3 coal mines but my coal runs out every day.

[Holding These Alligators Down]

The storm is coming, i have 3 coalmines but my coal is running out every time work shifts end so through the night i'm constantly having to turn the generator back on because my automatron can't keep up with the coal demands.
If i turn steam heaters off people get ill and die. I have no idea why i'm not getting enough coal, i have 3 coal mines and my generator is only at level 3.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Upgrade the mines and more automatons to keep all crewed during night.

[Holding These Alligators Down]

I failed the game, my people kicked me out.
It's just confusing because i had 3 coalmine and 2 charcoal kilns but i wasn't making enough coal to keep the generator running even for 1 full day.
I'll have to make sure i updrade the generator early on so i can use Steam coalmines i guess.

[Imperatordavius]

the stronger the heat level of the generator, the more 'coal' is needed to run per hour.

At heating 1 for example say, 24 coal per hour, but at like heating 4, you need at least 72 coal per hour (note the numbers arent exact i'm just derping and using it as an example)

[MaebeKnot]

Upgrading current buildings is normally better then building more. Tech up as much as possible.

[Partyrock]

Why haven't you responded to the first poster who solved your problem? Upgrade the coal mines.

[Prophet_01]

Seems like you need upgraded buildings. Regular mines are not enough later on. Steam mines are the bare minimum and advanced ones with Automatons are what you should be aiming for.

Automatons make all the difference late into the game. 24/7 definitely makes up for the somewhat lower efficiency and represents a serious boost. Tesla city outpost for cores is important btw.

If you absolutely want to do it with human labour alone, you'll need the long shifts, possibley even the foremen bonus from the order tree.

I prefer thumpers btw. On higher difficulties child labour is too good to pass on early in the game. Later on however, there are very few jobs left for them. Coal mines are limited by ressource spots, thumpers only by manpower.

[Elitewrecker PT]

You won't be able to use thumpers halfway into the storm, but before that you should have plenty of manpower so just get a couple thumpers for some extra coal if needed.

[Mace]

Same as everyone else, upgrades make a huge difference. Especially efficiency ones.

[Prophet_01]

Quite the contrary actually. On my last playthrough (hard), I had 22 automatons. They don't care about the weather ; )

[believor in Prawn]

did you upgrade your automations is your gen running on a higher range setting?
what types of coal mines?

[Holding These Alligators Down]

Ok cool thanks. Upgrade early as possible then

[believor in Prawn]

Originally posted by Endless Trash.:

Ok cool thanks. Upgrade early as possible then :zomthumbup:

also dont run with range upgrades
they suck

[Elitewrecker PT]

They're not the most efficient way for spreading heat, but if you don't want or can't spread steam hubs around the circles it gets through the game.

[KeepStay]

3 fully upgraded coal mines with automatons can sustain FULL POWER generator and bunch of steam hubs (full coverage of living area) with surplus.

[PhailRaptor]

I've done the math. A Steam Thumper with the Injector upgrade will produce ~20 coal/hr more than an Advanced Coal Mine with both Optimization upgrades. But to have full collection from that Steam Thumper will require 5 Gathering Posts with both Gathering techs.

The advantage for Thumpers is that you only need to build that unit of 5 Gathering Posts once for something like 5 or 6 Thumpers. It depends on how many you can fit inside the working range of the Gathering Posts. This is because the rate of the Gathering Post is calculated per Pile in range. So you can cluster the Thumpers tightly together and collect dramatically more Coal than if you have them spread apart.

This also eases the Steam Core burden of Automating your Coal collection. Steam Thumpers and Gathering Posts do not require any Steam Cores themselves, but it is 6 Work Sites, and so 6 Automotons. The Advanced Mine requires 3 Steam Cores, plus the Automoton, for a total of 4. But as explained above, you break even on Steam Cores by adding the second Thumper to your Gathering Post array. This only adds a single Steam Core to your count, from the Automoton, while a second Advanced Mine would be another 4 Steam Cores. So 7 Steam Cores to crew 2 Thumpers and 5 Gathering Posts, while the Mines would require 8 in total, 6 for the buildings themselves and 2 more for the Automoton crews.

The trade-off ends up being space. Thumpers are quite large buildings, and you have to arrange them just-so to get as many as you can dropping their Piles in range of the Gathering Posts. While Mines are the same size as the Thumper itself, there are no other buildings involved. But you have a hard limit to the number of Mines you can build, based on how many Coal Seams are present in the scenario you are playing. New Home and Winterhome each have 3 sites, but Arks and Refugees only have 2 sites.

TL;DR -- Thumpers/Posts are very manpower heavy and take up significant space, but become more efficient the more Thumpers you can build around a single Gathering Post unit. Coal Mines are set-and-forget and low manpower, but have no synergy with each other and are limited in number.