25 solar panels per 21 accumulators: run out at night?

[Frost]

So if you put up exactly 25 solar panels per 21 accumulators, no other power source in your game, assuming your power consumption stays CONSTANT, doesn't that mean that if your solar panels provide enough power in the day, that the accumulators provide enough power the entire night time?

I'll double check my counts (and inconsistent power consumption is not a culprit), but I have enough solar panels to meet 100% of the demand the entire day, while at night I run out of juice from the accumulators.

Did the 25 solar per 21 accumulators ratio change?

[Khagan]

Originalmente postado por Fel:

Originalmente postado por RiO:

It was never a two-component ratio.
It was always a three-component ratio.

25:21:1

I keep saying this (several times in this thread alone) but it seems to be ignored every single time.
It feels like fighting against the wind at this point...

Saying it repeatedly doesn't make it any more correct. 25 to 21 was an exact two-component ratio. The (approximate) three-component one was 24 to 20 to 1. You could regard the latter as a special case of the former.

[Fel]

I did explain it earlier but let me be clearer then.

The 2 factors ratio is meaningless to the vast majority of players.
And those people would take the multiplier to calculate the number of accumulators needed to sustain their solar panels instead.
For the rest of us that have no clue how much solar panels we would need because we didn't carefully plan the whole factory fro the start, the ratio is only nice because it fits in a single substation but it doesn't really help beyond that.

The 3 factors ratio is a lot more helpful to most players because it tells you how much to expect in terms of power.
While 24:20:1 is rather close to the exact amount needed, it is way too close for comfort to the 1MW (you need about 23.81 solar panels per MW and 20.17 accumulators to sustain them), one might even argue that 20 accumulators in the ratio would be wrong if used in large amounts and would need extra accumulators on the side to really sustain the 1MW of the ratio.

The reasons why I and others answering relatively "normal" players with 25:21:1 instead are that that ratio gives some margin for error (technically 1,041MW of sustainable power but allowing some spikes a bit above that as well) and that the number 25 makes it much easier for quick mental math (as long as you respect the ratio, you just need a quick look at your solar panel count to know how much you can sustain).


I want to really stress the first point though, the 2 factors ratio does not help for the majority of the players, it even creates more confusion.

[Hurkyl]

Originalmente postado por Fel:

I want to really stress the first point though, the 2 factors ratio does not help for the majority of the players, it even creates more confusion.

Counterpoint: if you are building panels to accumulators in the right ratio for a flat power curve, "am I generating enough power?" can fairly easily be determined empirically, if you get how buffering works to flatten the power supply curve.

Detecting whether you have the right ratio, however, is (AFAIK) rather more difficult to determine empirically. It can be done, but it takes longer and is more complicated. And it's not so easy to math out the ratio either; in fact, IIRC it requires information that is not overtly available in game so doing it that way is rather involved.

So the 2-factor ratio tells you something that you cannot easily eyeball, but the third component is one you can.

[Fel]

Fair points.

I would like to give a few counterpoint to it as well though.
If you already know the ratios, you typically make a simple setup that matches it, then copy/paste (or blueprint in a tileable format) it everywhere you need it.
As I said in the previous post, you can make it fit a single substation for any of the ratios mentionned, which makes it rather rare to have to determine if your ratio is correct.

If you want to determine if you have the right amount of accumulators for your solar panels, the ratio is less useful than the multiplier (0.847 for normal quality and Nauvis I believe).
And if you do use the ratio anyway, might as well add the third part so you get an accurate estimate of how much power you can sustain at the same time.

And more importantly, eye-balling the "am I generating enough power?" is only simple to us that already know what to look at precisely, this thread is a good indicator that it is not as simple to everyone.
It is not "that" hard to just tell if you are running out or not (if you blackout during the night or the charging doesn't finish during the day), but being able to get a decent idea of how much margin you have is often also pretty useful.

To many people the power graph becomes highly confusing even with just boilers and steam engines, and that's when it tells you exactly what you need to know.
It gets less and less simple to read it as you move on to solar power, even more so if you have other things than just solar as a source of power.

[Khagan]

Originalmente postado por Fel:

While 24:20:1 is rather close to the exact amount needed, it is way too close for comfort to the 1MW (you need about 23.81 solar panels per MW and 20.17 accumulators to sustain them), one might even argue that 20 accumulators in the ratio would be wrong if used in large amounts and would need extra accumulators on the side to really sustain the 1MW of the ratio.

Which is why I said 'was'. 24:20:1 is indeed (unfortunately) no longer adequate. As Chindraba said near the beginning of this thread, you now have to add an extra accumulator for every 6 MW (or part thereof).