Electricity

Circuit status shows only consumers. Left is currently running consumers on the line, right is all possible consumers.
Batteries are not consumers and generators waste power if not using it all.
 

If it were only a matter of showing an incorrect value then the second circuit would burn out.

 

 

Here's an image taking overload damage despite it being impossible for any part of the circuit to overload. The reported load for every single wire segment is incorrect, and every single wire segment can take overload damage due to this.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Khrak

1 hour ago, Khrak said:

Here's an image taking overload damage despite it being impossible for any part of the circuit to overload. The reported load for every single wire segment is incorrect, and every single wire segment can take overload damage due to this.

I see 1200W there. That is indeed over the allowed 1000W.
 

Except that's the problem , that's not how electricity works. Electricity is a flow. The flow going right is 600W, the flow going left is 600W, not point in this circuit channels more than 600W. Adding up the drains on the circuit and just labeling every wire with that power is nonsensical.

 

Power flows through a wire. What is happening in the rest of the circuit has no effect on a each piece of wire. 

 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Khrak

5 minutes ago, Khrak said:

Except that's the problem , that's not how electricity works.

And this is a game. It has gameplay mechanics that simplify the simulation to make the game not run terrible.
I'm sorry that this is not the real world simulator you were expecting to find in an early access game.
 

I have been struggling with this myself. The only power that should be flowing through a wire is the power being drawn by the load(s) on that individual wire. At the moment power just seems to exist everywhere in all wires resulting in a situation where you get circuit overload damage on a wire that is not even connected to anything. I honestly feel they should change this as its not intuitive and very frustrating. This will result in players being confused why the one wire they have connected to their one fridge is taking overload damage.

Well, there is another problem with overloading: This pump only needs 240W and the circuit shows it is taking over a kW

That pump is jumpered straight to your main hotrail and run with basic electrical wire, need to pop a transformer in between your HighW rail and your LowW power feed

On 10/19/2017 at 5:59 PM, Khrak said:

If it were only a matter of showing an incorrect value then the second circuit would burn out.

 

 

Here's an image taking overload damage despite it being impossible for any part of the circuit to overload. The reported load for every single wire segment is incorrect, and every single wire segment can take overload damage due to this.

Indeed if this where a ground directed circuit that would be the case, however this is ground isolation electricity where a floating point of ground charges the entire circuit to the drawn power, and where we get circuit damage is effectively shorting either to ground(the asteroid) or across wires, if this were to be described realistically

Edited January 1, 2018 by Kabrute

True. I figured it out now as well. Only if you connect a pump designed for 230V to ,say 10kV then it should still flow down the drain with whatever it is meant to pump... Maybe they should enable building high voltage generators as well as low voltage generators to make more clear for players what the transformers are actually used for. High voltage applications could also be another research point.