Factorio Forums

Creating a custom power source is simple, if it's a turbine or solar panel.

If it's anything functionally different, it's not. Placing an EEI entity is trivial, but EEIs require a buffer to connect to the electrical network, which may cause balance and/or display issues.

I am aware there is a workaround in form of an infinity pipe feeding steam into a turbine all squeezed into the spot of your custom power entity, but setting this up is difficult and not very well known.

What I want from this is a EEI attribute along the lines of 'buffering', 'using buffer', 'actively buffering', or something similar, that while un-checked makes the EEI work like a (reverse) solar panel in essence (just ignoring the time of day).

Alternatively, a prototype or attribute such that solar panel prototypes can ignore time of day would archive the same effect, though maybe a bit less intiuitive.

Update, Xorimunth suggested a burner generator with some infinite fuel item. Would probably work in my use case, but I don't believe it would for everyone. Also kind of misses the point of being 'simple' cuz you need to have an extra item and insert and possibly remove it into/from the entity in the control stage.

It sounds like you are forgetting to also set the output flow limit in the energy interface. It would prevent it from dumping a big buffer into the network.

Well, the output flow would be determined by the buffer size. No matter the power production it can only provide (Buffer size) times 60 watts, or set it like on normal accumulators for lower flow.

The issue here is that that buffer shows up on the electric network, in place of the power production, while not active, and stays there if in use. For a power source, knowing how much power is stored is massively different from displaying how much power can hypothetically be produced.

You would need to look at accumulator storage which the moment a normal accumulator is placed down you can't even do that calculation anymore unless your power source's output flow is exactly 300kW. Even if it would be, I doubt people would realize that network max charge plus math equals network max power production.

Steam engines work identically to electric energy interfaces. They simply have a small buffer of 1-2 ticks worth of their production. So if that's all you want you can do the same on the EEI.