Closing the 100kw over a 1kw line loophole

[Gus Smedstad]

The problem: generator -> battery power transmission cannot cause a power line to overload. It's possible to send 100kw over a 1kw power line. This eliminates a need for heavi watt and heavi conductor power lines, at least for a large part of a power network when exploiting this loophole.

The drawbacks to fixing it: any fix which corrects this will alter existing bases to some extent, even bases that don't exploit the loophole.

Least impact solution: Limit the power input and output to batteries. At present small batteries accept or deliver 10kw, smart batteries 20kw, and jumbo batteries 40kw. If batteries retain their capacities, but are limited to (say) 100 watts / 200 watts / 400 watts, exploiting the loophole becomes more expensive.

Alternately, the limit can only be on charging, with the full 10 / 20 / 40kw available for output.

Drawbacks: doesn't really close the loophole, just makes using it somewhat more expensive. Low impact on existing games.

Comprehensive solution: Count batteries as power consumers for wire overload purposes. For clarity they should be included in the tooltip help listing total circuit usage.

Consequence one: Batteries definitely need power limits under this scheme, since otherwise a single battery can overload any transformer circuit.

Consequence two: batteries need two power ports instead of one, an input and an output. Essentially, batteries become analogous to gas and liquid reservoirs. This is needed so the player can add batteries as a power source to a circuit without adding to the circuit load. Without this feature batteries are nearly unusable if they count as electrical loads.

The ports can be labeled like existing power ports, white for the input side, with a listed maximum charge rate, and green for the output, with a listed maximum power output. The ports should probably be offset from each other, like the gas and liquid reservoirs.

Consequence three: two-port batteries compete with transformers. They need to provide less power isolation per material cost than the corresponding transformer. So a jumbo battery must provide less than the 1kw output of a small transformer, and a smart battery must provide less power output than a 4kw large transformer. Probably less than 2kw, because large transformer -> 2kw circuits are common.

Alternately, the limit can largely be on the input side. If a smart battery can only accept 200 watts for charging, but can provide 2kw output, large transformers are still a better choice for basic circuit isolation.

Drawbacks: eliminates the loophole, but has renders any existing bases that use batteries obsolete. Current games would need re-wiring. Whether this is acceptable depends on developer feelings on the matter. Oxygen Not Included is still in Early Access, which can justify major changes. However, the current players largely treat the game as a finished product with frequent updates, and may strongly resent such a change.

[D.L.S.]

11 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

It's possible to send 100kw over a 1kw power line.

But it will require 100 seconds right, or i'm missing concept?

[Gus Smedstad]

1 minute ago, D.L.S. said:

But it will require 100 seconds right, or i'm missing concept?

You're missing the concept.

We're talking about power, which is energy per second. 100 kw = 100k joules per second. By definition, it's how much energy you're moving in just 1 second.

The way the rules are written write now, cables ignore energy sent from generators to batteries, no matter how much energy it is, or how quickly. When calculating cable overload, the game only looks at devices that consume energy, such as buildings that use energy, or the input side of transformers. Batteries don't count.

So you cam have 100kw or 1,000 kw or 10,000 kw travelling to a bank of batteries, and the cable won't overload. Even If it's a 1kw basic wire.

[zergologist]

*clap clap* Simply amazing. You proposed this whole idea, as well as managed to think of possible drawbacks and consequences. 

[D.L.S.]

1 hour ago, Gus Smedstad said:

You're missing the concept.

We're talking about power, which is energy per second. 100 kw = 100k joules per second. By definition, it's how much energy you're moving in just 1 second.

The way the rules are written write now, cables ignore energy sent from generators to batteries, no matter how much energy it is, or how quickly. When calculating cable overload, the game only looks at devices that consume energy, such as buildings that use energy, or the input side of transformers. Batteries don't count.

So you cam have 100kw or 1,000 kw or 10,000 kw travelling to a bank of batteries, and the cable won't overload. Even If it's a 1kw basic wire.

Right i get, you mean charging batteries.

The thing is with one connector battery can be as load and power source at same time, i guess it can even in same tick charging and discharging, so i think need 2 connectors solution and thread charging port as load for circuit.

[gredalusiam]

7 hours ago, D.L.S. said:

The thing is with one connector battery can be as load and power source at same time, i guess it can even in same tick charging and discharging, so i think need 2 connectors solution and thread charging port as load for circuit.

Hmm, I don't think they can charge and discharge at the same time! They only charge when the generators are producing excess power not being used by the machines. In that case, I would suppose that all the power usage is directly from the generators, and the batteries aren't doing anytihng but soaking up the extra.

 

I'm super tired so who knows. Maybe the batteries are all unicorns and the liquid H2 is coming to get me.

[D.L.S.]

3 hours ago, gredalusiam said:

Hmm, I don't think they can charge and discharge at the same time!

They do so at least when battery in same tick get charge from generator and leak some joules due to self discharge. So if charging battery will add load to circuit, it will at least create constant load as number_of_batteries * self_discharge_rate for circuit.