MF-]

acumulators have a so small capacity

yes, they are more like capacitors.

[kovarex]

They are called "basic-accumulator", we need place to expand

[MF-]

So that is (600*125+60000=) 135200 energy for night with 30 laser turrets against 100 creepers.
1 basic accumulator can store 2500 of energy.
55 basic accumulator should do?

I guess I am dealing with way more than 100 creepers.
Or perhaps that I have a lot of lamps. They turned out to be quite power-consuming when they all sum up.

[kovarex]

So that is (600*125+60000=) 135200 energy for night with 30 laser turrets against 100 creepers.
1 basic accumulator can store 2500 of energy.
55 basic accumulator should do?

I guess I am dealing with way more than 100 creepers.
Or perhaps that I have a lot of lamps. They turned out to be quite power-consuming when they all sum up.

I plan to do some electric consumption statistics available in some gui (probably by opening the electric pole), it would be nice to understand more what is going on.

[rk84]

Anywhay while your mathematical calcualtions are interesting you should note that it si quite unlikely that during the attack all of your laser turets would be shooting at the same time. So your calculation could be cosidered as solution for worst case scenario.

Yea I like to be on safeside.

but lasers did not shoot in one go in this calculation. 60k is not power consumption, but total energy needed to shoot 300 shots. Worst case is, it all happens in 42 s in midnight.

[metzyn]

Its not always about how many steam engines you have. Keep in mind that you need quite a few boilers to keep up the temperature. The more electrial demand the faster hot water gets used.

I have about 10 steam engines all attached to 1 pump between 16 boilers. Its the boilers that help me prevent black-outs, coupled with 8 accumulators.

[Aza-Industries]

Its not always about how many steam engines you have. Keep in mind that you need quite a few boilers to keep up the temperature. The more electrial demand the faster hot water gets used.

I have about 10 steam engines all attached to 1 pump between 16 boilers. Its the boilers that help me prevent black-outs, coupled with 8 accumulators.

Yeah accumulators are really important when using steam engines as they can't provide massive bursts of energy fast, they take too long to spin up for reliable laser defense. (in my experience)
They run at the demand of your factory, but when lasers start firing the power levels will fluctuate up and down as they keep revving up and down to meet demand.

You could always build one of these for insurance, just replace solar with steam power.
IMO you can never have too many accumulators, It's all just stored energy for future use.

[MF-]

I doubt the engines have an actual latency.
They only have a max. power output. Capacitors don't have any visible max. power output.
The lasers are so power hungry, that their consumption combined simply outweights the production combined.