Energy excess problem

[asurendra]

I meet a bit weird sounded problem: after establishing some solar panels and taming hot steam geyser I ended up generating more energy that my base consuming. I have Nat gas vent, my oil well generating nat gas too, but Nat gas generator always offline as there are no demand in extra energy ever. 

Thats pretty disappointing. I wanted to try geothermal station but It obvious that it will stay silent and never be used... For what you, guys, use your energy? Am I missing something? 

[MinhPham]

I was about to write an inspiring post about energy usage in ONI, but then i realized that i've forgot almost everything because i didn't play the game for a very long time

So ... i will try to make it short, if you have enough dupes (over 20 for example) and a lot of tubes system they can use like 10-20 kW, this alone cost almost more than what your solar panels can give. Recreational buildings also consume a lot of power, there are a lot of power hungry things in this game, when i was still playing 50kW line wasn't enough. Of course aquatuners also count in that 50kW but they doesn't really cost any energy.

[xantar2482]

Yeah, tubes everywhere will draw your power down a little.  I would just say use up high energy building at stock pile materials like blast shots and steel.  I tend to overbuild with aquatuners if I have tons of space for energy just to waste, but this can lead to fun little freezing projects :). 

[DolphinWing]

You can remove solar panels or just offline them.

I seldom build solar panels because I don't like to use glass forge.

Or you can try build a diamond production line with a bunch of radbolt generators. That should take a lot of energy.

[blakemw]

The game generally suffers from an excess of energy, which gets worse as the game progresses. Yep. That's how it is. It's only remotely interesting playing "Super Sustainable" rules and even then you aren't exactly short of power once you get Geothermal and Hydrogen power going.

[Gurgel]

Just ignore it. ONI Physics does not heat batteries up when they get overcharged. As to geothermal, just build it if you want to. If you want it to get used, offline solar or only take it if the batteries get really low. 

[ALCRD]

It is a good problem.

One i never have in any of my colonies sadly..

[degr]

On 5/26/2023 at 12:30 PM, asurendra said:

I ended up generating more energy that my base consuming

It is the point of the game.

Spoiler

If you are concern about your generator idle, try to establish little bit more industrial

Spoiler

 

[asurendra]

3 hours ago, degr said:

It is the point of the game.

  Hide contents

If you are concern about your generator idle, try to establish little bit more industrial

  Hide contents

 

Rockets can be placed on top of each other? And they will fly? OMG

Also, one question. I see you have a lot polymer presses. For what you use so much plastic? Which structure consumes it?

 

18 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Just ignore it. ONI Physics does not heat batteries up when they get overcharged. As to geothermal, just build it if you want to. If you want it to get used, offline solar or only take it if the batteries get really low. 

I don't feel right to build something that doesn't give me any result. I can't be sure I did build correctly without testing it in real work. How long can my geothermal works without magma solidified? Is my cooling scheme good enough? Will it keep up on peak load? I can't get answers without having actual load...

[degr]

2 hours ago, asurendra said:

Also, one question. I see you have a lot polymer presses. For what you use so much plastic? Which structure consumes it?

Transit tubes. If you will check living block, you will see kilometers of them

[Gurgel]

10 hours ago, asurendra said:

I don't feel right to build something that doesn't give me any result. I can't be sure I did build correctly without testing it in real work. How long can my geothermal works without magma solidified? Is my cooling scheme good enough? Will it keep up on peak load? I can't get answers without having actual load...

For a test-setup you can always heat liquid and cool it down again with an aquatuer. If you do not connect the steam-turbine electricity, that should give you 1.5kW load or so per installation. 

[Prince Mandor]

21 hours ago, degr said:

So, you bring abyssalite flaking to perfection.

Can you publish your design?

[blakemw]

20 hours ago, asurendra said:

I don't feel right to build something that doesn't give me any result. I can't be sure I did build correctly without testing it in real work. How long can my geothermal works without magma solidified? Is my cooling scheme good enough? Will it keep up on peak load? I can't get answers without having actual load...

This doesn't seem to be very important in ONI (unlike say Factorio), as power generators always output full power even without load, they have to be explicitly shut off using a Smart Battery or such to stop them. A geothermal powerplant without a smart battery always sucks the maximum amount of heat it can, regardless of load.

As such the only way a build could fail under load, is if the load actually exceeds the power generation, resulting in brown-outs and some components no longer operating at full throughput, but in ONI there's also a tendency for things to be overkill... the power system probably most prone to brown-outs are hydrogen power (especially with oxygen pumps) and ethanol power as they suck down a lot of power producing the fuel, so brownouts will meaningfully reduce fuel production. But the solution then is generally having a dedicated power supply for the build, with fuel first going to to the powering the build, then exported, pipes are ideal for such prioritization because unlike electric circuits they have straightfoward priority using bridges. So like a SPOM will typically have the SPOM hyrdrogen generators taking all the hydrogen they need, and only surplus hydrogen is exported to hydrogen generators on another circuit

[degr]

5 hours ago, Prince Mandor said:

Can you publish your design?

It is offtopic, but yes, I can

Spoiler