Does anyone know of a way to detect when your base has low power via circuit network?

[Draloric]

So my base occasionally has a slight issue where if it is under very very heavy attack by biters for longer than a few minutes at once or the roboports suddenly decide to charge a literal 1000 robots at once my base has a major brownout, causing the boillers to slowly run out of fuel as the inserters litterally can't get the fuel in them fast enough without power. So the boillers slowly burn through thier fuel and I get to watch as my power production slowly grinds to a halt with no way to help.

Anyway I have installed some backup systems like if I'm low on coal it disconnects my oil system from power in attempt to prolong the coal I do have, I also have installed many accumulators to handle brownouts (which has been very effective) and I have also started carrying around hundreds of burner inserters so that if worst comes to worst I can manually make all the inserters not need power so that can boot the power supply (though waste tons of coal)

But I want to know it there is a method to directly know how your power is doing, I want to be able to say "if there is a brownout, disconnect all unnessecary functions from the power grid" or "if there is a complete power failure, disconnect the power production from everything else" so that if my boilers can't keep up, I can automatically drop demand significantly in a desperate attempt to make sure that the power grid remains operational and defended at all times.

TL;DR:

I want a way to detect the power satisfaction level in such a way it outputs a signal on the curcuit network.

Does anyone have a solution?

[Nailfoot]

Well. 35000 solar panels seems to work for me, no detection required :)

But seriously, the accumulator can output its current charge level, which you can act upon. Also, you should not need to carry around burner inserters. If your system is really subject to brownouts as bad as you say, you need either more steam, or more solar panels.

[Maelstrom]

You should always feed your boilers with burner inserters, for this exact reason. The only thing you can connect to the circuit network is accumulator charge %.

Also if you're experiencing crippling brownouts you should build more steam engines, solar panels, and/or accumulators. If you're using steam, keep in mind that steam plants will only produce enough electricity to satisfy current demand - there's no wasted fuel for overbuilding.

Some people keep seperate power grids for defense and everything else and cut power to the main factory via the circuit network and a power switch if the accumulator charge drops too low. This is mainly to avoid losing power to the laser turrets at night if the base comes under attack. There's also more advanced solutions, like emergency steam power that only comes on when your accumulators are under x% charge (usually 10%)

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Maelstrom:

You should always feed your boilers with burner inserters, for this exact reason.

....

I used to do this, but no more. Once I am past the begining of the game, boilers get blue inserters, even though its overkill.

Burner inserters are not fast enough to pull coal off of a non-compressed belt, unless it is only a yellow belt. While it is true that you really only need yellow belts to feed the boilers (You can supply the yellow belts with blue belts further up the line) I don't work with yellow belts anymore so I would need to make some changes to do so.

As long as you have solar panels (A reasonable amount given your base size) then brownouts should never cripple you. The solar panels will provide a trickle of power during the day, which should get you by until you can get more coal into the system.

EDIT
Consider the following screenshot.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=839253619

The belts right next to the boilers *COULD* be yellow with no loss of throughput, but the 4-belt mainline needs to be red at minimum. I made it out of blue belts.

[Maelstrom]

I have to disagree. Not having a chest of yellow belts somewhere is a poor choice in my opinion since it needlessly limits your options. As boilers are generally built in rows of 13 there's no reason not to use yellow belts (off of a blue splitter, for large setups) to feed them. Using burner inserters lets you pack them in more cloesly too since you don't need to power the inserters.

Like this, from a previous factory
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=778348120
As you can see they're all fed with burner inserters.

[Nailfoot]

Two different ways to do the same thing, but we highjacked the OP's thread. Sorry.

OP, have you considered pinging an accumulator to make circuit network choices? All accumulators within the same network will have the same charge level so you can just plop one down anywhere next to a place you need to check power levels.

[Draconas]

I got a hybrid of solar/accus and a bank of steam engines that only flip on when the accumulator used for detection drops below 25%

bank http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857284646
boiler layout http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857284669 some modded fuel and water supply, fed by the bot network mostly, any fuel works, even rocket fuel (best vanilla fuel imo)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857284686 detection and circuit network, dead simple.

all the boilers are connected to only one power switch, that's the ONLY connection to the factory it can get.

also sure you can repeat the same for turning off parts off your factory if you mind how your poles are connecting.

edit: there's also the ability to make a charge indicator using lights and some combobulation magic, ive attempted and failed at it, but it's possible to have at a glance things like that. believe in 0.15 there's supposed to be a sound block for more added annoyance alerts

[Draloric]

I didn't know you could use accumulators to output a charge level that is really helpful! Thanks! Also I know that my power is really really crappy but my base is very hard pressed for space and I don't have enough oil to make the turrets nessecary to gaurd much expansion. I am slowly improving as I go and even though the brownouts aren't usually crippling it would just be fun to set up that kind of logic even if it had no real purpose you know? Anyway thanks guys for repondin :P.

[Ruges]

Hud Combinator mod. Set that up on an accumulator to trigger at a certain percent of its health. IE when the accumulators drop below 25% I get a msg that they have droped that low.

Next patch we will get the sound blocks. and you will be able to tie that in to play a sound when power drops below a set %.

Alternativly you could set it up with a light, a decider combinator, a power switch, and an accumulator. the comb checks the lvl of the accum, once it drops below x% it turns on the power switch to the light. you could even add in a pulse generator to create a strobe effect.

[!?!]

I just hook boiler pumps to an accumulator and set them to activate once the charge level drops below 10% and then it never activates because I have 10.000 solar cells.

[AlexMBrennan]

So my base occasionally has a slight issue where if it is under very very heavy attack by biters for longer than a few minutes at once or the roboports suddenly decide to charge a literal 1000 robots at once my base has a major brownout, causing the boillers to slowly run out of fuel as the inserters litterally can't get the fuel in them fast enough without powe

Do you have a screenshot of your power summary when that happened? I've heard many tales of this mythical bigfoot brownout without ever seeing any evidence that it is possible (without someone sneaking into your base and secretly placing a thousand radars for every one of your steam engines)

As for the original question, depends on whether or not you are using solar power. If you are not using solar power then you could just use the charge level of accumulators (turn off non-essential stuff when charge < 100 because your steam power can handle regular load).

If you are using solar power then you'd have to build a clock to calculate the rate of accumulator discharge and turn off non-essential stuff when the drain is too great.

[!?!]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

So my base occasionally has a slight issue where if it is under very very heavy attack by biters for longer than a few minutes at once or the roboports suddenly decide to charge a literal 1000 robots at once my base has a major brownout, causing the boillers to slowly run out of fuel as the inserters litterally can't get the fuel in them fast enough without powe

Do you have a screenshot of your power summary when that happened? I've heard many tales of this mythical bigfoot brownout without ever seeing any evidence that it is possible

It's easily possible if you do your monstrous speedy beacon productivity build and then decide that you want this to fill 3 trains at night which then springs the entire base that has been idling due to full buffers to life.
It's a long night.

[Draloric]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

So my base occasionally has a slight issue where if it is under very very heavy attack by biters for longer than a few minutes at once or the roboports suddenly decide to charge a literal 1000 robots at once my base has a major brownout, causing the boillers to slowly run out of fuel as the inserters litterally can't get the fuel in them fast enough without powe

Do you have a screenshot of your power summary when that happened? I've heard many tales of this mythical bigfoot brownout without ever seeing any evidence that it is possible (without someone sneaking into your base and secretly placing a thousand radars for every one of your steam engines)

As for the original question, depends on whether or not you are using solar power. If you are not using solar power then you could just use the charge level of accumulators (turn off non-essential stuff when charge < 100 because your steam power can handle regular load).

If you are using solar power then you'd have to build a clock to calculate the rate of accumulator discharge and turn off non-essential stuff when the drain is too great.

Add me as a friend I could show you... I accidentally made it happen by putting a bunch of requester chests that was requesting so many items from so far away that the roboport's drainage caused the base to fail... Anyway learned my lesson, don't request 200K resources into 10 requester chests such that logistic robots have to go far...

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by chris:

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Do you have a screenshot of your power summary when that happened? I've heard many tales of this mythical bigfoot brownout without ever seeing any evidence that it is possible

It's easily possible if you do your monstrous speedy beacon productivity build and then decide that you want this to fill 3 trains at night which then springs the entire base that has been idling due to full buffers to life.
It's a long night.

Yep, it is very easy to do. I have 2300 beacons in my world right now and if I don't keep an eye on power, I will go from thinking everything is ok, to only producing 10% of my needed power in a flash.

I have 1700 steam engines and coal is not an issue so those are always running once the solar panels kick off, just to assist the accumulators. Personally, I see no point (in my situation) to run 100% accumulators until they are depeleted. I let the steame engines run as much as they want, and it serves to clear out all of this excess coal I have laying around.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Draloric:

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Do you have a screenshot of your power summary when that happened? I've heard many tales of this mythical bigfoot brownout without ever seeing any evidence that it is possible (without someone sneaking into your base and secretly placing a thousand radars for every one of your steam engines)

As for the original question, depends on whether or not you are using solar power. If you are not using solar power then you could just use the charge level of accumulators (turn off non-essential stuff when charge < 100 because your steam power can handle regular load).

If you are using solar power then you'd have to build a clock to calculate the rate of accumulator discharge and turn off non-essential stuff when the drain is too great.

Add me as a friend I could show you... I accidentally made it happen by putting a bunch of requester chests that was requesting so many items from so far away that the roboport's drainage caused the base to fail... Anyway learned my lesson, don't request 200K resources into 10 requester chests such that logistic robots have to go far...

I have had my base's power fail as well. I dropped to absolutely ZERO power, and I had no solar panels in that case.

So, the miners couldn't mine coal, the inserters couldn't insert it, and the laser defence was worthless. I actually got the base back up and running by stopping a train and taking its fuel (A lowly 140 or so coal) and manually feeding the boilers a few pieces each. I had to disconnect everything but the inserters and coal miners first, though.

It was intense. Just getting that base to survive and hoping I didn't get attacked.

From that point on, I always make sure I get at least a few dozen solar panels down ASAP, no matter how small my base is at the time.

[Draloric]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Originally posted by Draloric:

Add me as a friend I could show you... I accidentally made it happen by putting a bunch of requester chests that was requesting so many items from so far away that the roboport's drainage caused the base to fail... Anyway learned my lesson, don't request 200K resources into 10 requester chests such that logistic robots have to go far...

I have had my base's power fail as well I dropped to absolutely ZERO power, and I had no solar panels in that case.

So, the miners couldn't mine coal, the inserters couldn't insert it, and the laser defence was worthless. I actually got the base back up and running by stopping a train and taking its fuel (A lowly 140 or so coal) and manually feeding the boilers a few peices each. I had to disconnect everything but the inserters and coal miners first, though.

It was intense. Just getting that base to survive and hoping I didn't get attacked.

Yup, same here. but not so much once it hits 0, I usually just have below 10% power satisfaction for a long time.