Huge problem with power!

[⎛⎝Duckers McQuack⎠⎞]

Any tips to how i can get the juice i'm supposed to get? All the steam generators has lots of power to deliver, but for some reason it's not delivering what it whould to the power electric poles..

Also the engines has nearly 100% power available, full water and temp is 100, so what gives?

http://puu.sh/nzPmK/5bdd27033a.png

[Gammro]

I'm making assumptions on your network right now, so a general tip:

"Avaiailable performance" means the maximum amount of power a generator can produce. If that bar is anything but full, your generator setup needs to be tweaked. Check the amount of water going in and the temperature. It needs to be level >9.5 with a temperature near 100.

If that is correct you just lack engines. You need a big setup after a while.

Edit: I need to go to bed, I read right past the info you posted.
Anyway, you have only 18 generators from what I can see. That is a really low amount for the tech I see on screen. Scale up! Find a nice spot for a new generator area and place 50 engines there. Try to make it so that you can easily expand on it in case that's not enough.

[Senanima]

General ratio is 14 burners per 10 steam pumps per 1 offshore pump.

You can also click directly on a pole and get your power usage/output. (I think you figured that out though, but others may note)

And as last post said, you'll want to arrange bigger blocks. 10 pumps is ~1.3 Million power or so, which eats up fast as you tech.

[Nellvan]

If you do get >9.5 water at 100° with that setup, you indeed just need to have more of everything. You were checking on an engine at the end of the line, right ?

You got way too many pumps though . You only need 1 for about 14 boilers and 10 engines. I've read this may cause problems, but iirc you should see temperature drop then.

I'd suggest doing seperate "units" of 1-14-10 to be sure.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=641379640

[Xuhybrid]

In addition to what was noted above, you should really be using splitters to put your coal on other lines. Even though you should have blocks of 14 boilers together instead of split into groups. Hell you can have a block of 28 in a line that feed into your steam engines.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=641389237

[-VG- Napster]

if you mouse over the steam engines and the green bar is full the steam engines run already on their maximum capacity

[bigdale]

You want to minimize the amount of above ground pipe in your boiler network as it will allow the water to cool. Short runs are the most efficient. I hook up 7 boilers directly to a water pump and using one underground pipe connect that to five linked steam engines. You can replicate it by mirroring the setup to use the same coal belt for 10 engines (5MW). Replicate that setup over and over it you don't like to move to solar and batteries ASAP.

[Gammro]

Originally posted by bigdale:

You want to minimize the amount of above ground pipe in your boiler network as it will allow the water to cool. Short runs are the most efficient. I hook up 7 boilers directly to a water pump and using one underground pipe connect that to five linked steam engines. You can replicate it by mirroring the setup to use the same coal belt for 10 engines (5MW). Replicate that setup over and over it you don't like to move to solar and batteries ASAP.

There's no heat dissipation in the game. Cooling only happens when the amount of water that is consumed by the generator is bigger than the boilers can heat up.

[⎛⎝Duckers McQuack⎠⎞]

Here's the status on the steam engines

http://puu.sh/nAhAg/5578e607e5.png

Also, why won't the accumulator take in any power from the panels? And the panels delivering anything? (or is that the accumulators job?

[Soushi [SSRB]]

Originally posted by Gintoki:

Here's the status on the steam engines

http://puu.sh/nAhAg/5578e607e5.png

Also, why won't the accumulator take in any power from the panels? And the panels delivering anything? (or is that the accumulators job?

On the screenshot you can see Perf = Available Perf, which you don't ever-ever want. This means, that your steam engines are working on 100% and can't give you any more power. Build more engines, much more! :)

Also that's the reason you don't get any charging done on accumulators - only the excess electricity goes into them, so if you don't have enough already, they don't charge.

On a side note, you may want to split your water pumps and isolate them for perfect ratio, as Nellvan mentioned: 1 Pump + 14 Boilers + 10 Steam Engines. Else, you are risking to get into water shortage at some point, which is hard to nail at a glance.

[Gammro]

That looks good as far as the available performance. Though they're running at 100% already.

Accumulators are only charged if you have sufficient power production. So for example:

1) You have 8MW power production
Your factory needs 10MW to run at 100% speed
Accumulators get nothing because there's no power left and the factory runs at 80% speed.

2) You have 10MW power production
Your factory needs 10MW to run at 100% speed
Accumulators get nothing because there's no power left but the factory runs nicely at 100% speed.

2) You have 15MW maximum power production
The factory still needs 10MW to run
Accumulators eat 5MW(or less if the maximum charge speed is reached) until fully charged.
After Accumulators are charged, power production goes back to only what is needed.

When a shortage occurs, maybe because your laser turrets start firing, the accumulators discharge so your factory doesn't run any slower. They need to be recharged afterwards.

The solar panels do charge the accumulators, but judging from the screenshot, you still don't have enough power production.

[Nellvan]

Another thing I've only noticed now, that inserter setup is also adding to the problem.

It's a waste of electric energy in the first place (Murphy's Law: Of course that bit of waste is exactly the bit that tips the balance), and it creates a ... err not sure if feedback loop is the correct term... when you are low on energy, the inserters work slower, and now you produce even less energy.

If you use burner inserters everything will keep running as long as you got coal coming, since they'll fuel themselves.

[Soushi [SSRB]]

Originally posted by Nellvan:

Another thing I've only noticed now, that inserter setup is also adding to the problem.

Not as much, as you'd think, really. Inserters only take power, when they actually transfer stuff and with coal burning time all those inserters use up maybe as much power, as one-two working non-stop.

[Nellvan]

Yeah but there's still the issue that they can cause a small deficit to spiral into a complete blackout.

Technically burner inserters are also less efficent, but I really prefer having a reliable power supply that I don't need to babysit.

[Xuhybrid]

Originally posted by Nellvan:

Yeah but there's still the issue that they can cause a small deficit to spiral into a complete blackout.

Technically burner inserters are also less efficent, but I really prefer having a reliable power supply that I don't need to babysit.

If you think a yellow inserter can cause a power blackout ur an idiot.

[Nellvan]

Maybe read the whole thread lest you look like an idiot yourself.

Originally posted by Nellvan:

when you are low on energy, the inserters work slower, and now you produce even less energy.