Reduce laser turret power to its actual listed max.

[pikmario]

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TL;DR

The maximum power draw on laser turrets should be reduced to match its listed Max. consumption, and quality should not increase this amount.

What?

Right now, laser turrets have a defined input_flow_limit of 9600kW, well over its listed Max. consumption, that being 1.22MW at base shooting speed and 3.86MW at max shooting speed.
When a laser turret fires, here's the sequence of events related to its power:

• Turret fires a shot, draining its 801kJ buffer down to 1kJ
• Turret begins charging at 9.6MW (multiplied by quality, up to 24MW for legendary) until its 800kJ buffer is full
• Turret waits with its full buffer until it's ready to fire again, then repeats the cycle

Instead, it should behave more like this:

• Shot fired, buffer empty.
• Turret begins charging at 800kW divided by the firing cooldown (1/1.5 at base, 1/4.8 at max)
• Buffer reaches capacity at exactly the same time as the firing cooldown finishing, turret can fire again

I understand that the laser turret likely isn't set up any differently from any other power consuming building, so a dynamic buffer charge rate based on fire speed is probably well beyond a simple change, but at the very least the 9.6MW should be brought down to match the 3.86MW at max fire speed, and quality should no longer increase the draw.

Why?

The Max. consumption listed on a laser turret is a straight up lie. Normal quality lasers have an actual maximum draw of 9.6MW, and that increases with quality up to 24MW at legendary. The average draw of a firing turret is certainly the listed amount, but other buildings on a power network don't care about average draw, they care about the draw right now.

Consider this power graph:

Here we have 7 steam engines and an accumulator hooked up to a laser turret that's currently firing. 7 engines provides 5.4MW, which should be able to more than handle the laser's power demand, and have some left over for the accumulator. But as can be seen, the steam engines can't provide the 9.6MW the turret periodically demands, and the accumulator never actually has a chance to charge.

For most buildings, this isn't a big problem. A firing turret could potentially cause an assembler to run a little slower, which is definitely annoying, but not something that could break a build. But there are a few buildings that have little tolerance for power fluctuations. Two that come to mind are accumulators and combinators. The former can be seen in the above image, and carefully constructed combinator circuits can have their timings completely thrown off due to flickering power. In a tightly designed system with a careful power balance, such as a solar powered outpost or a space platform, this extra power draw can wreak havoc on systems that depend on a consistent power production, even when building enough power production to meet the alleged max demand.

[eugenekay]

Also Related: 113626

[mmmPI]

wouldn't that cause the laser turret to fire much slower during brown-out instead ?

[pikmario]

It would, but I think that's an acceptable trade for having the turrets less likely to cause a brownout in the first place.

[mmmPI]

i don't think the turret will really be less likely to cause brown out as in a real game your turrets are not all firing exactly at the same time so this already get smoothed out, if anything i think current system allows the turrets to get more than their share of power during brown out, ( at the expense of the factory) which is most of the time a good thing.

I understand why players could be confused to understand how the system works on the inside, but i don't think it's a valid reason to change it for slower lasers, it would make more sense to add the extra info in the tooltip, but it's also not an info you need in a lot of situation in game and it's not that hard to find and / or test in game

[Fletch]

Entire base flickers on/off when laser turrets fire, if the base is missing the turret's supporting infrastructure:

accumulators, or steam tanks + spare steam engines/turbines

. It is one of the charms of Factorio, one of the puzzles to solve. I vote no on this idea to remove the challenge with lasers.

[Almalexia]

I mean yeah, the listed number should reflect reality
Either raise one or lower the other

[Alfonse215]

Laser turrets are already really good at their current power draw. They don't need to be made substantially better because the UI doesn't have a convenient way to differentiate between instantaneous power draw and average power draw. The existing numbers do reflect reality. They simply reflect the average reality.

[Fletch]

But there are a few buildings that have little tolerance for power fluctuations ... carefully constructed combinator circuits can have their timings completely thrown off due to flickering power.

Embrace the challenge. Design that power-sensitive section of your base (containing the combinators) to have its own built-in resiliency. So it can survive brownouts/blackouts regardless of the cause of the brownout/blackout. The game already provides you the tools to design and build that:

a couple of accumulators (batteries) to power the combinators, and a power switch + basic circuit conditions to trigger the electric network automatic isolation. Essentially a small Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). It is the same thing as the little box under my desk that my PC is plugged into.

.