We need to talk about power consumption of lights.

[alandarkworld]

One thing I was really looking forward to in Update 5 was lights. Finally I could work in my factory floors at night! ... yeah. I tried that yesterday, and it's not going to happen.

Let's say we have a modest factory floor of 20x20 floor tiles. One ceiling light has a very limited range, it effectively lights up 1.5 tiles in diameter, but for simplicity let's say it's 1 light per tile. That means we'd need 400 ceiling lights to properly light this floor. Bit of clickwork, but it's fine, right?

... nope. Each ceiling light consumes 2MW of power. So for our modest factory floor we'd need 800MW of power, just for the lighting, without even having a single machine in place. To put this into perspective, that's more than 5 coal generators produce when running at 100%. It's *insane*. Even if we say we space the ceiling lights and only place one in every 2nd tile, that's still 400MW of power down the drain. I haven't entered the higher tiers of energy (fuel & nuclear) yet.

How do you cope with this? Are ceiling lights just not the way to go here (if so, how do you light up your factory floors)?

[Rezznor7]

I don't use ceiling lights. They are very directional, maybe only a little dispersion as it goes down. As you say, effectively lights up 1.5 tiles in diameter for a large amount of power.
I like using the wall lights. I don't need the entire factory lit up, the machines work just as well in the dark, but some lights would be good, like highlighting the exit area or some of the walkways.

[Numbers]

Light switches my guy. Turn the lights on when you come in and turn them off when you leave.

Disclaimer: I've never used power switches. Don't know how they work.

[alandarkworld]

Sorry I'm very much opposed to the idea of causing a global power outage in my game world by flipping a light switch on lol

[gussmed]

In practice, light draw is 10-15% of your total power consumption. An Assembler is 15 MW, and requires 1 light to illuminate. A Manufacturer is 55 MW, and requires 4 lights (8 MW) to fully illuminate.

Your “simplifying assumption” doubles the number of lights required. You can’t physically fit 400 lights on a 20x20 foundation floor, since they’re 12m x 12m. The actual limit is 169 for that space,

By the time you’ve got that much total floor space, the 340 MW required to fully illuminate it isn’t important. I’m currently generating 6000 MW, for example, and that’s not really all that much. That’s a single oil node and two coal nodes dedicated to power, plus some secondary generation from another oil node generating plastic and rubber. I could double that easily if I actually needed to.

[Scoob454]

I'd say your best bet it to stay in the dark until you get your fuel generators. That, or build an entire coal generator setup just to handle the lights.

I agree, the power consumption for lights is a bit high.

[nhatanh0475]

My way is just light the catwalk, until Dev change light to be less directional and more LED then I would consider light up my factory to see better at conveyor belt, the only thing that indicate if your machine is working fine or not. (Like if it's clogging or empty).
(I was about to comment but Steam Community server was "Very slow" and "Bad gateway")

[Lil Puppy]

Solar power is how I light my factories because the lights in this game are completely unrealistic in every way.

A single 8ft led bulb for these fixtures is approximately 40watts.
For 4 of them on one of these light fixtures is 155 watts total.
I have to push 4,000,000 watts to light up a light that has 1/4 the lumens as something that I can put in my shop today for 155 watts?

this is the problem with games like this
Default power measurement: MEGAWATT!!! There are no real decimal places, all things must be completely overpowered by at least 2 orders of magnitude.

Do you know how much a megawatt is?
"For conventional generators, such as a coal plant, a megawatt of capacity will produce electricity that equates to about the same amount of electricity consumed by 400 to 900 homes in a year."

"How much energy does it take to melt steel?
To produce a ton of steel in an electric arc furnace requires approximately 400 kilowatt-hours (1.44 gigajoules) per short ton or about 440 kWh (1.6 GJ) per tonne; the theoretical minimum amount of energy required to melt a tonne of scrap steel is 300 kWh (1.09 GJ) (melting point 1,520 °C (2,768 °F))."

That's less than half of a megawatt, the default power measurement in the game.

[Sputnik]

Originally posted by alandarkworld:

One thing I was really looking forward to in Update 5 was lights. Finally I could work in my factory floors at night! ... yeah. I tried that yesterday, and it's not going to happen.

Let's say we have a modest factory floor of 20x20 floor tiles. One ceiling light has a very limited range, it effectively lights up 1.5 tiles in diameter, but for simplicity let's say it's 1 light per tile. That means we'd need 400 ceiling lights to properly light this floor. Bit of clickwork, but it's fine, right?

... nope. Each ceiling light consumes 2MW of power. So for our modest factory floor we'd need 800MW of power, just for the lighting, without even having a single machine in place. To put this into perspective, that's more than 5 coal generators produce when running at 100%. It's *insane*. Even if we say we space the ceiling lights and only place one in every 2nd tile, that's still 400MW of power down the drain. I haven't entered the higher tiers of energy (fuel & nuclear) yet.

How do you cope with this? Are ceiling lights just not the way to go here (if so, how do you light up your factory floors)?

So personally I think that is fine. It's well under the real life lighting cost so can easily be considered future, but as a gameplay mechanic is so not an issue I can't see why people complain. Take into account roughly 1000 years of human advancement, then minus the fact you are on a totally alien planet that even finding a gold counterpart is considered a major discovery. Then also consider you are the only human there and are using old human schematics with alien materials. Now over time, I could see us quickly making it work far better, but as someone months off of planet fall, that's a BS standard.

Their measurements may not be perfect, nor do I expect them to be, but they work well enough within the setting. This is not a perfect sim, nor do they consider themselves that. The only math that should matter is the basic power and input requirements.

Point being, we don't care if they consider the current human being power requirements to melt steel, we just like having moderately set limits and using math to make those limits max out in our settings. This isn't real life.

[flannan]

Originally posted by Sputnik:

Originally posted by alandarkworld:

One thing I was really looking forward to in Update 5 was lights. Finally I could work in my factory floors at night! ... yeah. I tried that yesterday, and it's not going to happen.

Let's say we have a modest factory floor of 20x20 floor tiles. One ceiling light has a very limited range, it effectively lights up 1.5 tiles in diameter, but for simplicity let's say it's 1 light per tile. That means we'd need 400 ceiling lights to properly light this floor. Bit of clickwork, but it's fine, right?

... nope. Each ceiling light consumes 2MW of power. So for our modest factory floor we'd need 800MW of power, just for the lighting, without even having a single machine in place. To put this into perspective, that's more than 5 coal generators produce when running at 100%. It's *insane*. Even if we say we space the ceiling lights and only place one in every 2nd tile, that's still 400MW of power down the drain. I haven't entered the higher tiers of energy (fuel & nuclear) yet.

How do you cope with this? Are ceiling lights just not the way to go here (if so, how do you light up your factory floors)?

So personally I think that is fine. It's well under the real life lighting cost so can easily be considered future, but as a gameplay mechanic is so not an issue I can't see why people complain. Take into account roughly 1000 years of human advancement, then minus the fact you are on a totally alien planet that even finding a gold counterpart is considered a major discovery. Then also consider you are the only human there and are using old human schematics with alien materials. Now over time, I could see us quickly making it work far better, but as someone months off of planet fall, that's a BS standard.

Their measurements may not be perfect, nor do I expect them to be, but they work well enough within the setting. This is not a perfect sim, nor do they consider themselves that. The only math that should matter is the basic power and input requirements.

Point being, we don't care if they consider the current human being power requirements to melt steel, we just like having moderately set limits and using math to make those limits max out in our settings. This isn't real life.

What I find unpleasant, is that things that make life easier for players, such as lights, are too expensive compared to the main industry. It's also seen in other parts of the system, for example, Pioneer gear is much more expensive than giant robot manufacturing equipment. Where do heavy frames go when making a hover pack?

Lights measured in megawatts (are they actually made of lasers?!) are just an example of overall nasty philosophy.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by flannan:

Originally posted by Sputnik:

So personally I think that is fine. It's well under the real life lighting cost so can easily be considered future, but as a gameplay mechanic is so not an issue I can't see why people complain. Take into account roughly 1000 years of human advancement, then minus the fact you are on a totally alien planet that even finding a gold counterpart is considered a major discovery. Then also consider you are the only human there and are using old human schematics with alien materials. Now over time, I could see us quickly making it work far better, but as someone months off of planet fall, that's a BS standard.

Their measurements may not be perfect, nor do I expect them to be, but they work well enough within the setting. This is not a perfect sim, nor do they consider themselves that. The only math that should matter is the basic power and input requirements.

Point being, we don't care if they consider the current human being power requirements to melt steel, we just like having moderately set limits and using math to make those limits max out in our settings. This isn't real life.

What I find unpleasant, is that things that make life easier for players, such as lights, are too expensive compared to the main industry. It's also seen in other parts of the system, for example, Pioneer gear is much more expensive than giant robot manufacturing equipment. Where do heavy frames go when making a hover pack?

Lights measured in megawatts (are they actually made of lasers?!) are just an example of overall nasty philosophy.

In a giant invisible hole mebbe?

[Veeshan]

Hm, 1.5 or 2 tiles? Are there multiple ceiling lights perhaps? Mine extend 2 tiles in radius alone, maybe even 4. That's more like 4 lights or 9 for OP's example.

Just make the ceiling higher.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2630384223

You know if we just scaled their power consumption to the intensity, since I can't imagine anyone is using full intensity three foundations above their floor, that'd help.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

I think lights should be 10mw each.

[flannan]

Originally posted by morrganstain:

I think lights should be 10mw each.

If they shined as well as they consume power - sure, I would not mind. I'd just put one light per factory floor, and it would be well-lit.

[queen's gambit]

Originally posted by gussmed:

20x20 foundation floor, since they’re 12m x 12m.

idk what you're talking about, but a ceiling light almost perfectly covers a single foundation piece

pretty sure op is referencing a 20*20 tile set of the standard foundation L & W regardless of height. and the light doesn't project much beyond the L & W of the tile. the foundations are visibly Not equal in L&W compared to H. they're at most 4m tall... a 12m*12m planar surface would be massive by comparison.

even the wiki describes them as 8m*4m and we assume the 8 is L & W both because the game clearly tells us the height is 4m and the shape of L & W is clearly square and twice the height on all sides..

where is your math coming from?

[queen's gambit]

they really don't produce much light in an area, especially for the current power draw, without cranking up the gamma which kinda defeats the purpose of lights in the first place.

idk. maybe y'all still work by candlight. pretty sure 2KW can illuminate an entire building without relying on tech that build a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ space elevator; unless, by some tragic turn of events, ficsit missed out on LED tech.