Power Room uses

[OxCD]

Hi folks.

Am I the only one to think that the Power Control Station (let's call it PCS, I'm lazy...) uses are awkward ?

I explain myself. I use to build PCS into each gen room, 1st because I want those to be tunable if needed, 2nd because I like the concept (and the color ) of a Power Room.

Then I manually enable or disable PCS by selecting the metal that should be used to create microchip (or eventually a manual interrupter).

Lastly, I've enabled only the PCS into my petro gen room. But what's happening is dups are coming into my petro gen room just to take microchips on the floor, then go into other gen room to tune-up other gen... (I want the dup/time to be used only for 1kW gain, not for 400W gain on NG gen or H gen, for example)

That completely messed up any organization about it.

Am I misusing this "system" ? Does someone noticed something that could help me to efficiently manage this mess ? (except just blocking dup access to gen room).

@Klei, if you read us : is it working as designed ... ? ^^ Are you planning to save microchips only for power room where those have been manufactured ?

Thanks all !

[Lutzkhie]

Sometimes I want to add powerstation just because I can, but sometimes just enclose the generators and let the cooling works, either more power through power station or a better cooling option

[Mutineer]

Personally, I simply permit different dupe in each power room. Then they will not take chip only to go to others. If you do not want anything to turn in per room you can simply disable operate for dupes permitted.

Saying that I do not see why you care. Do not put in power rooms the smallest sources you do not want to turn. I turn up everything >= coal generators, 600w +50% 900w. 300w is good enough in my book.

[OxCD]

4 hours ago, Mutineer said:

Personally, I simply permit different dupe in each power room. Then they will not take chip only to go to others. If you do not want anything to turn in per room you can simply disable operate for dupes permitted.

Saying that I do not see why you care. Do not put in power rooms the smallest sources you do not want to turn. I turn up everything >= coal generators, 600w +50% 900w. 300w is good enough in my book.

Because most of times there is more important things to do for my dups on my map than tuning a 800W gen for 400w bonus.

Which is not valid for petro gen. The 1000w bonus are highly valuable.

Your book and playstyle is a thing, mine is another

[Lilalaunekuh]

I disable the power control station using automation if I don´t need it.

=> I can´t remember that a duplicant carried a microship into a power generator room with a disabled power station.

[I disable my power stations based on the amount of stored hydrogen.]

[Lifegrow]

My issue with power rooms is that if you run an automated power setup (i.e. battery controlled toggle), you end up tuning a machine that may be dormant for 60% of the cycle. I only realised tonight that i'm pissing away resources by tuning - but fortunately Lead exists so bleh  

I'd somehow got it into my head that tunings were activity based and wore out over active generator uptime, but tonight saw the error of my ways. Shame really, we have all this automation at our fingertips and often the only uses for it are to make stupid game mechanics work smarter  

[LucidFugue]

How power hungry are your setups? Unless I decide to plug in fridges and go nuts with the autosweepers I'm rarely consuming over 1000kw per cycle, so it could be worthwhile to use a single hydrogen generator as my primary power source and tune it up, then deny access to my backup generators (which can all run without any dupe interaction now they're setup anyway).

But with 2 Nat Gas geysers and 2 electrolysers I am struggling to store all the fuel I have without resorting to infinite pressure shenanigans. 

[avc15]

Indeed, if your power control station is disabled with a red automation input, dupes will not tune up the generators in that room.

I use this to get maximum effect of dupe labor, ie only tune up my generators when they are going to be running a lot. Remember, tune-ups last 3 cycles! 

For instance, my coal generators are a *very last resort* and only come on if everything else I have isn't keeping batteries charged:

 

 

 

 

That  buffer on the right is set to 90 seconds. Dupes will *only* try to tune-up the coal gens if they've been turned on within the last 90 seconds (if they have, something is wrong and they're going to run some more)

Something a fair bit more advanced, for my Hydrogen generators. Hydrogen & Natural Gas get used first in my base, right before wood burners (unfortunately this automation overlaps with two other circuits so it looks nastier than it is):

 

 

 

 

This has a full tank detector and an empty tank detector on that last gas reservoir in line, S-R latch latches ON when the 3rd reservoir is full, and latches OFF when that same reservoir goes empty. Power control station is fed a green signal immediately when the control is latched on, allowing dupes to come & do tuneups.

That latched on output is filtered for 120 seconds i.e. giving dupes time to complete tune-ups before starting to run hydrogen generators.

So the point here is that I only allow my hydrogen generators to be tuned up & run when there's a fair bit of H2 on hand to burn down. Not so much about saving metal, more about reducing the number of errands.