Transformers Overloading High Side Wires when within the Safe Limits

I think I get it now from reading those posts. Let me recap it. Transformers will always have the same output rate. When the transformers internal batteries are empty, it will have unlimited consumption rate. When the internal storage is full, it will limit its consumption to its output rate. To avoid this problem, always keep your transformers charged. This means that planning for brownouts are a no go.

@Gamers Handbook Does this happen when the transformer is fully charged too or just when its empty/partially empty?

It could even be a rounding error with the transformers.

As you can see, the transformers are at full charge in this screenshot and the bridge is taking damage while the batteries are getting charged.  Therefore it appears the hypothesis that when the internal transformer battery reads full this doesn't happen is incorrect.  Good hypothesis though.

9 hours ago, Gamers Handbook said:

As you can see, the transformers are at full charge in this screenshot and the bridge is taking damage while the batteries are getting charged.  Therefore it appears the hypothesis that when the internal transformer battery reads full this doesn't happen is incorrect.  Good hypothesis though.

 

6 steam turbines per line

4 lines

6 * 4 * 850 = .... 20 400 

 

Oups ! You produce 400 w more than what the wire can support.  

@Gwido  That's intentional.  A wire can't overload if there's not even enough power available to even draw the overloading amount.  I also believe you're implying generators overload wire, but that is not the case.

I've run into the same issue when trying to offload excess power from an off-site steam turbines powered by a volcano. 

3x steam turbines are connected via conductive wire to 2 power transformers (which then offload power to main grid). Even though the load never exceeds 2k (as the consumers are not capable of drawing more than that), the conductive wire get continuously overloaded. It appears as if 1kW transformers were drawing more than 1kW from their input at their full capacity. The overload is infinitesimal, showing a red 2kW, with displayed load value never exceeding the limit.

I had to work around this problem by lowering steam temperature to keep the output safely below the limit, at around ~1.9 kW. There are however no good reasons for this setup not to work. Not having this as an option, leaves the only viable power setup to have all generators connected to main power spine via heavy watt wires, which I hope was not the intention of game authors. 

I know about battery flipper mechanics that are possible to achieve similar offsite generators, but relying on 'infinite charing power' seems to be much worse abuse of game mechanics. I would expect the transformers to protect not only their output, but also the input (when they are the only consumers).

I'm happy to include screenshots if that helps to address this issue. 

Edited January 5, 2020 by lemurek

On 10/21/2019 at 2:41 PM, BLACKBERREST3 said:

I think I get it now from reading those posts. Let me recap it. Transformers will always have the same output rate. When the transformers internal batteries are empty, it will have unlimited consumption rate. When the internal storage is full, it will limit its consumption to its output rate. To avoid this problem, always keep your transformers charged. This means that planning for brownouts are a no go.

@Gamers Handbook Does this happen when the transformer is fully charged too or just when its empty/partially empty?

It could even be a rounding error with the transformers.

I've tested the idea of using pre-charged transformers and the problem persisted. One of the transformers immediately flipped to 80% charge, followed soon by the other. It's not clear whether that is relevant at all to the overload problem. 

TBH I'd argue that above considerations should be implementation details. If you treat the internal capacity as an extra battery - that battery (as any other batteries) should not cause wires to overload. From game mechanics perspective this should be as simple as: if a power transformer can only ever provide up to 1kW it should not draw more than 1kW, and consequently should never overload a connected wire of matching capacity. 

@Gamers Handbook shouldn't this mean that your transformer flipper design won't work?  But it does?