Generator slider bars, multiple circuits, and UI

[Oxidizer]

Generators have a slider bar to "operate when battery falls below selected percentage". However, there is no way to set the upper limit (i.e., "stop using when battery is above that percentage"). This means duplicants will often stay on the generator wheels indefinitely, seemingly trying to charge batteries that are already at 100% (but are probably oscillating around 99%, since there are some devices drawing power).

Also, there seems to be something buggy in the logic that makes them start pedalling in the first place. I frequently see duplicants get on a generator wheel connected to a circuit whose batteries are above 90%, although the slider bar for those wheels is set to 50% (or even lower), while ignoring the wheels on a different circuit, whose batteries are flat. It seems the duplicants are just going "is there a flat battery somewhere? if so, I'm going to get on a random wheel and pedal!"

Given the (kind of ridiculously low) current limit of electrical wires and the (unrealistic) way in which every part of a circuit is treated as being under the full load of everything connected to that circuit (that's not how electricity works, guyze ), larger bases need to have 4 or 5 independent circuits, and with duplicants constantly using the "wrong" wheels, players have to waste a lot of time micromanaging this.

So, I would suggest the following changes:

1. Change the way wire load is calculated to be more realistic. I assume this is planned anyway, and the current "everything is at the same load" approach is just a placeholder.

2. Generator slider bars should have two cursors. One for when to turn the generator on, the other for when to turn the generator off. The decision should be based on batteries connected to that circuit, and should be applicable to all generators (i.e., if a coal generator's slider bar cursors are set to 25% min and 75% max, it should stop consuming coal when it detects the batteries are at 75% charge - or alternatively a duplicant should walk to it and turn it off if the charge is above 75%, and come back to turn it on if it gets below 25%).

3. The same two-cursor slider bars should be used by hydrofans, microbe mushers, and other buildings, with appropriate scales. For example "start using microbe musher if stored calories are below X / stop using if stored calories are above Y". And "stop using fan if local temperature is below X, start using it if above Y". For some buildings, this could probably replace the "priority" selector, in others it can make sense to have both settings.

4. The three sections of the slider bar (below minimum cursor, between two cursors and above maximum cursor) should be coloured appropriately, possibly using different colours depending on the building (ex., red / yellow / green for the generators, blue / white / red for cooling fans).

 

 

[Collic]

I completely agree about the generator sliders. I haven't been able to use them effectively at all. Because of this I tend to remove manual generators as soon as possible and just set coal generators to a priority of 7 to hopefully keep them fed. Leaving them around will just lead to dupes wasting time using them for no good reason.

Regarding circuits, it's been my experience (at least in the latest builds) that they only overload when power draw exceeds the 1 or 2 KW limit. I have a circuit with lots of equipment (most of which is rarely used) and potential usage exceeds the max wattage, but I haven't had any overloads because those extra stations are almost never turned on. This seems like it's working as it should be to me.

Speaking of circuits, we also need an overlay or ui of some sort with colour coding to denote different circuits, and hopefully some real-time statistics showing totals for power produced, consumed, potential power usage etc. You can get the grid statistics already, but not easily.

[Oxidizer]

The problem is they overload all parts of the circuit, even ones that have 0 watts flowing through them. And doubling the wires makes no difference (although, in a real circuit, that would mean only half the current flowing through each). You have to keep dividing it into completely separate circuits.

And that's not how power distribution works. Even if you have appliances totalling 4 kW in your home, all turned on at the same time, the individual wires connecting each appliance to the wall socket don't need to be rated for 4 kW. Each "branch" of the circuit is only under the load corresponding to the appliances on that branch (so the full 4 kW would only be flowing through the "input" wire, before it divides to go to different rooms, and then again to each appliance). But the game treats every single wire connected to that circuit as being under the full load - even "dead ends" that have nothing connected to them, and therefore wouldn't be under any load. I hope this was just a "quick and dirty" approach to test the code, and not meant to be the final simulation. 

Also, 2 kW is kind of ridiculous; a normal 240v household wall wire is typically required to carry at least 4 kW (ie, around 16 amps) without any issues, and the wires in ONI are made of 100 kg of copper per meter (which would be enough to carry at least 1.21 gigawatts ).

And while the coal generators free up your duplicants, they will continue to consume coal (and produce heat) even if the batteries are full - they only turn off when the coal runs out (or when you manually disable them). There should be some way to tell your duplicants (or the generators themselves) to turn off when battery charge is above some threshold.

[Keyimin]

I second and third this suggestion. Even if the particular solution isn't what's implemented, having generators wastefully burning through power (and thus resources) is a problem. I'm not on my PC atm, but I can post the pic later of my coal generator still burning coal despite not even being hooked up to the power grid. The hydrogen generator, which is remarkably inefficient and useless as any kind of reliable power source, wholeheartedly ignores the state of battery power altogether, while the coal generators only stop when they run out of coal.

I also agree that we need some sort of visual indicators for the power lines themselves. There's no way to look at the power overlay and visually see what's what with your circuits. They don't even go red when you turn them off with a power switch anymore. 

12 minutes ago, Collic said:

Regarding circuits, it's been my experience (at least in the latest builds) that they only overload when power draw exceeds the 1 or 2 KW limit. I have a circuit with lots of equipment (most of which is rarely used) and potential usage exceeds the max wattage, but I haven't had any overloads because those extra stations are almost never turned on. This seems like it's working as it should be to me.

While that's true, what the OP is referring to is the fact that the ENTIRE circuit is included in (and subject to) that overload amount. In other words, normally, the only part of a circuit that deals with the full power load is the "main line." In our ONI world, imagine you have a bunch of coal generators supplying power to a particular circuit. The main line you're running from those coal generators would be carrying the potential max power limit and thus subject to overload. But as that power splits off to secondary lines to feed the machines, those parts of the circuit should only be under the specific load needed to power what's on them. However, that's not how it's handled -- every line on that circuit needs to use heavy watt wire, as it's considered to be "max load" no matter where on the circuit it is, even if there's only (in reality) 120W of power running through that feeder line.

[Keyimin]

And apparently I was typing that explanation at the same time as Oxidizer lol

[Collic]

I see what you both mean now, but I don't have a huge issue with how it works currently, it is at least easy to see what's going on.

The thing is though, if implemented as you say, you wouldn't need to use the heavy gauge wires for much aside from connecting multiple generators and your batteries, as the combined  wattage of multiple appliances isn't that high a lot of the time. Perhaps that could be another reason why they went with this simplified method (heavy gauge wires are also a material sink). As we get more and more machinery, with higher individual power draw, I can see 'proper' electrical wiring being more fun to plan around and build with. I'd always welcome more realism and complexity

[Keyimin]

I just want to be able to hook up circuits in a logical way that allows me to see what the heck is going on with the circuits (current flow, load, etc.). Given the resources required for wires (and associated heat) are ultimately limited and nonrenewable (AFAIK), there shouldn't be a mandatory sink of materials into unnecessary heavy watt wire unless we're meant to have an max life span placed on our colonies. This is especially true now that heat is a serious concern, and many of us are building our power generators and batteries a fair distance from our bases (in cold biomes, water reservoirs, etc.). Just the main line into the base could take a lot of resources from those distances. 

I'd also suggest that the power switches should have an "input" for the wires we want to connect to it. The "directional" nature of the switches is awkward and unnecessarily annoying imho.

[Oxidizer]

11 hours ago, Collic said:

you wouldn't need to use the heavy gauge wires for much aside from connecting multiple generators and your batteries

So it's an unrealistic mechanic that exists solely for the purpose of making players replace their wiring at some point, and switch from clicking icon X to clicking icon Y when creating new wires?

I think it would make a lot more sense to make players decide which wire type to use based on the design of the actual circuit (ie, use expensive, slow to build "heavy" wires in a main line, and branch off with normal wire. In other words, make the actual circuit design relevant.

I hope that's the intention, otherwise this is just adding icons for the sake of it.

11 hours ago, Collic said:

As we get more and more machinery, with higher individual power draw, I can see 'proper' electrical wiring being more fun to plan around and build with

Exactly.

11 hours ago, Collic said:

heavy gauge wires are also a material sink

That really should not be an issue at this point in development. Alpha is for implementing features and mechanics, not for balancing materials (I mean, the alpha should be playable, of course, but balance is secondary to implementing actual mechanics). They can always decrease the amount of metal available, or increase the cost of one wire type while decreasing the other (or make the heavy wires gold-only, or make them much slower to build, etc.). It's not like the current costs make any "real world" sense anyway (100 kg of copper to make one metre of wire...?  ).

[MoMuffins]

Can we just do away with the slide bars and just allow us a typeable field with arrow up and arrow down?

I can not set arbitrary numbers on anything with sliders, especially on valves.  It is very infuriating!

[Oxidizer]

14 minutes ago, Fatmice said:

Can we just do away with the slide bars and just allow us a typeable field with arrow up and arrow down?

I can not set arbitrary numbers on anything with sliders, especially on valves.  It is very infuriating!

The problem with that is that it limits adjustment speed to whatever increase / decrease rate is used by the arrows. A slider bar allows adjusting from 10% to 90% almost instantly and with good visual feedback. There's a reason why professional cameras (for example) still use knobs and rings, instead of little "plus" and "minus" buttons. And in a lot of cases here the scale is fixed (0% to 100% battery charge, for example).

No reason why there can't also be (editable) numeric fields, though. And valves' slider bars should probably use a logarithmic scale, so you have more resolution at low values. A lot of these UI issues have already been "solved" in real-world devices, it's just a matter of implementing them with the game's graphics.

 

[MoMuffins]

That's all fine and good.  I just prefer to type in the numbers myself.  The current sliders afford easy settings like 10s, 100s, and 1000s, depending on the object/valves.  More often on the valves, I want single digit precision, not because I am anal, but because I am trying to measure some rate.

I think they can keep the sliders if they want, but please make the numbers editable.

[Insert_Name_Here]

In real life circuits in your home are on multiple different ones, however it's amperage based not wattage. I agree the current system needs tweaking, I don't like Watts being the defining thing, some of it seems odd. Like a water heater using 960w (That's not very much), like it's all scaled down (Game purposes, not complaining but would like to circle that part on the white board). 

I'd also like to see a few things integrated with the circuitry. Add diodes so we can add one way circuits, this would allow you to create a battery array and power generation separate from individual grids. Colour coding would be useful but difficult to implement unless you also stretch it to water/gas lines to make it all consistent. But I don't like having separate battery arrays and power generation areas, it's just several of the same thing, doesn't sit right with me.

You should be able to ring a circuit too to increase the load capacity, at least there should be some benefit to doing this. 

I'd also like to see temperature affect circuits, batteries should be more efficient at colder temperatures.

My main gripe with the electrics at the moment is overheating. Difficult to know if things are bugged or behaving as intended, but coal generators overheating is strange. I keep having my gas cooler overheat, batteries have started overheating now at cycle 130ish, water purifier etc. It seems difficult to keep these things cool enough to 'work', especially when the devices designed to cool stuff down overheats themselves! 

Anywho just had those things in my head, wanted to put them out there somewhere.