Avoiding broken fuses?

[Similar]

I started playing the game yesterday and after 13 hours I like many things about it, but the broken fuse thing is extremely annoying. The first times it happened I managed to fix it, eventually, but then it just broke for no apparent reason and kept breaking no matter what I did (even doubling the number of burners I had didn't make it work, despite being massive overkill), so after two frustrating hours of that I had to delete most of my factory.

I'm not familiar enough with the game to judge whether I ran into a bug or if it was working as intended. The whole broken fuse mechanic feels rather unclear to me (not so much the broken fuse thing itself, but why it's so difficult to get things running again after it happens).

So I'm a bit nervous about really getting into the game because spending ages building up my factories and then having to delete everything isn't exactly fun.

Should I just go way overboard on power production at all times to avoid running into the problem?

[kLuns]

Keep your consumption in mind and for biomass use extra burners untill you can switch to coal.

[Taco Cat]

The power graph shows you your current power production and the needed power to supply all buildings consuming Power. If you consume more power than you generate the fuse Breaks.
A) generate more power
B) disconnect some buildings.
You do not need to delete all buildings. You can simply disconnect some from the power grid or turn them into Standby.
If your fuse Broke, get the Generators running again and after that one by one connect different production Lines. The fuse Broke because you consumed more power than you generate. If you simply Switch it on again and have the same amount of consumers as before it will Break again

[Khirareq]

Originally posted by Similar:

so after two frustrating hours of that I had to delete most of my factory.

Noooooooooooooo!

Sorry you went through this, but instead of deleting your factory, just disconnect parts of it by deleting the power lines to certain sections - Things seem to *surge* when you try to reconnect power

Go to a power pole, look at it, and take a screenshot of the power graph for us - I want to look at your lines and try to work out whats going on for you

And as for going way overboard on power production? Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Oh yeah. But you mention bio-burners, so I'll point out things will get a bit easier for you once you unlock coal power. Where abouts on the map did you start?

[Similar]

Originally posted by Mr Treffnix:

The power graph shows you your current power production and the needed power to supply all buildings consuming Power. If you consume more power than you generate the fuse Breaks.
A) generate more power
B) disconnect some buildings.
You do not need to delete all buildings. You can simply disconnect some from the power grid or turn them into Standby.
If your fuse Broke, get the Generators running again and after that one by one connect different production Lines. The fuse Broke because you consumed more power than you generate. If you simply Switch it on again and have the same amount of consumers as before it will Break again

yeah, I did all that, about twenty times. Even tried setting practically everything on standby, and still, with twice the number of burners I'd had when things worked, the fuse broke every time I reconnected the burners.
And, of course, when they aren't running or when they're disconnected, you can't see the power graphs or even what the max output/consumption would be if they were running, so that didn't help (someone who's played longer than I have can no doubt just estimate things without the graph, but I'm not familiar enough with the game to do that yet).

It all felt very random, so I couldn't pin down what the basic problem was. I feel like doubling power production should have been a guaranteed fix, since things had worked with half the production, but it somehow wasn't, so nothing made sense.

Originally posted by Khirareq:

And as for going way overboard on power production? Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Oh yeah. But you mention bio-burners, so I'll point out things will get a bit easier for you once you unlock coal power. Where abouts on the map did you start?

I gave up on that game, also because I realized I'd somehow started on the third map instead of the first and the third map is rather difficult to explore because it's so vertical (I imagine you get some fancier things to help with that when you unlock more tiers than I had).
I did get to the tier where coal is, but noticed the water pump description said that rivers usually aren't deep enough for it, so the map also seemed bad for that (or my location, anyway, and making my way to deeper water turned out to be problematic because of all the deep ravines everywhere). So that was another reason for starting over on another map.

[Khirareq]

Originally posted by Similar:

I gave up on that game, also because I realized I'd somehow started on the third map instead of the first and the third map is rather difficult to explore because it's so vertical (I imagine you get some fancier things to help with that when you unlock more tiers than I had).
I did get to the tier where coal is, but noticed the water pump description said that rivers usually aren't deep enough for it, so the map also seemed bad for that (or my location, anyway, and making my way to deeper water turned out to be problematic because of all the deep ravines everywhere). So that was another reason for starting over on another map.

It's all just one map, with different starting zones. I would actually recommend Dune Desert to start with - Despite not much biomass around, there's still heaps to get you going

Most go the Grassy Plains to start with, and IMO, that's the hardest place to start

Also, don't worry about the vertical stuff - Just go ugly:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2662065091

Use the foundations - Nothing is out of reach

As for water, if you can put an extractor in it, it's good enough

[Similar]

Originally posted by Khirareq:

It's all just one map, with different starting zones.

oh. That's rather nice, actually.

Originally posted by Khirareq:

I would actually recommend Dune Desert to start with - Despite not much biomass around, there's still heaps to get you going

Most go the Grassy Plains to start with, and IMO, that's the hardest place to start

heh. I was going to start my new game on the Plains because I figured that had to be the easiest, but it took me ages to find any copper that was just vaguely near iron and lime stone. In my old game I'd found those three right away.
(Though, I've only just realized that some things have options I didn't know about, so I wasn't using the scanner right).
There's also way more hostile critters on the Plains than the other place, and often two of them at the same time, which got me killed.

I'll try the desert instead. Thanks.

Originally posted by Khirareq:

Also, don't worry about the vertical stuff - Just go ugly:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2662065091

Use the foundations - Nothing is out of reach

yeh, I keep thinking I have to be close to stuff to build or destroy it, so I need to get used to that.

[Similar]

Well, here we go again...

4 coal generators with a surplus of nearly 100 MW and the fuse still broke. And now I can't even get 3 burners to drive 2 MK. I miners with nothing else on that grid.

Edit: Apparently a pole near the miners was somehow connected to the main grid despite being more than 600 meters away from it...

Edit 2: 8 coal generators plus 3 burners, with a surplus of nearly 500 MW is somehow still not enough. Lovely.

[Mochan]

Watch your coal and water levels. Problems happen when those go out of whack. It may look like things are okay, but when your factory goes on load coal and water are consumed faster -- so the grid will overload before you know it.

The problem with having such a big power setup, lots of things could go wrong and it's harder to troubleshoot.

[Similar]

I may, possibly, be starting to get it, slightly. My grid is up and running again, at least. For now. And my coal generators appear to be working, for now.

That pole by the miners must have been an outright bug, though. That didn't make things less confusing.

[Similar]

Originally posted by Mochan:

Watch your coal and water levels. Problems happen when those go out of whack. It may look like things are okay, but when your factory goes on load coal and water are consumed faster -- so the grid will overload before you know it.

The problem with having such a big power setup, lots of things could go wrong and it's harder to troubleshoot.

yeah, exactly. I tore my generator setup down and started over, and I /think/ it should be more reliable now in case of major load. I should have more than 300 MW to spare for a while too. So fingers crossed...

[Summercat]

What the heck are you even trying to run on the grid? Like, what's your max (possible) consumption versus your max capacity?

[Similar]

Originally posted by Summercat:

What the heck are you even trying to run on the grid? Like, what's your max (possible) consumption versus your max capacity?

Well, that's the thing. Max consumption is 230 MW right now and capacity is 690 MW. It was something similar when the fuse broke, so I have no idea why it happened.
Output was somewhat wobbly before I reworked the coal generator setup, but it should still have had at least 200 MW to spare at its lowest output.

I'm kind of wondering if that buggy pole I had somehow duplicated the consumption of the grid, rather than just magically connecting to it from 600 meters away, but if so, it didn't show in the stats.

When I saved the game after the fuse broke, it crashed, but judging from the error messages, that had to with a tractor whose truck stations I had deleted. Didn't seem to have anything to do with power, but maybe there was something going on in general.

[Cheesecake]

Some people run separate power grids, i personally dont. When I started i had a problem with fuses tripping as I thought I had connected all the power poles together, I had not. I know only part of the factory stops but until I really looked at it I couldnt figure it out.

Make sure your poles are connected to each other so you dont have an isolated power grid that you didn't intend on.

[cywizz]

Originally posted by Similar:

Well, here we go again...

4 coal generators with a surplus of nearly 100 MW and the fuse still broke. And now I can't even get 3 burners to drive 2 MK. I miners with nothing else on that grid.

Edit: Apparently a pole near the miners was somehow connected to the main grid despite being more than 600 meters away from it...

Edit 2: 8 coal generators plus 3 burners, with a surplus of nearly 500 MW is somehow still not enough. Lovely.

Just for interest, you say you are running 8 coal generators, can you just specify how you connect them to the coal and water? Which belts and pipes you use as well as the total supply of each?

[Similar]

Originally posted by cywizz:

Just for interest, you say you are running 8 coal generators, can you just specify how you connect them to the coal and water? Which belts and pipes you use as well as the total supply of each?

Not the best screenshots, but I only have a watch tower to take shots from so far.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2840145194
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2840149936

Basically 8 generators with 3 water extractors attached to a single mk. I pipe line. I have a single pipe line along the rear of the generators, with the left and right most extractors connecting to the left and right most ends of the pipe, with a junction cross for each generator.
The middle generator connects to the middle of the pipe (actually to the junction cross of the fourth generator, because connecting it to the exact middle of the pipe caused weird problems).

The coal mk. II belt runs on top of the pipe line, with splitters for each generator, except for the last one where it just goes straight in. Takes a bit to fill up, but once it does, it seems to work well.

Coal comes from two mk. I miners merged into an mk. II belt . It appears to be enough (I needed coal for steel, but didn't dare to take some from the generator belt, so I found other deposits. Not sure if that was necessary).
One mk. II miner should be enough, I think, but I didn't have mk. IIs when I first made this setup.

Nothing is under- or overclocked.
Output is an extremely stable 600 MW.