Factorio Forums

TL;DR

energy transmission should have a diminishing return

What ?

with the transmission of energy over land you should have a diminishing return.
I would suggest something like, every 10 poles you loose like 1% of the energy you transport.

Why ?

with nuclear reactors it is not really necessary to produce energy at more then one place.
you can transport the energy over thousands of poles without any disadvantage.

with a diminishing return you have to build more energy stations when you get later in the game.

no

I agree that this would be nice. However, I don't think it would be worth the additional CPU load/memory bandwidth that would be necessary to simulate the actual power flow.

There are already many people complaining that their games slow down significantly when they build a very large base. This would get worse if your suggestion were implemented.

For some technical information about how power networks work internally in Factorio, see Factorio Friday Facts #115.

Electricity is in fact lost in power lines during transmissions, but not much. Modern high voltage cables loses about 1% electricity per 100 mile, not too significant.

I don't understand OP's concern for a centralized power production though. Players should be allowed to determine how they want to distribute their resources throughout the land.