Power!

[DeadDupe]

So power in Oxygen not Included is whats annoying me the most at the moment.

First of all batteries should have an input and output or rather serve as a separator between circuits so that you could use one coal generator to power 5 batteries and each battery runs its own circuits.

Why, well I currently have 5 circuits and i'm not making and managing 5 coal generators so I have about 6-7 Manual Generators which means I lose a lot of dupes to power generation.

Second why is the power draw spread evenly across cables, I mean why would I have to have a Hi-power cable to connect a lamp just because somewhere else on the circuit there is a large power draw. surely you should just need them between the battery and any junctions so if the power is split off to a machine that is using 200w then the wire that connects it to the rest of the circuit is only carrying 200w.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant its not supposed to be, I love the game this just causes problems for me.

[Mr PandaMan]

I think the power draw for most structures is just high. Having so many things drain so much power makes circuit management a real problem. Personally, I don't think any of the filters should take power, and just operate under the assumption that they use centripetal forces to separate fluids.

[Kasuha]

3 hours ago, DeadDupe said:

First of all batteries should have an input and output or rather serve as a separator between circuits so that you could use one coal generator to power 5 batteries and each battery runs its own circuits.

Yes that's a good option. Or maybe have a "dedicated connection" used only for charging, and "general connection" that can be used to both charge and draw them.

At present, I am sometimes using hydrogen pipes for that purpose. Centralized production and distribution of hydrogen going to individual circuits running on hydrogen generators. Unfortunately the design is limited by how much oxygen you manage to get rid of after electrolysing the hydrogen.

3 hours ago, DeadDupe said:

Second why is the power draw spread evenly across cables,

That's because of practical limits. You can draw wires any way you like in the game but as soon as you start closing loops on your circuit, calculating the draw over individual wires becomes extremely hard.

Another possible solution would be to declare any looped circuit "short-circuited" and require the player to open any loops on it before it will start working again. Calculation of power draw over wires in a circuit with no loops is trivial.

[alcurad90]

6 hours ago, Kasuha said:

Yes that's a good option. Or maybe have a "dedicated connection" used only for charging, and "general connection" that can be used to both charge and draw them.

At present, I am sometimes using hydrogen pipes for that purpose. Centralized production and distribution of hydrogen going to individual circuits running on hydrogen generators. Unfortunately the design is limited by how much oxygen you manage to get rid of after electrolysing the hydrogen.

That's because of practical limits. You can draw wires any way you like in the game but as soon as you start closing loops on your circuit, calculating the draw over individual wires becomes extremely hard.

Another possible solution would be to declare any looped circuit "short-circuited" and require the player to open any loops on it before it will start working again. Calculation of power draw over wires in a circuit with no loops is trivial.

Acturally a clock swith would really be help for the circut overload problem

 

but we don't have oen

[PickPay]

I agree and for other reasons (balance mostly) I think the power system needs a good revision.

[mp0011]

Current electric system is far from fun and logic. 

1) Exceeding power limit forces user to upgrade ALL wires AT ONCE, and that is pointless and not very fun.
If Devs can't make proper node-based system, maybe game should take AVERAGE wattage of all wires in each circuit?
So, if You have 100 'meters' of 1kW wires, and you really need 1.2kW in that circuit, you just replace 20 pieces to 2kW...
Max safe wattage = (80*1kW + 20*2kW) / 100 = 1.2kW. This allows to upgrade whole system step-by-step and save the resources.

2) Portable power source
Portable battery and/or portable hydrogen tank + small hydrogen generator. 
Basically, I want be able to make power farm (lot of hamster wheels or generators) to charge portable batteries, then distribute it to different, sometimes distant, circuits. Without switches and long wiring/piping. Or fill a hydrogen tank, and move it to small hydrogen generator in far part of base.

Portable battery: max output: 240W, capacity: 240W/cycle. Just enough for pumps/filters, you can use more batteries if you need.
Small hydrogen generator: max output: 360W, 'capacity': 360W/cycle per tank. Consumes oxygen and produce steam.