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Power control of machines


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I think that power sensor would be more multi purpose then battery sensor. For example we could set automation to prevent overload by checking power usage and when it's too high, just disable secondary machines. If machines are "ON" and no power flow, that means that battery are depleted and so it would act like battery sensor even if not directly.

I think there are two sensors that are straightforward to implement and use: battery sensor and power sensor. The battery sensor isn't even a separate item, it should just be an automation output on the battery itself. The power sensor would be a separate item that measures net power available on the circuit: production - usage. (This can be negative, because batteries.) These two, together and separately, are sufficient to manage a whole host of power-related tasks.

4 hours ago, sadovsf said:

But there is no way of telling if machines are on

Yes it is. Most of the machines are always on and can be turn off by circuit network. So If circuit signal is TRUE then machine is ON and if power sensor tell that there is no consumption then probably machine output is full or there is no power available. With pipe sensor from other propositions it could be possible to determine if pipe output is full.

Other machines that have to be manually operated can be checked by weight plate.

 

Battery that send signal would be anomaly inside the game because right now only sensors are able to send signals, and machines only receive them. Battery is "machine" so it wouldn't be intuitive to expect that it can send signal.

5 hours ago, Neotix said:

Battery is "machine" so it wouldn't be intuitive to expect that it can send signal.

Well, I also think that things like shutoff valves should send signals. Lots of machines should be capable of sending signals. But if we want a dedicated machine sensor, that could work. A Universal Machine Sensor could hook to batteries, shutoff valves, regular valves, machines, any anything else to provide a sensor output for that device. (We don't want a bunch of sensor objects.)

Machines don't send signals because they receive them. If they could do both then they would send that signals to itself and break entire automation. It could be avoided by separating joints for input and output.

A "Universal Machine Sensor" is not so good idea because it had to be placed in background like gated and it would be another inconsistency with other sensors.

8 hours ago, alficles said:

(We don't want a bunch of sensor objects.)

Believe me, we do. Universal objects that do different tasks need different graphic to see what they do. So they still be bunch of object hidden under one icon on menu. Right now I can look at ma base and se every sensor type and I know whet they do. If I had multiple sensors that looks the same I would had to check them one by one.

Besides universal objects need universal template to cover every available option. That lead to drop performance because game have to load all options and check what option is set.

How about a sensor that sends a signal based on the percentage of how full all batteries on its circuit as a whole are (treating all batteries on the circuit as one big battery basically)? For example if all batteries on the circuit are half-full the percentage would be 50%, if there were two batteries on it and one was 30% full and the other 50% full then the percentage would be 40% etc. I was also thinking about a sensor that measures the amount of Joules available on a circuit, but finding the right range for that could be hard, as some people might only want to use a few batteries while others might want to use entire rooms full of them.

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