Accumulator usage cutoff points

[Harkonnen604]

There are two issues with accumulators. First - steam engines start marching through the night and waste coal even when accumulators would do well themselves w/o running steam. Second issue - when accumulators die through the night, you are at risk that your whole base is eaten by biters. What I propose is the next tier for "Electric energy distribution" research that will add two sliding icons at accumulators charge bar in electric network info screen. One of them (placed by default at 50%) is level of accumulators charge at which steam engines come into play and start producing power. The second one (placed by default at 25%) is level of accumulators charge when the whole base is shut down except for laser turrets.

[ssilk]

There are two issues with accumulators. First - steam engines start marching through the night and waste coal even when accumulators would do well themselves w/o running steam.

That's not an issue, it's a task which can be fixed or not, it's up to the player and it will be much easier to solve this task with 0.13. Look into the WIKI, the "Show your Creations"-Board or ask in Gameplay Help how you can solve this task.

Second issue - when accumulators die through the night, you are at risk that your whole base is eaten by biters. What I propose is the next tier for "Electric energy distribution" research that will add two sliding icons at accumulators charge bar in electric network info screen. One of them (placed by default at 50%) is level of accumulators charge at which steam engines come into play and start producing power. The second one (placed by default at 25%) is level of accumulators charge when the whole base is shut down except for laser turrets.

Again: This will not be solved via GUI, you need to build something. Using combinator (or not).
It's part of the game to regulate this within the game-world.

Moved to Won't implement, cause this suggestion would remove a lot of gameplay.

[Harkonnen604]

These technologies would require several things:
1) accumulators capacity at combinator
2) some sort of "switch" power pole that transmits or blocks energy flow. with circuit network conditions
3) it would be very nice to have some coloring for separate electric networks, e.g. some kind of colored cap at top of the poles.

at least item 3 would make these things manageable. otherwise it's very easy to screw up entire power management idea by simply putting one extra pole and accidentally link lasers to main power grid.

[Rahjital]

These technologies would require several things:
1) accumulators capacity at combinator
2) some sort of "switch" power pole that transmits or blocks energy flow. with circuit network conditions

Those two are coming in 0.13, so with some planning it will be possible to do this player-side without making accumulators useless with steam engines.