Water Extractor Issue

[Bohemian Rap City]

I am running 8 coal generators and 3 water extractors. I noticed that my power fluctuated from 525-600-525 and did a walk around. All my Generators show filled with water and coal with no variation.

I then checked my extractors and found all the pipes staying filled and two of the extractors as well, the third extractor is empty to minor fill and empty again.

Any idea what is causing this?

Is the water not as deep?

[Jack-o-Lantern]

May depend on where pipes are connected....

assuming you have 8 coal gen in a line....
you should put one extractor connected at middle of the line, between 4th and 5th.
another extractor between 1st and 2nd
last extractor between 7th and 8th

[Flash✪Gordon]

Goal Generator thread

https://steamcommunity.com/app/526870/discussions/0/4406292068725800866/

[Vectorspace]

Any single piece of mk1 pipe can only transport 300/min of water. 8 coal generators require 360/min. You must arrange your piping and water extractors such that no single pipe segment needs to transport more than 300/min water, e.g. by doing as Jack-O-Lantern says and spacing out the extractors evenly along the 8 generators.

[Flash✪Gordon]

One of the water extractor - coal generator - setups that works a 100% and never makes problems:

Connect 1 water extractor with 2 coal generators. Mk.1 pipe only. That is 1 unit.
Then build other units.
Never connect units with each other. So you stay out of troubles.

If you run coal generators on 250% like me, then you get a full 375 MW from each unit.

You set water extractor exactly to 225
And you set the coal miner exactly to 75

==> Build the coal generators down at the water line or on the water. this way you dont need water pumps to pump the water up.

==> Keep the 1 pipe per unit as short as possible. Long coal conveyor belt don't matter matter. Long pipes do mattter: Don't do it.

It's foolproof.

[kLuns]

Originally posted by Gordon✪Gekko:

You set water extractor exactly to 225
And you set the coal miner exactly to 75

I prefer one powershard in the coal generator and manually tell it to make 100 mw
this makes one unit provide a little bit less power but because there is no power spent in overclocking you get some more power to feed your factories with. It takes some space but it's easy to overlook.

[Lawn-Mower]

Originally posted by Bohemian Rap City:

Is the water not as deep?

If the water's deep enough to place an extractor it will function as intended.

[Flash✪Gordon]

Originally posted by kLuns:

It was KLuns who told me once in that the water requirement is 112.5 per coal generator @250%, despite the display showing 113, which is rounded up.

Honor to whom honor is due.

[Bohemian Rap City]

Originally posted by Gordon✪Gekko:

Originally posted by kLuns:

I prefer one powershard in the coal generator and manually tell it to make 100 mw
this makes one unit provide a little bit less power but because there is no power spent in overclocking you get some more power to feed your factories with. It takes some space but it's easy to overlook.

It was KLuns who told me once in that the water requirement is 112.5 per coal generator @250%, despite the display showing 113, which is rounded up.

Honor to whom honor is due.

I did the 2 gen/1 water but only have my coal node overclocked as they are both normal nodes. I have them running at 120 output and split them with each node serving 4 Gennies and with the tier 2 conveyors I am evenly distributing 60 coal to each pair.

Now all of them are cranking full at a total of 600 with no fluctuations. I guess I am losing some to inefficiency, but I don't yet have batteries unlocked, and I am clueless about fluid buffers.

[Bohemian Rap City]

Originally posted by kLuns:

I prefer one powershard in the coal generator and manually tell it to make 100 mw
this makes one unit provide a little bit less power but because there is no power spent in overclocking you get some more power to feed your factories with. It takes some space but it's easy to overlook.

I have only 8 shards so it would use all my shards to boost them to 100. I am okay with that, but will the water pressure hold?

[Bohemian Rap City]

Great, they are each putting out 8 x 100.5 = 804 and my max Consumption is 413 so I think now is a great time to start reallocating production and creating more space. Thanks!

[mikemonger]

Originally posted by Jack-o-Lantern:

May depend on where pipes are connected....

assuming you have 8 coal gen in a line....
you should put one extractor connected at middle of the line, between 4th and 5th.
another extractor between 1st and 2nd
last extractor between 7th and 8th

This.

Where the water enters the pipe network matters. If you have your coal generators in a line, have one water extractor on one end, another extractor on the other, and one in the middle.

That's if you have them 4 in a row. When I build in groups of 8 I do it in two rows of 4 because when I put the roof on the double row of smoke stacks looks cool.

[Flash✪Gordon]

Originally posted by Bohemian Rap City:

Great, they are each putting out 8 x 100.5 = 804 and my max Consumption is 413 so I think now is a great time to start reallocating production and creating more space. Thanks!

With my method you would have much more power.

It's a waste of shards to get only 100.5 MW per generator

I wonder why you chose my post as the answer when you build something different?

[Remnar]

Originally posted by Jack-o-Lantern:

May depend on where pipes are connected....

assuming you have 8 coal gen in a line....
you should put one extractor connected at middle of the line, between 4th and 5th.
another extractor between 1st and 2nd
last extractor between 7th and 8th

This exactly. Even though the pipes can't hold 360m3 of water, it won't need to, since the coal generators are feeding on them. So having the water generators spread out, connecting roughly every 3rd cross pipe will keep things balanced.

[kLuns]

Originally posted by Bohemian Rap City:

I have only 8 shards so it would use all my shards to boost them to 100. I am okay with that, but will the water pressure hold?

The 2 coal 1 water works without power shards when you have enough space. You can set the extractor to 75% and 90 m3. You need more water extractors and more space but it works like a swiss watch.

The trick of spacing out the extractors is also a good option because you loose 45 water at every junction to a coal generator( if it's running at 100%), meaning you need only two junctions to get under the limit of 300.

[Bohemian Rap City]

Originally posted by Gordon✪Gekko:

With my method you would have much more power.

It's a waste of shards to get only 100.5 MW per generator

I wonder why you chose my post as the answer when you build something different?

OKAY. I am a novice at fluid dynamics and this game. I posted your response as an answer because it worked. I later got your post attributing your answer to @kLuns and his suggestion of Overclocking and limiting the output to keep it from fluctuating while increasing output above my goal of 600mw. I tried that and got the posted results.

My goal is having the maximum performance without fluctuation. If maximizing the output on all 4 Gennies does that I can start adding more shards, especially in light of the fact that I stumbled into a radioactive tunnel and managed to escape with two purple slugs.