Possible way to combine circuits

[MousesDonkey]

I was experimenting with the circuits and I discovered that you can have the wires coming from the generators branch off using the manual switches, and then to different circuits, and they will still be separate. Essentially, you could have one bank of manual generators, split the wire of to two circuit grids you have made, and then have the batteries after the grid to keep everything running. The circuits after the switch will only show the power usage for that section, and you won't overload the whole thing as long as you only have one switch on at a time. It also means you have to keep an eye on your batteries to know when you need to switch over to another circuit to charge them, so there is even more to keep you eye on this way. I don't know how useful this will be yet, but I may help with those having difficulty with power management.

[Erasmus Crowley]

I think you just invented the ONI equivalent of a fusebox. I think is WAY more useful than you're giving it credit for!

[Askorbinka]

Or you can build several coal generator+batteries on every level (just outside of your base) and and have a circuit for every level and more

[Vilda]

Building so much generators is not feasible but if a swich is splitting the circuit, that is indeed a massive discovery

[MoMuffins]

Switch always split the circuit.  Its been like that.  I don't see how this is useful if you have to manually toggle one off and another on to keep two grids from overloading.

[Vilda]

I read the OP post as that it is doing automatically regardless of it's state.

[MoMuffins]

19 minutes ago, Vilda said:

I read the OP post as that it is doing automatically regardless of it's state.

Then that is likely unintended and a bug.

[xbeo]

 

34 minutes ago, Vilda said:

I read the OP post as that it is doing automatically regardless of it's state.

I think OP just wanted to say that a powerswitch in its off state will seperate circuits.

3 hours ago, MousesDonkey said:

you won't overload the whole thing as long as you only have one switch on at a time.

Nothing automatic, nothing spectacular, unfortunately.

I tested it in debug mode:

A button in ON-state will not seperate grids:

Same with more than one button in a row.

A button in OFF state will seperate the grid, as expected.

So, here you have 2 grids with 1 power supply. Now we need ability to build relais.

 

[MousesDonkey]

Sorry, I intended to word it so that it said you could only charge up the batteries on one grid at a time. It probably wouldn't be useful for the main generators for each circuit, but if you wanted to have one bank of manual generators to back up the grids, you could hook them into a few of them instead of having to build some for each one. You just have to check in on the batteries periodically to see if they need charged (if you are out of fuel for the other generators).

[Vilda]

Yeah, I've been thinking about writing a piece on current power grid. It's not that I mind that much and can understand the mechanic, but it makes it inconvenient to spread the power generation around. Though better case then dealing with long distance "poles" and transformators.

[Nativel]

The power load should be calculated from the sources to the consumers, and should be calculated with parallel and mixed connections, for now it's calculated as serial connection from sources to the consumers with is wrong. If I use one cable and it's go to the left from source and second cable with is go to the right from source, it's mean I've paralel connection to the consumers with is mean those consumers have tier own cables and they have tier own circuits, for now it's like they have one circuit.

 

[Vilda]

But you can't connect tiered cables in real life either. You have to have some kind of a transformation station.

[Masterpintsman]

Look at the setup in your house, it's connected using tiered cables: big one comes in, branches into smaller ones, all individually dimensioned to the maximum load over them, no transformer.

 

 

[Nativel]

14 minutes ago, Vilda said:

But you can't connect tiered cables in real life either. You have to have some kind of a transformation station.

Hehehe, in real life we have power stations and it Mega Watts power source, and if there will be voltage like 220 V the cables will be melted by Amperage, even if we have 2.000.000 watts from power source there will be 2.000.000/220= 9090 Amperage - instant cables evaporation. So we have to use more Voltage like 10kV.

So 2.000.000/10000=200 With is high too, and some times we have to use 110kV and 220kV near Moscow we have one line 550 kV, very crazy things happens around that line, hehehe.

Ok, but to connet houses to this line we have to transform Voltage, because high voltage have high impulse and it can "jump over" air and walls easyly, even inside consumers like toster or fredge and those devices will burnout.

In the game we don't have Mega watts power source and there is no long way like kilometers travel so we don't need transform Voltage.

[Vilda]

43 minutes ago, Masterpintsman said:

Look at the setup in your house, it's connected using tiered cables: big one comes in, branches into smaller ones, all individually dimensioned to the maximum load over them, no transformer.

 

 

And what do you think your switchboard is for? Transforms one bigger cable from outside to something usable in home. Cables in a house are all of one type - usually 3x2,5 (3 wires in one cable, in, out, ground). Transformation for appliances is dealt inside of them or on power plug (notebook trafos for example)

[Vilda]

@Nativel We don't have loss over a distance either. That's why I am kinda okay with the model in game right now. Modeling reality too much would make power grid tedious and unnecessary complicated. This strikes a balance of "a little bit complicated that one single grid everywhere but not that much"

[Mijae]

This would be great if power switches actually worked right now.  They continually bug out circuits for me, so I can't use them in TU.

[Nativel]

Just now, Vilda said:

We don't have loss over a distance either. That's why I am kinda okay with the model in game right now. Modeling reality too much would make power grid tedious and unnecessary complicated. This strikes a balance of "a little bit complicated that one single grid everywhere but not that much"

Well, we don't have so much distances so there will be not much power loss and even so this can be solved by placing some parametrs in cabels like cables from copper could provide 2000W from Iron 1000W from Gold Amalgalm 1500W from, and from Wolframite 750W, something like that, Or we can even use Internal raw metal resistance, but we have to use Ohm's law, it's very very very important, or it will be realy sad w/o that.

[vonVile]

There's a bug involving Power Switches where anything built on the grid after them when the switch is originally set to "off" is always stay off even when you turn the switch to "on". You have to remove them and reload your game to fix the line, so I wouldn't trust anything at this moment when if comes to using switches.

[MousesDonkey]

I've had that bug a couple times, but I just had to save and restart and it worked. Actually, I've had bugs often that usually get fixed by restarting. Its annoying, but this is still an Alpha, gotta expect a few issues.

[alcurad90]

Does anyone remember that we have a switch you can change it by your(not the dupes') hands and the temperature?

 

In addition, "nothing" always has a -275C

[Octyabr]

5 hours ago, alcurad90 said:

Does anyone remember that we have a switch you can change it by your(not the dupes') hands and the temperature?

 

In addition, "nothing" always has a -275C

Yeah, I've noticed that, makes normal switches quite useless. Until they fix it, of course, since I would catalogue it as an exploit.