Multiple Batteries

[Myriad]

I was introduced to this game after watching a YouTube streamer, liked it, and picked it up. One of the things I took from that stream was that multiple batteries are a waste because Batteries leak power. So instead of having, say, one Smart Battery leaking 400J/cycle, if you had 3 you'd be leaking 1.2KJ per cycle. Made sense to me, so no matter how many generators I had on a Heavi-Watt circuit, I'd have one Smart Battery. After all, the generators will kick in at a moments notice and fill it back up immediately, right?

Well, after reading the Wiki recently, it was brought to my attention that Batteries have a limit to how much charge they can take at once. And the Wiki states that it's actually a waste of power by not having at least 4 Batteries per 800W generator. So if you had 3 Hydrogen gens, you should have 12 Batteries on that circuit.

This is messing with my head right now. Can someone shed some light on this subject? Is it actually more efficient to have a dozen or more Batteries on a high output circuit, and 3 or 4 with a single generator, despite the compounding power leak of them all?

[AquaX]

It’s a matter of how much you are willing to deal with for less hassle. The smart battery has 1/2 the charge space that a large battery but has a smaller power loss bleeding compared to the larger batteries. It can be automated and depending on your design, you can optimize your energy production to only activate in certain circumstances.

The general idea is have some smart batteries connected to the heavy wire line with an automation connected to the power production. Then link transformers to that heavy line and a few smart batteries on the smaller line. Then make an automation line between the smaller line batteries and the transformer. By this design the smaller line batteries will drain from the main line when their out and the production will only start when the main line batteries are empty. You will still have some power loss but unless you want to calculate the exact amt each line drains, your willing to take the loss.

[Myriad]

Transformers are nice for splitting power. My question was about connecting 4 Smart Batteries to a single 800W generator.

[cainboy]

First off: Wiki sometimes contains outdated information.
Secondly: Just read all 3 battery infos on the wiki and found nothing about what you mentioned.

Batteries leak an incredibly small amount of power, their heat gain is actually more substantial.
According to present info: A smart battery will leak .667J/s.... which means 1 hamster wheel can deal with the power loss of 600 smart batteries.....

Personally: I have a heavywatt/conductive heavywatt power grid, with a smart battery hooked up to each cluster / variety of generators, because fuel is not valued the same.
I.E.: Hydrogen is far more valuable to me in other applications when compared to coal.
With a smart battery controlling which gens come on at what needs, you can save not only lots of raw materials, but WHICH raw materials you want to save.

The one time I would suggest creating a battery bank, is when the fuel source is time limited, and you would gain more by the small energy loss, and heat gain, when compared to the time saved.
*(Hamster wheels' Duplicant time resource, and Solar Panel's Daylight are 2 resources that are heavily Time dependant.)


So unless you wish to build a passive heating power bank, or a way to get more out of time dependant resources, I'd stick with just the smart batteries to effeciently use resources.

[Angpaur]

There is possibility to lose power with smart batteries wrongly set. If you set them to disable generators at 100% capacity then signal is sent one game tick(0.2s) after, when generators are still producing power. You will waste 1/5 of potential generafors W/s because when battery is full that overflow power cannot be stored.

I'm not sure if generators get disabled immediately or it takes one more tick for it to react. If so then 2/5 of the power is wasted.

[Myriad]

Ok, it seems it's outdated information. That would explain the confusion.

Here's the link:
https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Guide/Power_Circuits

It's under Circuits, not Batteries. And quoted from that link is,

"Since a battery only consumes up to 200W, to charge efficiently and lose as little excess wattage as possible, you will want at least 3 batteries per Coal Generator or 2 batteries per Manual Generator or 4 per Hydrogen Generator."

I also read somewhere that stated it was a waste of power to not have enough batteries on a single circuit, but it must be on a different page. Either way, I'm glad I got to the bottom of it before I renovated my all my power rooms.

[Sheep]

I have one smart battery for each kind of generator.
Steam and solar generators dont even have batteries since they benefit you in other ways / dont cost resources.

If you have too much hydrogen (I dont do it since most of the time ill want to store it and use it for rockets later...) you will want to burn it before using other power sources, since its pretty efficient power source. So you have a line of hydrogen generators and you stick one smart battery to them to work when the grid is under... lets say 40%.

Then you will either want gas generators or petroleum. so you stick 1 battery to each of those too and set it to 30% and 20%.

You will want to use coal only as last resort since it is pretty bad. so another battery with low threshold of 10%.

I dont use any more batteries then that.

[The Tempted Man]

Putting more than 1 battery is pointless, because small, big batteries discharge at the same time as soon as they are full. So it doesn't matter how many you will place next to one another, they will die at the same time.

Smart batteries is the only logical choice in the game, since when you get petroleum, you have infinite fuel.

[SKull]

Smart are much better. But they also cost refined metal, so it depends how much of it you have. You could easily make a big storage of only smart batteries instead of big batteries. That way they will all charge equally and at the same time. The automation wire only needs to be hooked up to one of the batteries and all of them will charge at the same time when the gens come on. So you're basically multplying your smart battery for a more lasting power storage.

For your question, a single smart battery doesn't leak much power, but at high power levels it also drains in half a second. So you need at least some solution, since this is too fast for the automation wire and the generators to deal with. Particularly the oil generators tend to overheat if they run for too long because of too few gens, or if they swicth on and off constantly due to low power storage. So you should look for the sweet spot. Enough power generated to comfortably fill your batteries quickly, and enough battery volume to give the gens at least some time to rest.

[Myriad]

Thanks for the added info guys. I exclusively use Smart Batteries on anything that can be automated. I think it's pointless it use a Jumbo Battery on anything except a Manual Generator.

I find the heat from generators is becoming a problem now, so maybe I'll add a few more Smart Batteries to give them more time to cool down.

Originally posted by The Tempted Man:

since when you get petroleum, you have infinite fuel.

Why do you say this? I have 2 oil wells and 2 Refineries, with 2 Petroleum Generators and a Polymer Press, and I'm still running dry.

[AquaX]

Don’t use the petroleum refinery. You lose half of the crude oil mass to convert it to petroleum. Just heat up the oil and it will auto change it’s form w/o lose of mass.

[Myriad]

Originally posted by AquaX:

Don’t use the petroleum refinery. You lose half of the crude oil mass to convert it to petroleum. Just heat up the oil and it will auto change it’s form w/o lose of mass.

Ok, I've never done that before so I'll have to come up with some kind of system and try it out.

[AquaX]

Originally posted by Myriad:

Originally posted by AquaX:

Don’t use the petroleum refinery. You lose half of the crude oil mass to convert it to petroleum. Just heat up the oil and it will auto change it’s form w/o lose of mass.

Ok, I've never done that before so I'll have to come up with some kind of system and try it out.

Dump it in lava and watch it change form super fast.

[ColdCell]

i hooked up 2 smart batteries into my jumbo array to control my gas and oil generator separately, this is when i noticed something strange. the stored power in the battery array will even out, but the description didnt say how it will be evened, by percentage? or Kjs.

the smart battery seems to work on their own and disregards the jumbo array.( i know they have different capacity)

is there a way to work this out?