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Are power transformers lossy or throttled? I don't get the math.


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Hello folks.  I've been trying to figure out why I have ongoing power problems and have hit a bit of a wall.  If I pause the game I don't see how power consumption adds up to production.  All data below is with the game paused, inspecting each device and circuit.

I have the standard heavy-wire supply side and normal circuit leaf nodes.  No hamster wheels.  I tripled checked there are no cycles in the network, and each network is consistent with the rest of the game.

Here is my production side:

3x Coal + 1x Hydrogen = 2.6Kw.  Clicking on the production circuit shows 2.6 produced and 2.6 consumed.  The consumers are all power transformers, evenly distributed (371.4W each - I suspect the UI is bugged as draw isn't uniform)

There are 6 batteries attached to the production circuit and they are all at 0.

 

Here are my consumer sides (from the energy tab clicking on each consumer circuit):

(A lot of stuff is unplugged as I was debugging this)

Transformer 1 : 1000j stored, 0W used (0 is correct)

Transformer 2 : 1000j stored, 0W used (0 is correct)

Transformer 3 : 874j stored, charging, 395W used (also correct)

Transformer 4 : 111j stored, discharging, 360W used (correct, except there should be another 360 draw but those devices show out of power)

Transformer 5 : 1000j stored, 0W used (0 is correct)

Transformer 6 : 1000j stored, 30W used (correct)

Transformer 7 : 1000j stored, 0 W used (0 is correct)

 

Two questions for me:

Why are batteries not charging with an apparent 1,815W surplus?  Even accounting for the draw Transformer 4 *should* have I should have surplus for the batteries.

What is going on with Transformer 4?  It can't draw enough to keep it's capacitor filled nor the circuit running.

 

Thanks much,

 

Ian

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Spending more time playing with Transformer 4, I think there are two issues.

1) Transformers cannot deliver the full 1000W

2) When transformers are charging, they seem to draw a disproportionate amount from the bus relative to what their internal capacitor + circuit are drawing.  

 

I tried:

  • Adding a battery to the circuit after the transformer - no help
  • Adding a 2nd transformer in parallel.  This helped a bit (circuit remained powered more often, but kept the main bus saturated as the transformers were still often charging)
  • Adding a 3rd transformer in parallel.  This fixed the issue with the circuit not receiving enough power.

Even with this though, I have a power loss of ~ 1.6Kw I cannot account for.

Looking at the power UX for the supply side "Power Consumers" (it's all wrong), I think there is an issue with translating circuit load through the transformer that causes power loss.  It shows : (395,200,480,200,200,200,200,200,200) and should be (600,395,30,0,0,0,0,0,0)

Mods, can you please move this to the bug section.  I've attached my save game.  Transformer 4 is on the bottom row, 4th one from the right, connected to my electrolyzers. 

Thanks much,

Ian

The Idyllic Trainwreck.zip

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The fact that empty transformers, that is, transformers with nothing hooked up to the output end, show up as drawing 600 watts sometimes, leads you towards suspecting some kind of array mistake where the code isn't properly traacking which transformer is which, not something simple like a double-counting error.

On the issue of "how do I design my base to work kinda-okay until the bug is fixed", there are basically a few ways to go.

1.  Power is plentiful, just build three times  the generators as what you need and accept a bunch of losses.

2.  Transformers currently draw the wrong amount, but rarely over 1k.  Build each circuit to draw a ton of current, near or over 1k, and have less circuits.  Don't have any empty or nearly empty transformers.  Hopefully if all of your transformers are drawing full the bug won't affect you much.  Use local batteries on the output side to protect against  brownouts.

3.  don't use transformers, just use local circuits.

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On 8-6-2017 at 2:19 AM, Lifegrow said:

I'm not sure if this will help - but I did a vid today explaining how the current power system works, any questions give me a shout. 

 

Concise, informative and brilliant as always LifeGrow.

Quick question: Why bridges? If all they do is connect heavy watt to normal watt, then why not simply pull the normal watt wire through the wall?

Have you considered putting these videos up as a guide on the game's Steam User guides? I'm sure it will help a lot of people out there.

 

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1 hour ago, Merauder said:

Have you considered putting these videos up as a guide on the game's Steam User guides? I'm sure it will help a lot of people out there.

 

Well thank you buddy. I know they're probably a bit basic for some of you forum scientists, however they're intended to cover some of the basics for the newcomers. Done a few more if you check the youtube ;) 

And steam user group? I didn't know there was such a place? :D 

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8 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

Well thank you buddy. I know they're probably a bit basic for some of you forum scientists, however they're intended to cover some of the basics for the newcomers. Done a few more if you check the youtube ;) 

And steam user group? I didn't know there was such a place? :D 

Not user group, user guide.

As in, this place: http://steamcommunity.com/app/457140/guides/

Zervo already has a picture guide out there, but by now it's outdated.

 

Might be a forlorn task with all the updates still coming out though. ;)

And by no means am I a forum scientist who stands above what you produce. Just another schmo who gets frequently corrected in his misgivings still! These are really useful to me.

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