Mid-game power shortages

[Technoincubus]

I've noticed that with Exp. update  I started to face power shortages in mid game.

Where you still not dug to nag. geyser, unable to build steam turbine or petroleum generator but already run ot of coal and hatches are not producing enough.

So far I haven't found any solution save for making oxygen hydrogen generator and looking for pockets of coal, but in most cases pockets of coal is so far away to be viable.

What is your solution to mid game power problem?.

[abud]

Usually, it is hydrogen generators for me in mid game. If not enough, coal and manual gen ready for backup.

[WanderingKid]

17 minutes ago, Technoincubus said:

I've noticed that with Exp. update  I started to face power shortages in mid game.

Where you still not dug to nag. geyser, unable to build steam turbine or petroleum generator but already run ot of coal and hatches are not producing enough.

I've got to ask the opening question... what is your definition of mid-game?  100 cycles?  20 cycles?  How many coal generators are you using?  While I typically have to make a quick coal dig to make sure I'm in good position around 40 cycles, even in EU I haven't ran into many issues, and that's running a metal refinery off my main power trunk.  Did you get a bad RNG that has only swamp biome left and right of your opening base?

 

[BlueLance]

For me I run purely Hydrogen till at least cycle 500. I would class that as the end of mid game though for me because its from there I am going for luxuries!!

If for some reason I am using more then I switch to nat gas, in your case you do not have nat gas so my current designs would go Hydrogen 80-100%, Nat Gas 60-80%, Coal 40-60%, Petroleum 20-40%, Steam 1-20%, Solar/Dupe 0-100% . So in your case I scored out nat gas since you don't have it.

Depending on how i feel sometimes I will change the batteries to x-100% but usually I have them going in steps as mentoned.

[Tranoze]

First thing about power management is, dont build to much power equipment early mid game, only use power for algae generator and, reasearch. Coal is not rare, but not something you can use recklessly, only use 1~2 coal generator, and prepare to switch your wire to conductive wire at the point you can have refined metal. Out house is extra valuable early mid, and even late game since it doesnt use water, and by generate polluted dirt, it increase dups strength by flipping dirt.

Build power plant as soon as you think it time to touch power equipment. The best power plant is natural gas Generator, and the important thing is, DONT PUMP GAS DIRECT FROM GEYSER TO POWER ROOM. Instead, pump all the gas to a highly compressed room, then pump from the compressed room to power plant. Remember, geyser cant generate gas when pressure is above 5kg, so by using mutiple pump, you are generate so much more power. (you will likely quadruple your power by doing this, also this power will work when or when not geyser generate gas).

Dont use hydrogen generator. It is unefficent because it require electrolizer, and, to generate enough hydrogen for power, it require much more water, and, oxygen that dup not needed. Instead, pump extra hydrogen to compress room and, use them later in other purpose.

Connect all power part to the power plant. Each power part can handle 2k if you build it with conductive wire.

 

I only use one power plant with 5 Natural Gas Generator and 2 Geyser, from cycle 100 or something, it power my entire base, and, by compress all natural gas i got from geyser from that cycle, i think i have to much natural gas... 900 cycle worth of compress gas.

[_Q_]

The problem with making hydrogen power is that's its using a lot of power on itself, just to make that hydrogen, filter it out and so on.

[WanderingKid]

6 minutes ago, tranoze said:

First thing about power management is, dont build to much power equipment early mid game, only use power for algae generator and, reasearch.

Well, we certainly have different expectations... the only statement I agree with is that one.

I almost never use conductive wire, and my smart batteries show up eventually, but certainly not quickly.  Usually by Cycle 50 or so.  I typically run 3 coal generators and let the two hydrogen mostly power the electrolizer setup (until I get my electrical engineer involved, anyway).   Outhouse has positives and negatives, but if you're planning for EU, you need to get those outhouses transferred over to lavatories reasonably quickly.  You also really shouldn't need the NGG until later, unless you've been going big on your cooling systems.

Electrolizer and Hydrogen generator is almost always the 2nd power source you can use, right after coal.   The purpose of the Hydrogen is mostly to allow the electrolizer and other equipment to be efficient.  This removes the deoxidizer power outputs.  Any spare hydrogen can be used for cooling rooms or other purposes, including removing some load from the coal.  Some of the players like to do a 'hard mode' build (my opinion), where they go straight to Hydrogen and use manual generators until those are up and running.  Kind of like @BlueLance mentioned.

You can use the geyser as a fill room, 8x8 is plenty fine.  A wheezewort or two in the geyser and some radiant / granite pipes nearby the generator will help keep things cool.  You should be aiming for one generator/geyser typically, unless you get a really large geyser.  By allowing for a larger fill room and keeping it cool, you don't need to use multiple pumps to power the generator and you reduce cooling costs by just being there.  The geyser should be producing 800W or 1.2kW (engineer or not).  Nothing to go crazy over though.  A Natural Gas Generator only needs to run the atmo pump ~ 1second / 11 seconds, so you should be able to pull some decent power out of it.  If your geyser is averaging at 100g/s, a second generator would typically just drain both generators dry and run out your storage.  Better to keep the extra 10g/s and let the geyser overpressurize occasionally so you can keep your power costs balanced.

Depending on how you setup, you'd typically need Heavi-Watt, not conductive wire.  3 coal generators and 2 Hydrogen generators will blow that wire by itself, before you even have an electrical engineer.  Stack in a handful of nat gas generators and you're flying way over the limit those wires can perform for.  That, and getting enough of that wire will cost a decent amount of power on its own, either half to production level (Ore Crusher), or 1.2kW for whatever time the refinery has to work through.  Unless you're planning on trying to run different unique systems off each of the generators, the conductive wire typically is used sparingly for aquatuners, metal refineries, etc.

[Craigjw]

I've found that coal can very quickly evaporate. I've lasted to cycle 200 using only a couple of tons of coal, then I added a refinery and aquatuner and the next thing I know, my remaining 50 tons of coal has just evaporated, even with a hatch coal farm.

One particular game, I didn't last to cycle 100.  I realised too late that all of my 10 transformers, all automated to smart batteries were just sucking up juice all the time because I'd forgotten to actually connect power lines between the two...

Once you have the refinery, isn't using the conductive wire just more efficient, as it costs the same in raw metal as the base wire, but can handle twice the current?  Assuming of course that the power requirement for the refinery is fulfilled with some form of renewable source, ie manpower or natural gas etc.

[Albryant]

I'm nearing cycle 200 and my main base is powered by two hamster wheels.  Though I've been running power conservatively this run.  Coal gems have only been used for offsite prokects.

 

[chemie]

There is tons of coal int he caustic biomes.  Just find a nice large coal deposit and you are good for many more cycles.

Save power hungry designs for after you have NG or pet gens.

My last base was running with only H2 gens and I had excess H2 I had to burn for nothing.

[nvzboy]

The main reason you run out is perhaps rushing to very power-hungry buildings. Aquatuners, filters, sieves, fertilizer production... They add up.

I usually run with a coal generator and a threadmill until I can get a centralized power hub going. At this point I only use power to cook food, research tech and power the occasional pump or rock granulator for metals. It is only when I have some of the other power sources set up (like petroleum, natgas) that I move towards building those power hogs. Make sure you have the power before you build the buildings that will use it.

[WanderingKid]

6 hours ago, Craigjw said:

Once you have the refinery, isn't using the conductive wire just more efficient, as it costs the same in raw metal as the base wire, but can handle twice the current?  Assuming of course that the power requirement for the refinery is fulfilled with some form of renewable source, ie manpower or natural gas etc.

No, it is, at best, equally efficient as using heavi-watt.  It is nicer on your décor score, but that's a different concern.  Making refined metal will always be less efficient, though there are occasions where the refined wires may either be easier to work with or the like.  We're talking about having a power problem here, so making a bunch of power in the refinery sounds unhelpful.  So, it's Rock Crusher or heavi-watt, which is a more power efficient build style.

5 hours ago, chemie said:

There is tons of coal in the caustic biomes.  Just find a nice large coal deposit and you are good for many more cycles.

I've had a few runs myself where coal is hard to find and I had to do some LONG digs to get near a good seam or two.  It at least taught me how to do stairways instead of ladders for my miners in the new job system.  The biggest problem I've found is when you end up in a nasty catch-22; you don't have enough power to make and fuel a few exosuits, and you need the exosuits to explore for more power.  When this comes up, I typically start using waystations with manual->battery->deoxidizer to keep the diggers going as I drift mine.

[Prince Mandor]

7 hours ago, tranoze said:

... Out house is extra valuable early mid, and even late game since it doesnt use water, and by generate polluted dirt, it increase dups strength by flipping dirt....

This is not true.

Lavatories do not use water - they create it (but polluted) and sieve after that make polluted dirt out of filtration medium.

Outhouses do not generate polluted dirt - they convert normal dirt into polluted one

[ShadowOfALegend]

i still have a coal gen operating and in fact i'm swimming in coal i have so much

[Tranoze]

6 hours ago, Prince Mandor said:

This is not true.

Lavatories do not use water - they create it (but polluted) and sieve after that make polluted dirt out of filtration medium.

Outhouses do not generate polluted dirt - they convert normal dirt into polluted one

Im not talking about farming dirt, i have so much more way to do it, Im farming Polluted dirt so duplicants can flip them to train STRENGTH.

My main point is to train strength, not to generate polluted dirt, i have 2 polluted water cool vent can cool my base and generate dirt at the same time.

Lavatories:Polluted Water + 11.7 Kg per use.

Water Sieve : 5 Kg of water -> 200g of polluted dirt. So total 468g of  polluted dirt per use.

Outhouse: 6.7Kg per use.

If you want your dups to have polluted dirt to flip, Outhouse is the way to go.

This is why i farm Strength:

[WanderingKid]

17 minutes ago, tranoze said:

Im not talking about farming dirt, i have so much more way to do it, Im farming Polluted dirt so duplicants can flip them to train STRENGTH.

[snip]  If you want your dups to have polluted dirt to flip, Outhouse is the way to go.

I don't understand the desire for that with the current settings.  Strength gives you +40 kg / unit of strength.  If we're talking jobs, then gofer and courier are the desired target.  To game that system, just use two sets of compactors and swap their priorities back and forth.  Gofer gets you +400kg, and Courier gets you +800kg.  Gofer is worth 10 levels of strength by itself, and is typically quick enough to train that I pretty much ignore noodle armed as a defect for a dupe.  400kg is enough for 4 ladders or 2 tiles, which is typically the most you need for a fetch for a build run until they finish the section and need to fetch again for the next one.

Also, while it might be training strength, it's the farming skill that flips dirt, so you'd be training your farmers.  Not a bad way, actually, to try to speed past a farmer level to get to ranching faster.  I might have to try that.  Might be worth doing the massive mealwood farms again for rot to compost.

[Tranoze]

9 minutes ago, WanderingKid said:

I don't understand the desire for that with the current settings.

The day is 1360

All jobs are mastered.

Compactors are useless for their 80 kg delivery, i only use them on small delivery target(farm, deliver polluted dirt to compost so only few dups i targeted train strenth can travel there)

The dup can carry 2240 kg of weight, all other non special dups like him i have can carry 1600, thank to that i can clear out any new place i dig very easily. Although there are no other where do dig, but that useful anyway.

Do you ever plan for super late game?

[WanderingKid]

1 minute ago, tranoze said:

The day is 1360

Compactors are useless for their 80 kg delivery, i only use them on small delivery target(farm, deliver polluted dirt to compost so only few dups i targeted train strenth can travel there)

The dup can carry 2240 kg of weight, all other non special dups like him i have can carry 1600, thank to that i can clear out any new place i dig very easily. Although there are no other where do dig, but that useful anyway.

Do you ever plan for super late game?

Compactors have 20,000 kg of space and are dependent only on how much the dupe can transport.  A lower priority compactor will have its goods removed by a dupe if a higher one has space and they're set for storage.

I personally rarely have any need of a dupe that can haul that much stuff, 1500 kg or so is enough for pretty much any trip my dupes would normally need unless I'm specifically emptying out one storage area to put it into another.

Do I ever plan for super late?  Depends, what is super late?  Right now the 'late' game is having petroleum generators and bunkers to protect yourself from meteors.  1360 cycles is an absolutely insane value to me unless I'm doing it just to do it.  6 cycles is an hour of gameplay at normal speed.  That's... what... ~220 hours of gameplay on a single playthrough?  I have pretty much no reason to ever do that.  Most of my playthroughs are for optimization and trying to cut time as often and as thoroughly as possible.

[Tranoze]

13 minutes ago, WanderingKid said:

6 cycles is an hour of gameplay at normal speed.

Pls play at x3 speed. Weakness disgust me. Even my laptop not designed for gaming, it can handle 3x to cycle 600 with no problem. As i said before, dont build too much electronic device, try to do jobs powerless, not only because powered device cost tons of calculation, it also bring more calculation with liquid/gas/delivery it consume.

I already have bunker fill up on top of the map, but dealing with meteor is pain, since i have to keep queue up to dig. so i just close it to harvest iron since i dont need much power anyway.

[WanderingKid]

6 hours ago, tranoze said:

Pls play at x3 speed. Weakness disgust me. Even my laptop not designed for gaming, it can handle 3x to cycle 600 with no problem. As i said before, dont build too much electronic device, try to do jobs powerless, not only because powered device cost tons of calculation, it also bring more calculation with liquid/gas/delivery it consume.

I already have bunker fill up on top of the map, but dealing with meteor is pain, since i have to keep queue up to dig. so i just close it to harvest iron since i dont need much power anyway.

It has nothing to do with the equipment.  There are a number of things the timer does incorrectly still for 3x vs. normal time play.  Grooming, for example, takes the same speed no matter what your settings are (don't see they fixed that in any of the patch notes).  For a while electricity was gaining less power at faster speed than normal.  There are/were a number of reasons to not run 3x and it's just become habit.  "Weakness", whatever that's supposed to mean about a video game, isn't one of them... or maybe it is, I'm not sure I understand the phrasing there.

I have no fuel problems and I typically don't need to worry about Nat Gas Generators until later in the game, about the time I need them to power the Refining equipment for the start of petroleum.  Meteors are currently a bit ridiculous in the amount of debris they sow, and leaving the bunker doors closed and ignoring solar (which is pretty weak in my opinion still, for the cost to produce it) is certainly an alternative I agree with until there's some specific reason to not close  open the doors.

However, in the end, the game isn't really a game yet, it's just a sandbox to play in.  There's no 'endgame' yet, there's just how much of it do you do until you start over.  You don't start over until you have cleaned out every inch.  Alright, that's an option.  I prefer a different one.  I enjoy playing the game for optimization and speed.  In either case, over 1000 cycles seems excessive to me.

[BlueLance]

21 hours ago, _Q_ said:

The problem with making hydrogen power is that's its using a lot of power on itself, just to make that hydrogen, filter it out and so on.

I beg to differ, depends on your set-up i suppose, but I usually have enough to run my entire base so I could just be biased about it

[Oozinator]

5 hours ago, WanderingKid said:

  Grooming, for example, takes the same speed no matter what your settings are

Wow, was not aware of that, always play triple speed, till FPS drops.
Which other things are similar to grooming?

[Grimgaw]

8 hours ago, tranoze said:

If you want your dups to have polluted dirt to flip, Outhouse is the way to go.

If you're after strength get dupes to mop flowing liquid.

[WanderingKid]

13 minutes ago, Oozinator said:

Wow, was not aware of that, always play triple speed, till FPS drops.
Which other things are similar to grooming?

I hesitate to mention what I've heard of because I don't know for sure what's fixed and what hidden (or at least lost in the noise) changes have occurred.  I've just seen repeated speed difference problems, so I avoid them until we get closer to 1.0 and they need to be heavily adjusted.  I'm not even sure if the problem with Grooming is still there, I just gave up on 3x having battered my head into the wall one too many times.