Suggestion for UI Improvement - Power Overlay

[oxygenmissing]

I would love to see some improvements for the general Power Overlay or Circuit Overview tooltip that appears in the lower right hand corner when one clicks on a circuit. As of now, especially in the early game where a very well divided circuit network cannot always be achieved, it is almost impossible (unless much time/calculations are dedicated to observing the power overlay) to create efficient circuits which utilise their full potential power of 1000W (with normal wire). This is because typically, multiple elements which consume power are not always or almost never running, such as massage tables, microbe mushers/grills (of which far more than one is required to automate food production with the way the queue currently works), pumps in vacuum airlock chambers/chained mechanised airlocks. This is in contrast to elements consuming power which are always running, or running most of the time ie. electrolyzers and their pumps/gas filters, other life support pump setups, fridges, etc. Hence, to save raw metal, a circuit is typically connected to more elements than the safe wattage of 1000W, as it is highly unlikely/impossible in many scenarios that all of the variable power consuming elements will turn on at the same time. The result is that the power overlay always/usually shows normal wire 1000W circuits as 'strained' despite them never overloading, which defeats the purpose of this feature. To fix this, I propose the following solution:

Users should be able to specify (as an advanced feature) in the power overlay, circuit overview tooltip or elsewhere which power-consuming elements are typically unused/rarely used. 'Typical Power Consumed' (total power consumed by elements which are always/almost always running) should then be displayed in the circuit overview along with the currently displayed 'Potential Power Consumed', which should be re-named to 'Total Potential Power Consumed'. This comparison would disclose far more to the user about how much power the circuit actually uses, and whether an overload is really a possible issue under 'normal' operation. Users could also compare this information on the power overlay screen, where clicking a button switches between 'typical' and 'total' power consumed, turning circuits white when their typical power consumed is beneath the overload limit.  Finally, displaying the active runtime of each power consuming element as a percentage of the day (or an average active runtime over many days) would also be highly useful information, which could show up when clicking on individual pumps (as this is likely to be different from pump to pump) and all other power consuming elements. Based on this information, users with more complicated setups could determine which power consuming elements are highly variable or not.

[crypticorb]

Well, that was an exercise in reading comprehension... 

If I'm able to summarize this you are looking for three modifications to the power overlay and tooltips:

Circuit Daily Average: shows an averaged power draw for the entire circuit, averaged over the last few days. This would show what the REAL power draw is for the total circuit, though it would not account for spikes in usage. You mentioned this as "typical consumption", but averaged would be more useful.

Individual Machine Duty Cycle: this would display an averaged daily percentage that the machine is active on the circuit, with one duty cycle % per machine. This feedback would be useful for seeing which consumers are drawing power all the time (near 100% D.C.) and which are almost never used (near 0% D.C.)

Total Power vs Average Power: If I'm interpreting correctly, you suggested having two pages for the power overlay tooltips. One page for "Total Power", or maximum power draw, with each individual machine listed as they are currently. Then a separate page to include the above two ideas, with averaging information, duty cycles, and possibly some of the power consumption/production information from the daily reports.

 

Did I miss anything? These seem like very useful ideas, if a bit hard to read.

 

[oxygenmissing]

Sorry about the complexity, to be completely honest I was quite unsure on the best solution and my technical language in the area is quite lacking, so I guess I found it difficult to be concise . Essentially, you have very effectively paraphrased and simplified my ideas:

The 'Circuit Daily Average Power' you propose is a much better solution than the 'typical power consumption' I was suggesting. The averaged power usage for the circuit over a couple of cycles would effectively provide the information I was looking for on the 'real' power draw without the user having to do anything. 

The Individual Machine Duty Cycle is a much better name than the averaged active runtime percentage that I was suggesting, but your interpretation of it is exactly what I meant, and would list the average % of a cycle that each machine is active on the circuit. As you state, this information, along with the circuit daily average and information from daily reports on consumption/production could all be displayed in a separate page in the circuit overlay tooltip.

I also think that circuits in the power overlay should only appear as 'strained' and orange if their Circuit Daily Average approaches the maximum safe wattage, rather than the total Potential Power Consumed, though this could be an option to select/deselect.