Factorio Forums

I recently updated my entire Gleba base and did a fusion power setup. It has 8 legendary Fusion reactors and 68 legendary fusion generators. It's about 8.5 gigs of power. The base uses about 2 to 3 gigs of power at any given time. It all seemed stable at first. After being back to Nauvis for an hour or so, I decided to check on Gleba and the power was shutdown and the base was in a blackout. I reloaded the authosave from 15 minutes earlier and saw that the max power was 8.5 gigs, then would drop drastically for a split second before going back to 8.5 gigs. It does this every second or so. There are 3 legendary cryogenic plants cooling fluoroketone and plenty of fluoroketone in the system. All of the outputs look correct.

From there I watch the power fluctuate badly every second or so until the brownout leads to a blackout. I also noticed that my fusion powered ships seem to do these same fluctuations. Any idea what might be causing this?

Pictures?

Are the hot fluoroketone pipes too full, maybe?

kpreid wrote: Sat Nov 22, 2025 6:11 am Pictures?

Are the hot fluoroketone pipes too full, maybe?

Interesting. Is that a thing? I thought that the fluoroketone gets replaced at the same rate as it is used, so this wouldn't be a factor. I have it set up with a storage tank of cold fluoro and a storage tank of hot fluoro in each loop which is basically full. Maybe this is the issue. I will take some out to allow some wiggle room and see if that's it the issue. If not, I can post some pics of the set up.

Rylant wrote: Sat Nov 22, 2025 1:06 pm Is that a thing? I thought that the fluoroketone gets replaced at the same rate as it is used, so this wouldn't be a factor.

Factorio is a simulation that necessarily works in discrete time steps and discrete quantities. The fluoroketone cooling recipe works on 10 fluid-units at a time, so if the cold pipe is full but for 5 units of empty space, it won't make progress and so it won't consume any hot fluoroketone, so things can definitely jam up if you have less than 10 units free in both hot and cold pipes.

I just tested in the editor that a fusion power system will indeed black out under these conditions (reactor loop + 2 tanks + unbarrelers putting more fluid in both pipes).

I have it set up with a storage tank of cold fluoro and a storage tank of hot fluoro in each loop which is basically full.

There is no reason to fill up the hot side. The purpose of the hot side is to accept fluid from the fusion generators, so in principle it should be kept as empty as possible for fast flow out (but that probably doesn't matter). The only use for hot fluoroketone is to cool it, so if you have enough cold fluoroketone, then you have enough fluoroketone.

Makes perfect sense, but it isn't something that I considered. Right now, as I don't visit Gleba often, I set up a assembly machine with a chest filled with fluoro hot barrels in it feeding and another chest removing the empty barrels. The system is mostly full but keeps adding another barrel as it can, just making it tighter and tighter. Which I am thinking is why I ran into this issue.

Now that I think about it, storage tanks of hot and cold fluoro are not only unnecessary, but could lead to problems. It seems that we should make it most ly full, but allow a little room to allow the generators to expel the hot fluoro with no restriction. I assume, once that happens, as long as your cryogenic plants can keep up cooling the liquid, it should be stable. As it's a closed system, it should never plug up and never back up.

I haven't been able to check my game yet today, assume this is the issue. Thanks so much. I appreciate the help.

Yes, since it’s a closed system, you don't need any ongoing supply of fluoroketone. The only need for new fluoroketone is if you deconstruct the pipes or fusion buildings and lose fluid that way.