Radbolt Generators and the Atomic Collider

[DaClown]

I am not sure if it is intended behavior as it seems that radbolts have a decay rate in storage, but I experienced a total lack of atomic research for something like 100 cycles because the power circuit that my radbolt generator and atomic collider were setup on would lose power intermittently.

Based on the decay rate of the radbolts stored in the radbolt generator, I do not think this lack of atomic research was due to delays between the radbolts being transmitted to the atomic collider and a researcher operating the atomic collider while the circuit is powered. It seems like radbolts stored or in transmission are subject to erasure in some power loss conditions? If this is intended behavior then it perhaps should be more explicitly stated in tool tips or at least in the radiation entries for the codex.

My whole base is powered on a single automated coal generator with a consistent supply of coal in supply container directly adjacent to the coal generator. The radbolt generator and atomic collider are on the same circuit as each other, and they are isolated from the general grid by an alternating pair of power shutoffs with a battery in between them; the battery charges up when empty by opening the radbolt circuit and closing the power generator circuit; when the battery is full, it closes the radbolt circuit and opens the power generator circuit. The coal generator is behind a smart battery and the smart battery goes straight into a power transformer; the power transformer moves the energy from the smart battery to batteries downstream of the generator circuit when those batteries are connected to the generation circuit.

This means the radbolt Generator drains the smart battery in about 41 seconds; the generator charges the radbolt circuit in no less than 20 seconds. If the atomic collider is operated during that maximum of 41 seconds that the radbolt circuit is powered then the circuit drains in about 33 seconds. I would expect that over a long enough span the dupes would have opportunity to operate the atomic collider while the collider has 10 or more radbolts and the collider is powered; no research was conducted over that time and often when I checked the atomic collider the radbolt count would be 0 or close to zero; I did observe that the radbolt generator did in fact fire and Radbolts did in fact make their way into the atomic collider, but I did not observe precisely when the atomic collider radbolts would drain; I just observed that radbolts disappeared from the system without any atomic research being done.

I also think that there might be some kind of bug in switching between different research while a technology using atomic research is already underway though it might just be the apparent radbolt bug prevented research to be conducted.

 

The problem is not apparent if the circuit is consistently charged.

[sakura_sk]

2 hours ago, DaClown said:

I am not sure if it is intended behavior

[...]

The problem is not apparent if the circuit is consistently charged.

A picture would be great 

[DaClown]

1 minute ago, sakura_sk said:

A picture would be great 

I forewent a picture because I observed this in a non-test environment and have long since disassembled the apparatus in question. A single picture isn't going to capture the behavior involved as I was unable to casually observe the precise cause of the behavior over the course of a 100 cycles of play, so it would require building a tighter testing apparatus which shows the full period of the behavior in fine grain frame by frame, and I would need to setup a radbolt generator near an extreme source of radiation to rapidly reproduce the behavior. The behavior involves dupes inconsistent interaction with buildings being disabled and enabled at a short period by automation/power-shorting. Dupes need I say more?

It is possible the behavior is specifically due to the way that the electrical circuits are isolated via power shutoffs and smart battery automation.

I did not escalate this to the bug tracker forum because I am not sure what I am observing is a bug, and it would not be worth my time or effort (I paid for the DLC and am not being paid to playtest or perform quality assurance) to replicate the setup until I have verification that what I am describing is not intended behavior. Especially given that I would expect this bug probably has already been reported or discovered if it is a bug.

If it is not clear from my post the bug only seems to effect an fluctuating radbolt circuit not one which has a near constant supply of power. Hence "The problem is not apparent if the circuit is consistently charged."

This isn't to say that the problem doesn't exist if the circuit is consistently and constantly charged, but I have insufficient observation to decide either way. Radbolt decay and mechanics are not sufficiently documented at this time for me to figure that out by any other way than exhaustively setting up experiments, recording results, and posting reports here.

I'm busy playing with non-nuclear things and have little to no interest in the nuclear content at this time. I only reported what I have because it gets in the way of me researching the things I need and want like the conveyor system and glass forges.

All the following by wire (1Kw capacity).
Coal generator to smart battery.
Smart battery to transformer.
Transformer to wire.
Wire to power shutoff.
Power shutoff to smart battery.
Smart battery to second power shutoff.
Second power shutoff to radbolt generator and atomic collider.

The Radbolt circuit smart battery has an automation wire going into one of the power shutoffs so that when the battery is full the power shutoff opens. The other power shutoff is tied to the same automation wire by a NOT, so it is closed when the other is open and vice versa.

Coal generator is tied to its smart battery by standard automation. Coal generator is fed by an autosweeper from a coal box directly adjacent.

That's all you need to replicate the situation.

All of that confirmed powered. The radbolt generator was next to a wheezewort and was rated to generate 36 radbolts/cycle. It fired radbolts through two reflectors to the atomic collider. Before I isolated the circuit the radbolt generator circuit was continuously charged, and I got 4 atomic research points. I verified that the radbolt generator made radbolts and discharged them such that the atomic collider received.

After I isolated the circuit I noticed a couple of dozen cycles later that no atomic research had been done for some reason. I verified that errands were being assigned. I put the atomic collider on yellow alert and it was the only thing that was so for several cycles. In closer examination by infrequent spot checks while dealing with other crises that resulted from failure to acquire the technologies in a timely manner as anticipated, I noticed that the radbolt generator was building up a stockpile and launching every time it hit 50. I noticed that less than 50 were making it to the atomic collider.

I verified that more than 10 radbolts were making it into the atomic collider. I'd glance at it every now and then; I saw it had at various times 25 radbolts or less, and would suddenly go to 0 for no apparent reason and at a faster rate than the radbolts appeared to decay in the radbolt generator when it was unpowered.

Wiki has nothing about radbolt decay; I figured out already from experiment and skimming through threads here that radbolts diminish in number when traveling through mediums.

I did a second setup at one point after the wheezewort in the wild had its ice block melt under it, so I relocated the radbolt circuit to the surface biome. Placed the radbolt generator directly next to the atomic collider and had it fire directly into the atomic collider. That didn't seem to change the rate of radbolt loss all that much; the decay rates appeared to be the same, but the atomic collider was still appearing to abruptly go to 0 when I wasn't looking at it and no atomic research was being made.

I suspect that the dupe would start to work on the atomic collider which would decrement the radbolts from the atomic collider then the power would die in the middle of the dupe operating. Rather than saving the state of the progress towards an atomic research point the dupe would have to restart from scratch each time meaning that it is impossible to complete the atomic research point unless the circuit is consistently powered for the duration of generating the 50 radbolts necessary for the generator to launch and for the duration of the dupe getting to the atomic collider and operating it to the completion of the production of an atomic research point.

It is unclear to me whether the research progress is saved if the atomic collider is continuously powered even if the dupe is otherwise interrupted by like not being able to breathe or if the atomic collider just eats radbolts everytime the research is interrupted.

I am similarly not clear on whether changing research in the middle of all that caused some kind of bug so that even if atomic research points were being generated they were not being credited to the correct research.

Determining what is the case is well above my pay grade.

[sakura_sk]

I'm not going to even read all that and try to imagine what you've built.. . Sorry.. 

All I'm saying is : I didn't observe any radbolts decaying after constant flickering and dupes research just fine consistently (I also don't think any such "radbolt decay" bug was reported)

Spoiler

 I am powering the radbolt generator only when power consumed is less than 800w for ~360cycles now. 

Radbolts are released by a manual switch and were only lost when they hit a critter

Radbolts decay with distance not stored (generator fires 50 and they decay by 1 each tile they travel). Also 1 atomic research point is 10 radbolts

 

[DaClown]

1 hour ago, sakura_sk said:

I'm not going to even read all that and try to imagine what you've built.. . Sorry.. 

All I'm saying is : I didn't observe any radbolts decaying after constant flickering and dupes research just fine consistently (I also don't think any such "radbolt decay" bug was reported)

  Hide contents

 I am powering the radbolt generator only when power consumed is less than 800w for ~360cycles now. 

Radbolts are released by a manual switch and were only lost when they hit a critter

Radbolts decay with distance not stored (generator fires 50 and they decay by 1 each tile they travel). Also 1 atomic research point is 10 radbolts

 

My report here is not for you then and was not intended for you.

You are not obligated to respond to threads, read random player's reports to the devs, or offer help or information otherwise.

Thanks for your report.

[sakura_sk]

7 hours ago, DaClown said:

My report here is not for you then and was not intended for you.

You are not obligated to respond to threads, read random player's reports to the devs, or offer help or information otherwise.

Thanks for your report.

Hi. I am not obligated to either read or respond to threads. There is also a specific forum section to report bugs. It is called "bug tracker" and not "suggestions and feedback"

[Sigmok]

I'm seeing radbolts lost in storage when my power is off as well.  Do we know if this is the intended behavior?  I could see this being intentional but wouldn't mind confirmation.

It's the first time I have encountered this but that could be a symptom of the power setup.  The Wood Burner is powering the Radbolt Generator and the Atomic Collider.  The Wood Burner isn't enough to power up the battery and keep power on all the time.

The following screen shots are within a few seconds of each other.  

[sakura_sk]

6 hours ago, Sigmok said:

I'm seeing radbolts lost in storage when my power is off as well.  Do we know if this is the intended behavior?

If you are playing the testing branch, there was an update:

"Disabled Radbolt Generators slowly lose stored radbolts" [update 459378] (so definitely not a bug)

Radbolt generators need continuous power now. If any outage happens, they start losing radbolts until power is back.