Automation - Create a switch for Coal Generator

[Thelder]

In Automation Preview, our beloved dev purposely added automation switch for all power generators (e.g. Manual Generator, Hydrogen Generator, etc), except for Coal Generator!!!

So, I'm here to share my auto switch on Coal Generator.

Basic Setup

You need to at least build a Battery, Mechanized Airlock, Coal Generator and Manual Generator as follow:

Then setup your automation grid such as below:

Pressure Plate >> NOT GATE 01, BUFFER GATE:
> NOT GATE 01 >> AND GATE 01 >> Manual Generator
> BUFFER GATE >> NOT GATE 02 >> Mechanized Airlock, AND GATE 01

 

Misc Settings

You can have multiple the Coal Generators, remember to fill them and set it to 100% Battery Recharge Threshold:

 

 

Then, depending on the amount of Battery and power consumption, adjust your BUFFER GATE duration:

Extra Note: 500kg Coal = 300kJ = 40kW for 7.5 Battery

 

Depending on your situation, you can adjust your threshold on your Manual Generator

 

Final thought, I set mine as 1% to serve as emergency backup power supply, also I later customized a bit, like, placing the Manual Generator further away and use it to lure the dupe to step on Pressure Plate without running on the wheel.

[LeadfootSlim]

On the one hand, it makes sense for "brutish" early game tech to be excluded from automation. See the Manual Airlock door as an example.

On the other hand, the fact that you can build this workaround implies that there's no useful purpose to excluding the coal generator from automation controls.

[brummbar7]

What it suggests to me is that doors should never count as a foundation at all.

[CantBreathe]

5 hours ago, brummbar7 said:

What it suggests to me is that doors should never count as a foundation at all.

Coal Gen would be much more tedious without the doors.

 

Automated controls for the Coal Gen was what I wanted most from the upgrade.

It was singled out for some reason.

[brummbar7]

8 hours ago, CantBreathe said:

Coal Gen would be much more tedious without the doors.

It's early game tech so I see no problem with it being non-ideal, and in the Oil Update at least, still super-abundant and easy to get.  With the ease of CO2 disposal via slicksters, there's not any real disadvantage to having them on 100% of the time.  Even then, I just used natgas gens for most of the power, with coal gens 'topping it off', and they would often idle when the battery bank was full enough.  I haven't gotten around to trying the new update yet so I can't speak to whether dupes are refilling them correctly nor not themselves, but it was not a problem for me previously.  If it is a problem in this update, then the refilling mechanic needs fixed.  It is not a good reason to allow doors to continue to absurdly serve as foundations.

[Coolthulhu]

8 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

It is not a good reason to allow doors to continue to absurdly serve as foundations.

There is no good reason to "fix" that. Rule of fun > arbitrary restrictions that don't serve a gameplay role.

[brummbar7]

Just now, Coolthulhu said:

There is no good reason to "fix" that. Rule of fun > arbitrary restrictions that don't serve a gameplay role.

Games are composed entirely of 'arbitrary' rules.  That's why they're games.   The good reason is if Klei agrees it provides unbalancing gameplay options.   So for instance if Klei was specifically leaving coal gens out of the logic mechanic, because they want it to be kludgy early game tech.  If that is what Klei's plan was, then door foundations in this case circumvent their plan.  That is a perfectly fine reason to change it because Klei makes the rules.  It's their game not yours.  Now if Klei left coal gens out of logic by accident, then sure, they probably don't care and we may even get coal gens hooked into logic later. 

Beyond that, it simply makes no logical sense. 

[Coolthulhu]

Just now, brummbar7 said:

 If that is what Klei's plan was, then door foundations in this case circumvent their plan.

Beyond that, it simply makes no logical sense. 

If that was the plan, then it was rather poorly thought out. I'd much rather think that they just forgot to add the controls or had technical problems associated with them (say, auto-deliver combined with disabling causing "flicker" and dropped bits of coal). Coal generator requires duplicant operation and can be disabled, adding restrictions like that to it intentionally would be an error on designer's side.

Talking about "logical sense" in a lava lamp physics simulator is two combined abuses of the phrase: one for "logical sense" and the other for "logical" alone. There are no laws of logic forbidding doors as foundations. It's my personal pet peeve to see "logic" being misused to mean "my personal interpretation of rules of a simulator" or even just "realism" or "common sense".

[brummbar7]

27 minutes ago, Coolthulhu said:

There are no laws of logic forbidding doors as foundations. It's my personal pet peeve to see "logic" being misused to mean "my personal interpretation of rules of a simulator" or even just "realism" or "common sense".

Ok, irl try putting a refrigerator on top of a door laying flat.  Assuming you can find a door that will hold it in the first place.  Then open the door and see what happens to that refrigerator - see if it remains in place.  This is quite different 'logically' vs air and liquid behaving a bit strangely compared to rl, but still generally 'flowing'.   One of the few arguably non-arbitrary parts of the game is that is generally has a law of gravity.  Yet here we are, with door foundations flaunting that law.

My pet peeve is people using 'arbitrary' to refer to one part of a system that is in fact almost entirely arbitrary, and pretending that they're making a useful distinction, when they're actually just saying they don't like that thing.  Guess we both have some peeves.

[Coolthulhu]

1 hour ago, brummbar7 said:

Ok, irl try putting a refrigerator on top of a door laying flat.

Perfectly doable, provided you use a metal door as thick as a person is wide. Or even just a metal door that weighs 200kg.

1 hour ago, brummbar7 said:

Then open the door and see what happens to that refrigerator - see if it remains in place.  This is quite different 'logically' vs air and liquid behaving a bit strangely compared to rl, but still generally 'flowing'.

I'd expect it to behave the same way as if I removed a block of dirt or stone from underneath an identical refrigerator. Which is exactly what happens in the game. Perfectly logical. Unrealistic? Sure, but at the same time consistent and well defined and thus logical.

[Thelder]

On 11/7/2017 at 7:42 AM, brummbar7 said:

What it suggests to me is that doors should never count as a foundation at all.

Well, I do agree that doors should not count as foundation. But for now, I hope they don't fix that. Hahaha

I'm sure Klei will decide what best for gameplay, though they are on a tight schedule as we speak.

[noisycat]

20 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

I'd expect it to behave the same way as if I removed a block of dirt or stone from underneath an identical refrigerator. Which is exactly what happens in the game. Perfectly logical. Unrealistic? Sure, but at the same time consistent and well defined and thus logical.

That's the case. Games aren't about realism, games are about fun. So the most important thing that matters here is: "are the doors serving as foundations making the game more fun?". Consistency is something else, it does not make the game better/more fun, instead it makes the game easier to understand. It's easier to make predictions if most of the stuff you've already seen behaves similarly.

I personally like unconventional solutions, just like the one presented above and see no reason to remove it. It's probably more technical though, I can imagine using the same grid for building foundations and pathfinding. I bet that they either add automation port to coal generator or just leave it as-is, since automation is higher tech anyway, you cannot immediately get automated coal generator with low tech - but thats just my personal opinion.

[clickrush]

On 7.11.2017 at 5:53 AM, CantBreathe said:

Coal Gen would be much more tedious without the doors.

 

Automated controls for the Coal Gen was what I wanted most from the upgrade.

It was singled out for some reason.

Why is that? I found that I can sufficiently steer coal generators with the battery charge threshold, careful grid design and priority settings. Allthough I like the solution, I'am not really sure which problem OP is trying to solve. The emergency backup generator idea is neat, but when do I really need it? In real life things might happen such as big accidents and nature showing up etc. But in ONI I we know exactly what can and will happen and there are no such things as earthquakes.

[Cilya]

In ONI, there are no diaster but one: the player is human. You can have shortages of something or excess of other things... If you run your generator on hydrogen or natural gas reserves, they might run low and cause some problems. You can accidentally break pipes. Water reservoir can break. And so on. It is a nice thing to make your colony a bit more resilient.

[brummbar7]

On 11/7/2017 at 9:51 AM, Coolthulhu said:

I'd expect it to behave the same way as if I removed a block of dirt or stone from underneath an identical refrigerator. Which is exactly what happens in the game. Perfectly logical. Unrealistic? Sure, but at the same time consistent and well defined and thus logical.

Would've been a great comment if I'd been arguing that stuff should hang in the air if tile is deconstructed, but collapse if a door used as a foundation is opened.  Which was not what I was arguing, and not the point.  You said there are no "laws of logic forbidding doors as foundations".  I pointed out that realism provides a strong logical case in that *nobody irl does such a thing*.  not a law certainly, and not limited to internal game logic, but a non-arbitrary case. 

You never did provide any actual argument for how forbidding doors as foundations is 'arbitrary' and 'serves no game purpose' while allowing it is not arbitrary.   Both states are initially arbitrary and a designer's choice.  We've now been through a subsequent update where the designers - from what I gather - added logic control to many buildings, but not coal gens.  So that argues against the 'accidentaly left out' case.  So if the designers want coal gens to be non-logic controlled, then how would disallowing doors be 'arbitrary'?  It would be guided by their desire for a certain game mechanic to hold true - a game purpose.  Which irregardless of your unsupported claims that this would be 'poorly though out' or an 'error', would be the opposite of ' arbitrary'. 

I'll just point out that your initial attempt to use 'arbitrary' as a criticism of the Doors-not-foundations thing is what I take issue with.  If you'd just said 'I disagree with this notion' there would be no issue for me.  I don't mind differring opinions (which is not to say I won't argue my own case).  I do mind when they attempt to tar an opposing idea with non-applicable perjorative terms, in an ad-hom sort of way.