Coal generator slider is inconsistent and confusing to use

One possible solution make the coal generator easy to use would be to use IActivationRangeTarget. This can be used to set two sliders, one to set when to make refill tasks and the other to refill up to this limit. That way it can be "refill if below 60 kg and then fill up to 120 kg" or whatever the player wants for the current setup.

The rules for refilling should then be: storage below threshold and (either automation port connected or battery below threshold).

This way it is possible to control fairly accurately in early game and once you control with automation, the player can set the generator to fill up with a whole lot more coal. This makes the coal generator a whole lot more useful later when power production is controlled by smart batteries.

 

Also without automation attached and no battery, the generator should run at all time.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Nightinggale

So this?

It's been suggested tons of times. Maybe this time it will stick. Or maybe a mod that does it will be better.

1 minute ago, mathmanican said:

So this?

Why is it that people from the past keeps stealing my ideas?

Haha.

1 minute ago, Nightinggale said:

Why is it that people from the past keeps stealing my ideas?

You should have signed up two years ago.

Never know when they will see something and fix - so thanks for putting in a report!

 

I created a mod to solve this issue (steam / source). Feel free to include (modified or otherwise) as much as you like in ONI.

The changes from vanilla ONI:

CoalEnergyGenerator: Modified EnergyGenerator, which has the battery check and delivery control code removed.

CoalManualDeliveryKG: ManualDeliveryKG, which has added the bool ignoresOperationStatus. It's only used in  OperationalRequirementsMet. If set, the deliveries will not be interrupted when an automation signal turns the building off. There is also a new method UpdateCapacity (at the bottom), which allows modifying the thresholds during the game.

CoalDeliveryController: Adds the battery slider. Can pause CoalManualDeliveryKG depending on battery status. Will always unpause if the building is connected to an automation wire. In case of automation wire, the batteries aren't even checked (performance optimization). It views the batteries as one giant battery instead of triggering on the lowest battery. It makes the slider more intuitive to the player, hence easier to control the building.

DualSlider: adds two sliders. One is for capacity for delivery (target coal level), the other is for how low the coal storage should be before delivering. Changing those will call CoalManualDeliveryKG. UpdateCapacity to update the values, meaning the DualSlider component isn't called itself unless the sliders are moved or building settings copied.

 

The result is a coal generator, which is both a lot less confusing for the player and easier to set up to match the current battery setup. The coal generator will now also always run when no battery is connected, which makes it consistent with other generators.

Edited June 20, 2019 by Nightinggale