Battery Charge and Automation

[GuyPerfect]

The topic has been brought up just recently about introducing a battery charge sensor to the set of Automation tools. Heck, I suggested it just yesterday not having seen the former thread. And that got me thinking about power generation in general, and the options we have to limit or prevent excess power production.

Method #1

Before Automation Upgrade, restricting power production by battery charge level relied on Duplicant interaction. Manual Generators do this intrinsically, where the Duplicant will begin operating them when the lowest battery charge is less than a configurable threshold, and they'll stop when all batteries are full. Other generators need to be activated or deactivated manually at the instruction of you, the overlord in the command center. This is manageable, but tedious because you have to keep a vigilant watch on battery charge levels or else you'll run out of power at an inopportune time.

Method #2

Non-manual generators will continue to produce power so long as they have fuel. Coal Generator in particular is one of the easiest to manipulate in this regard because you can specify a battery charge threshold where Duplicants will refill it. By building an appropriate number of Batteries and configuring an appropriate battery charge level, you can run through a full tank of Coal without wasting any power.

Other generators can have makeshift fuel tanks constructed by using pipe capacity as a buffer and an Atmo Sensor or Hydro Sensor according to the type of fuel. A small chamber with a pump and pressure sensor can be set up to deliver fuel to the generator. When the pressure reaches zero, an external pump can be activated to send more fuel to the chamber. The actual capacity of fuel storage comes from the pipes themselves, not the chamber that delivers it to the generator.

Method #3

Automation Upgrade brings us Clock Sensor, BUFFER Gate and FILTER Gate, which can be used in some combination to control exactly how long power generators are active (although, strangely, not Coal Generator in this build). A simple pulse timer can be constructed like so:

     

That middle one is in fact a FILTER Gate, but the game is using the BUFFER Gate's graphics for it. The output will be Active for the amount of time configured in the BUFFER Gate, and Standby for the amount of time in the FILTER Gate minus the BUFFER Gate's interval. That is to say, if you want 3 seconds of Active followed by 2 seconds of Standby, set the BUFFER's interval to 3s and the FILTER's interval to 5s. This pulse will repeat indefinitely.

The current maximum interval on FILTER and BUFFER Gates is 200s, meaning you can only get a 50% duty cycle up to 100s up and down, so it's not suitable for longer-term timers. However, you can use additional logic gates to construct a more complex timer with larger intervals, or simply use the smaller timer to operate multiple power generators in order to produce more power in less time.

Method #4

This is the proverbial best-case scenario and is not currently implemented in the game. It requires a new Automation component in the same design as Atmo Sensor or Thermo Sensor, but is attached to a power line and monitors the circuit's battery charge level. This trivializes the task of activating or deactivating power generators, and true to its name, automates the task of limiting power production. Given the resources required to get to this point in the game, I feel it's an appropriate feature.

However, there is one potential caveat. By using nothing but a single Tiny Battery as a power buffer, you can restrict an arbitrary number of power generators behind a Charge Sensor and, whenever power is being consumed, activate the generators as needed to satisfy the demand. This counteracts the point of using batteries in the first place and greatly reduces the importance of heat management. Having a Charge Sensor might be a bit too good if you use it in this way.
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And so, we begin the dialog. What's your take on managing battery charge levels? What solutions have you come up with for preventing the production and subsequent waste of excess power? How do you feel about the idea of a battery charge sensing Automation component? What other ideas do you have that might address the issue?

[Townkill]

You could certainly just combine Method 1 with a pressure switch to activate whatever logic you want to activate, including deactivating the manual generator

[GuyPerfect]

The Manual Generator + Pressure Plate solution is quite clever, but doesn't, as you suggest, fully solve the problem. Manual Generator can only specify a lower bound for battery charge--the charge level at which the generator is to be operated--and cannot be used to prevent the production of excess power. Using a BUFFER Gate to deactivate the power generator can alleviate the symptoms, and I'll certainly be doing that in the short term, but it's a bit of a finnicky solution. It also requires a Duplicant to get into the area in a timely manner, which could be an issue depending on basic needs, night time, or just working off in the boondocks somewhere.

[Cilya]

@Saturnus proposed a way to sensor when battery levels go below 75% without dupes interaction. It doesn't use manual generator.

 

[Saturnus]

1 minute ago, Cilya said:

@Saturnus proposed a way to sensor when battery levels go below 75% without dupes interaction. It doesn't use manual generator.

 

Especially the method described further down the thread works flawlessly.