Factorio Forums

A few things that would be nice to have added to the electric network window:

• Maximum energy production in watts/kW, in total is good but counting only Solar Panels and Steam Engines
• Maximum energy draw in watts/kw, preferably seperated in production/turrets/total
• Charge/discharge rate for acumulators
• Peak energy supply, counting energy production + stored energy discharge on acumulators
• A 'military priority' button that allows active turrets to draw every watt available at the cost of production facilities

Yes please!

I have even better idea, rework the production graph so that it looks like this:

With current 2 graphs, i often get confused not knowing if i produce more or less than i need, this makes it simple to see percentage consumed and what sources are being used. Ready for adition of wind, oil and nuclear. Also a new "missing" bar can be expanding from the right when you don't satisfy demand, and then you don't need 2 separate graphs.
And let player be able to rearrange the order of those bars - this solves the eternal "want accus before coal" problem.

You could also make similar reordeable graph for consumption, that solves priority for turrets/mines/factories.

Hm.

The idea is cool, but it assumes, that the power is also available. This means: the sun is shining, the steam engines drive at best performance and all accus are full. When did that happen? Easter?

But yes, the bar is fine (I would call it "maximum production"), when a second bar is directly below, which shows the current production.
And a third and fourth with the maximum consumption and current consumption.
This would enable to bring the bars in some kind of relativeness, which is currently missing.
Filters should be possible filtering out mining, production, research, logistics, radar, and of course weapons.

With ordering the bars you mean changing the priorities?
If so I keep at my opinion, that the only way to solve that problem is by having electric switches and sensors, which measures inside a network, if there is enough power. And if not you can programm it, to switch off production and/or research. This is like in real life, where you can't switch simply off a nuclear power plant (which we all hope will come at any time). How about switching off mines at night? Or built own networks just for lasers? Use accus to limit the need of power for the radars. Ever tried? This is much cooler, than just switching a button.

Okay, you don't all have to read this but I am going to post it just so I don't have to repeat everything I said in such detail.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 764#p12582

The problem with this 'feature' with regards to the 'max' information is that it assumes that all your generators are working and are working at 100%. Not considering any of the possible causes why this might not actually be the case. Which for people who understand the way it works this might not be such an issue. They would take the information with a grain of salt, however for the majority of people this would cause a lot of complications. Even more so than now. They would see "Max output of 25.5kW" and assume that is how much power they have to play with. Then when everything started going off because they were using 20 kW they would get really frustrated and come complaining. You should pretty much never assume that because you have 50 steam engines that you have 25.5kW of power. Because there is every chance you won't. Unless you have enough water being pumped, enough boilers and they are all fueled. Even more variable with solar panels due to the whole daytime production.

I'm not saying it is a bad idea, just that it carries complications. What I would recommend is that IF they wished to implement this information, that it be optional and defaulted to off. That way new players are not misled into thinking they have more power than they actually do. Because they will. Even if you explain it to them they probably still won't get it.

I will admit the current display is somewhat confusing. But you really shouldn't ever 'plan' around a max output anyway. As odd as that sounds. Build your output as you need it. If it isn't enough, build more. If you are an expert and you are planning big then you really don't need this information anyway because you'll already know how many steam engines/panels/accumulators you need. It isn't hard to say ok I have 20 steam engines so 510w*20=10,200 so 10.2kW easy. Sure the game could do that for you, but portraying that to the player in a way that doesn't make them think that they literally have 10.2 kW is tricky. The only way of doing it really is if you make it something that requires interaction and you have a very clear in BIG letters warning saying something like "This may not reflect your actual max electricity production".

Also ssilk, I really like your ideas of being able to switch off things you aren't using based on conditions such as 'turn mines off at night' kind of thing.

TGS wrote: I'm not saying it is a bad idea, just that it carries complications. What I would recommend is that IF they wished to implement this information, that it be optional and defaulted to off. That way new players are not misled into thinking they have more power than they actually do. Because they will. Even if you explain it to them they probably still won't get it.

Right. But - I mean the electric network and power generation IS complicated. There is currently no simple rule, which tells the player: if this, then that. And if it would be on me, this will keep like so.

You have to look, you have to understand and react.

And we (the players) are just at the beginning what can be done. There is a high potential of possibilities in using the electric network and a much higher but unknown in a new, advanced pipe network (the devs said oil for v0.9, right?)

So all we can currently do, is to have more informations about the electrical-, and pipe network, and see, what we can do with it and if we need more information or can remove another. That's an agile process, and at the end it will be perfect for sure, but it takes time.

And coming back to the suggestion: currently the display lacks of comparability. 10 kW compared to what? Is that much? Enough? Needed? Setting it compareable to the maximum output or input makes it not so confusing and jumping back and forth...
Well: a switch is a good idea. If turned on, every displayed value changes to be comparable with the maximum instead of the most used energy (current display). I think that makes much sense, and if not we will see.

And another suggestion: currently we already have warnings, when the biters coming. I would like to have a device, which I can put into an electric network and which displays me a warning on a map, if the power production gets too low for a minute. I can change the limit, when it begins to warn and the time. For a normal network a limit of 90% over a minute should trigger the warning. But for a mining site, far away, which is in an extra network, driven by solar panels only I want only see, if my accumulators have enough power left, to come over the night. (I think I can explain this construction only with solar panels after Christmas better in the wiki)

I don't like idea with only one bar because I want to have all info about production, demanding and providing electric.

Umm why did you all assume that it displays maximum energy production? Of course i meant available production, that the solar bar decreases over night, accumulator bar shrinks if accus get empty.

@FrozenOne: What is available energy? You can say that for one device, but for a group this is difficult. What does availability mean, if you have 10 steam engines working with 100% and 10 with 0%? Or the clouds (introduced with v0.8) influence the solar panels? And how would you calculate availability, if you don't know the maximum output?

I ask so deep, because in real power networks, the available energy is always the used energy. You need there always to produce more, than needed, to buffer the spikes and compensate the resistance.
I don't say, that the available energy isn't a good number, it's important, but it's not the whole truth and makes you think everything is ok, until your lasers fire. So I think, you need to make that always related to something and the maximums are a quite good value.


@Neotix: hmmmm. Well. The display for solar panel, steam engine and accu is just as I would like to see. The total bar is the total output. If I place directly below a bar with the max. and current total consumption the information is much more clear, than with one display. (My opinion)


And display is a good point, because that has to do with the future of this game:
In the end version of that I think of some display, which looks very steam-punk-like: instruments, some buttons, a display...

Like so http://www.izblogin.com/wp-content/uplo ... team-1.jpg or
http://img1.etsystatic.com/008/0/573691 ... 7_kp7s.jpg
Etc. use google for steam punk instrument display.

Think in that terms! How will you come from a display with many colors, to old looking, simple instrument display? It's much easier to let the colors away now.

Available energy = how much juice your network can give you at the current moment. Like if you build 10000 radars and note the energy they get.
You seek complexity where there is none. There are no real power networks in factorio and all steam engines and solar panels know their current available performance.

I know they know. The point is, that the average is sometimes a misleading function and to find that out you need more information. Hm. The "spreading", or in terms of math the standard deviation, the median and/or the distribution is very helpful for such cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median

And distribution (I took an example from my work, because Wikipedia suck sometimes); replace query time with watts and the scale is from 1 watt to max power of that device logarithmic: