Factorio Forums

Marc90 wrote: 1. To unbarrel the assembling machine needs electricity, which the diesel generator generates - if you had a power failure for whatever reason, what would you do then?

Personally i would have a storage tank for each bank of generators so i would have some time before a total power failure, also if you had an item going into the generator it takes an inserter those take power too. I tend to use allot of solar panels and accumulators as well so i could have a bank of generators in a different place but i expect then to be used as backup diesel gen's or night only.
i do see your point of unbarreling takes power but it takes allot more power to run the rest of the Oil industry in the game.

Marc90 wrote: 2. A canister is maybe better than a barrel, which also holds less liquid, maybe 5-10 or so and of course you wouldn't burn the barrel/canister, you would get it back.

and at this point if you want that then you're basically wanting a solid fuel generator and if im not mistaken there are ways to do that aren't there. its actually nice to have a liquid based power system because it can run at a complete power failure,
So imagine if you have a stall but you leave your backup power "unplugged". i do this when i want to cut my pollution and go all solar, so i cut the pipes on the steam boilers so they dont run and go put pipes in if stuff goes badly wrong, with the diesel it would just be better. the only True way of making power with no power is burner miners with burner inserts on steam engines and boilers, in vanilla anyway

The diesel generators are great. I have a bunch connected to a tank full of diesel and converting coal to oil products via Bergius process to make fuel. Not the most efficient way but I have way more coal than oil available and the diesels are a good 'dense' way to generate power during the night. They'd be badly OP if they were available too early but by the time I research them I can have as much power as I like via other methods, they just provide a small footprint, oil based alternative.

Love this mod, especially wind turbines and the diesel generators.
I'm running the latter with light oil primarily, as I have much more of those than that of petroleum. I love that I can do that.

I have a few suggestions, if I may;
1) Wind turbines doesn't rotate if there's no need for electricity. They make no sound either (though why would they?) in the meanwhile. I'm not sure why, but wouldn't it be reasonable if they did? It's only bothersome when there's little energy usage, and wind turbines start up for a fraction of a second then shut off, repeatedly.
2) Diesel generators are loud. Too loud compared to other sound-making things in-game, at least that is my opinion. Also, it's very easy to notice the volume jumps when going closer to it/further away from it, and after 12 tiles or so, the sound completely disappears. I'd suggest lowering the volume of the generator (by a fourth/third maybe) and increasing the range it can be heard.
3) A proposition of an addition/option. Mostly for convenience, but it would increase efficiency also, a bit.
Backup generators.
Using laser turrets for example, the amount of electricity I use skyrockets during attacks. I have enough power from the generators, but those use fuel, while solar/wind farms and accumulators don't. Most often I'd have enough power from those three and wouldn't need fuel dependent generators, but to keep the accumulators full, the generators kick in also.
Would it be possible to have an option to make specific generators start up only after accumulators are depleted, or nearing depletion?

Trivial things though, I'm really enjoying this mod! Thank you!

How much diesel are the generators supposed to be using? Mine run flat out during the night but don't seem to consume much or any diesel at all. They should be roughly in line with other power sources in terms of MJ burned to produce power right?

Nice item pack. I seem to have downloaded of lot of your mods, Klonan. Thanks for all of the work.

Just a note, I have 20 diesel generators running flat out during the night (with some accumulator drainage so I know they are going maximum) and they generate 51MW. just a touch under the 52 expected from 20 x 2.6MW. Or maybe it's a rounding thing.

Gotta say I love the windmills. I've played around 2400 so far and am planning on expanding that. Provides about 30-40% of my power (the rest is steam engines). I'll be making a nuclear plant soon to supplement this. So far oil has been a big problem for me (RSO) so I haven't tried the diesel out yet.
Quick question though, do windmills still average about 50% production or is it higher now?

why do i get an error:
Error in assignID, entity with name "tank-smoke" does not exist.

don't know why though :3

zachary1428 wrote:why do i get an error:
Error in assignID, entity with name "tank-smoke" does not exist.

don't know why though :3

Had the same problem. Update your game client and it will work

So should a large amount of windmills affect performance? I have 15k of them and the debug window shows ks power as taking up a good chunk of CPU. Not sure if it is really KS Power or some other mod.

NoriSilverrage wrote:So should a large amount of windmills affect performance? I have 15k of them and the debug window shows ks power as taking up a good chunk of CPU. Not sure if it is really KS Power or some other mod.

Yep they do affect performance,
However i can easily scale how much CPU they use,
If you start encountering a lot of lag (like you drop bellow 60/60 due to the turbines)
Let me know and i can make a better version for you

Yeah, I asked because I am falling below 50FPS at times. The debug window shows script update and KS power as the highest CPU users. I am running a decent amount of mods though so there could be something else affecting it that I can't see.

NoriSilverrage wrote:Yeah, I asked because I am falling below 50FPS at times. The debug window shows script update and KS power as the highest CPU users. I am running a decent amount of mods though so there could be something else affecting it that I can't see.

OK this version should help lower the CPU time that ks power uses: let me know if they stop working at all, i havent tested it with this long of a refresh time

Thanks, tried it out and CPU usage went down, but then after a while a bunch of the windmills just turned off. Some were still working (about 30%) but the rest stop producing power.

NoriSilverrage wrote:Thanks, tried it out and CPU usage went down, but then after a while a bunch of the windmills just turned off. Some were still working (about 30%) but the rest stop producing power.

Ok can you try this version:

That seems to be working. Tried it for a hour and performance was good with no noticeable windmill stopping.

I wanted to know the efficiency of the Oil Boiler (as of KSPower 0.1.1), so here is some maths and also some experimentally derived figures (burning a set amount of fuel and seeing how much charge goes into accumulators):


Burning Light Oil:
0.5 Light Oil -> 300 Hot Water
0.085MJ * 300 = 25.5MJ or 56MJ/Oil
Experimentally derived figure: 50.000-55.001MJ/Oil (varies by setup)
(Note: Boiler draw of 30kW isn't included, it was powered separately)

As Solid Fuel:
1 Light Oil -> 1 Solid Fuel (25MJ) -> Burned at 50% efficiency -> 12.5MJ/Oil
Experimentally derived figure: 12.503MJ/Oil

Boiler = 4x More Efficient (Crikey!)


Crude Oil vs Processing:

Burning 1 Crude Oil = 25.5MJ (same as above for 0.5 light oil)

Basic Processing:
1 Crude Oil -> 0.3 Heavy, 0.3 Light, which equals 0.085MJ * (0.3 + 0.3 / 0.5) * 300 = 22.95MJ (90%) + 4 Petroleum Gas

Advanced Processing:
1 Crude Oil -> 0.1 Heavy 0.45 Light, which equals 0.085 * (0.1 + 0.45 / 0.5) * 300 = 25.5MJ (100%) + 5.5 Petroleum Gas

Diesel Generator Light Oil:
Experimentally derived figure: 7.504MJ/Oil


The Oil Burning Experiment Mismatch:
As far as I know this is caused by fluid escaping the boiler's fluidbox before the script can heat it (it also afflicts every other hot water mod) leading to cold water escaping into the system. The 55MJ/oil figure was obtained by doing something unusual and placing a storage tank at the outlet of the boiler, because tanks act as resistors the water is forced to stay in the fluidbox for long enough for the script to heat it resulting in no more than 1.2% cold water leakage. However I can legitimately claim to be a wizard at fluid dynamics because I've done a heap of experimentation, players who don't notice cold water escaping into the system or wouldn't think to use a tank as a resistor would be more likely to get an efficiency number in the vicinity of 50MJ/oil.

Summary:
Oil Burning is Extremely OP, being nearly 4x better than Solid fuel and 7x better than Diesel Generator. One wonders if some number was inadvertently doubled instead of halved or vice-verca (i.e. if it should be burning 2 light oil per cycle instead of 0.5)

Oil Burning should be closely inline with solid fuel. If it produced the same as solid fuel then you'd still have the advantages of lower pollution and simpler more compact less energy intensive power generation. Ideally the water escaping the fluidbox problem should be resolved in some way although the reduction in efficiency is no more than 10%.

In my test, I feel that wind power is a bit op at is current stage. I would like to suggest a few changes to it, that will perhaps make it better and more realistic.

1. I feel that they are too compact and make extremely easy energy generation. They appear to be what, 2x2 right now? I would suggest increasing the area they take to 3x3 without increasing the graphic size in any way, keeping the same collision too. Center it in the 3x3 square and make it so you can't build too close to it, this will simulate giving it better air flow so wind can get to it.
2. I would like it if each wind mill would supply power to the things around it, as if it were a power poll, but without using a cable to link to other wind mills. This would be a short range thing, just enough so that it can connect to another wind mill placed directly next to it. Simply assume that the cord is along the ground or underground and connected to each object in range. Each wind mill being able to pass power along to the others as if they were a power pole.
3. I did not have hardly any wind variability in my game play for several game days, I watched and watched and gave up watching because it appeared to simply stay at or near max. I don't need batteries or anything, because there is never a period of time when there is no wind. There needs to be more wind variability so that it makes you want batteries or other forms of power generation. Otherwise, I'd simply spam these. Maybe I was just lucky, but who knows.

I intend to try this stuff out in multiplayer soon enough. I haven't tested anything but the wind mill so far.

I would also like to see a larger solar panel added to the game. One that takes the space of 4 solar panels in a 2x2 grid of each other, all in one single object with 4.2 times the health and 4.4 times the power generation (.2 more health because a few extra panels can be fit in the spaces you used to have between, and same reason for .4 more power) if you would be willing to add such a thing. This could lower the amount of items all over the map when you make a large solar farm. In addition, I think you should make them do the same thing as suggestion 2 for your mod, power objects next to them, and forward power along like a power line would, so that you don't need power lines every so often in your solar field. Just make it a 1 block distance on all sides for that, so that another panel would need to be directly touching it for this to work.

In addition to that last idea, a small power forwarding sub station that is flat against the ground. This will also work like a power pole, but no cables. It will only supply and forward power in a 1x block all around it, so if you happen to space a solar panel apart by 1 block to make a small walk path, you can stick one of these in between in order to get the two solar panels to connect.

I simply wanted to suggest this on your mod because, I'd be incapable of doing such having just started playing the game, and I figured the power mod could use these power related suggestions.

Honestly, I have built 400 of them in my early game, and I don't feel them OP. With 400, I get an average of 4 MW, with variability from maybe 2.5 to ... more than I need. That's a huge quantity of ressource to produce as much as 8 steam engines on average (and 4 when wind is low). 9200 iron plates + 1200 copper plates where 8 steam engine plus 10 boilers plus one offshore pump will need 175 iron + 3 copper.

Just because you make something cost a fortune does not make it balanced. Once it is constructed, it is infinite power production forever and ever. It seems to me most people play the game using the rapid expansion method, however, I did not. I like to take my time, and thus wind mills worked for me because I never had power issues. It never turned off, and it only really went half power due to wind for a few minutes tops and then never went down again.

EDIT: Maybe it depends on the area, but now it seems my wind mills are half power the entire time. xD I spawned at a new area in a new map.