Coal Fired Power Plants won't all light off

[bozair]

I've got a bank of over 20 coal fired power plants but only 6 or 7 will run at any one time, even though my power reserves are dropping. Plenty of coal and water - but I'm still blowing fueses; and when they go it's next to impossibe to get my grid working again. Is there a way to force more power plants to run?

[Evilsod]

If they had plenty of coal and water, they would not be dropping out. Go and check your supply.

[bozair]

Checked MANY times, NO JOY.

[Sonic Titan]

Originally posted by bozair:

Plenty of coal and water

Are you sure? They'd be running if you did - how've you set them up?

[Randomuser2024]

are you using a manifold system? if so, you'll either have to wait for the first few to back up or you can manually insert coal in the gens to back them up. I would recommend disconnecting the rest of you grid to make sure the gens can get up to full speed.

[bozair]

I just started playing this game a couple months before V.1 came out, so I backed off and started fresh with V.1. I'm not sure I understand what a "manifold" system is. I've got a main coal conveyor feeding each gen via splitters, same with the water. The water system is fed by 3 pumps, the coal system is fed by 3 or 4 mines.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by bozair:

Checked MANY times, NO JOY.

The game would disagree with you. I can only assume your math is off and you haven't looked at them.

I'm also assuming you have actually connected them up properly to your power grid, otherwise you wouldn't be seeing them drop in/out.

Nvm I think I have my answer. 6/7 functioning is coincidentally how many you can power with a single Mk 1 pipe, capped at 300m³/min.
Check and correct your water feed.

[bozair]

Can you point me to a vid that will show how it should be set up, without having to watch/listen to a bunch of junk first?

[Sonic Titan]

Originally posted by bozair:

I just started playing this game a couple months before V.1 came out, so I backed off and started fresh with V.1. I'm not sure I understand what a "manifold" system is. I've got a main coal conveyor feeding each gen via splitters, same with the water. The water system is fed by 3 pumps, the coal system is fed by 3 or 4 mines.

Ok; it sounds like you haven't really looked at the numbers yet - you do not have enough water for 20 generators, and even if you had enough coal, your fastest belt is probably too slow to feed them all off one main conveyor.

You can run 8 generators with 3 water extractors (if you pipe it properly), and 8 generators need 120 coal/min. There's a load of diagrams + tips on the wiki:
https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/wiki/Tutorial:How_to_play#Coal_Power

[Songbird]

The plants will run at full speed if they receive coal and water, regardless of the amount of power you use. Any plant that is not running will, when you open its GUI, either have 0 coal, or less than 3 units of water. So maybe figure out which of those two options it is.

It's going to be the water, though. You said you're feeding it with 3 pumps? 3 pumps supports an absolute maximum of 8 generators, but if they're using a single Mk1 pipe it's 6.667.

And as mentioned above, you also can't feed 20 generators off one belt until Mk4 belts (unless you underclock them, which isn't any different mechanically from building fewer plants, but means less future work when you can upgrade the belts.)

Originally posted by bozair:

I just started playing this game a couple months before V.1 came out, so I backed off and started fresh with V.1. I'm not sure I understand what a "manifold" system is. I've got a main coal conveyor feeding each gen via splitters, same with the water. The water system is fed by 3 pumps, the coal system is fed by 3 or 4 mines.

A manifold system is when you run a belt through a series of splitters, or put a series of junctions off a pipe, such that the input gets split in half between a machine and the rest of the system repeatedly. This is in contrast to a balanced system where you first split the input into equal parts and then send it to machines. Manifolds are much easier to build, but until your machines and belts fill up with excess resources to the point they back up, your first machine in line gets fully half of your entire production line's resources, and your machines in the back get a tiny fraction (for 20 machines, the last two get 1/524288 of the total input each). Since this fixes itself after a bit of time, most people don't worry about it, but it makes reading the final state of a system difficult when you first turn it on.

[bozair]

Ok, thanks. I'll shut off the extra gens, back to just 8. We'll see what happens. Thanks again.

[SapienChavez]

There is a power grid bug I have encountered twice in my time playing. Both times, I had to reload earlier saves. I remember one well, I separated a grid and immediatley reconnected it, the game could NOT handle this one. I was using about 6k total and had a grid of over 15k and the fuse would NOT stay. i spent a good hour and then gave up, reloaded a save, and the issue never returned.

[Bear^]

Things to check:

1. Is the water flowing as it should? The waterpump only has a headlift of 10M, if your generators are higher than 10M you need pumps to generate more headlift. If you're unsure and you've unlocked steel girders, use them to check the hight.

2. 1 water pump of 300 can feed 6,67 generators, i.e 7 generators with 6 running at 100% and 1 running at 67%. Best option is to go for 6 generators if you're unsure.

3. check the belts if you have all the belts at the right speed. Sometimes one can muck up and accidently put a MK1 belt in the middle of a line. Which creates a bottleneck.

What I've done is simply put a logistic floor underneat my generators, then run a manifold system on both coal and water. I.e a straight line with splitters underneat with lifts to get the coal up into the generator, and the same system with the pipes, i.e a straight line and then just X junction where the generators are and hooked the water line up at both ends. This ensures that 1 line fills up the 6,67 generators on one end and the other end fills up 6,67 generators. And having 13 generators ensures that there is enough water for all the generators. Mind you this approach requires a few AWESOME shop unlocks such as floor holes for both pipes and belts

[Doombunny]

NOTE: if you are short on coal in your gens, dbl check your belts/elevators - a mk1 might have slipped in somewhere.
If you are short on water and have mk2 pipes, check your pipelines to make sure there isnt a mk1 section hiding somewhere.

MK I pipes have a throughput 300 water/minute. A Coal gen needs 45/min.
A MK I pipeline can support 6.67 generators (or just 6 if you want to be safe)
A MK II pipeline has a throughput of 600 water/minute and can support 13.33 generators (or 12 if you want to be safe)

Each bank of coal gens will need their own water supply, so keep these numbers in mind.

As for the fuel, different fuel burns at different rates. multiply your per-minute burn rate by the number of generators you want to feed in your manifold as well as the minimum belts required to ensure full supply:

Burning coal, a coal generator needs 15 coal per minute. In a line of 6 generators, you need 90 coal per minute to fully feed the line, a minimum of a mk2 belt.

If you were using petroleum coke the gens would need 25 petrocoke per minute or 150 petrocoke per minute for the line, requiring a minimum of a mk3 belt.

[NocheLuz]

Originally posted by SapienChavez:

There is a power grid bug I have encountered twice in my time playing. Both times, I had to reload earlier saves. I remember one well, I separated a grid and immediatley reconnected it, the game could NOT handle this one. I was using about 6k total and had a grid of over 15k and the fuse would NOT stay. i spent a good hour and then gave up, reloaded a save, and the issue never returned.

It seems like you disconnected the Generator to your power grid and forgot to connect it somewhere. Where your last previous save was before you disconnect them. So, that is why they work perfectly in your previous save.

Also, most people who talk about power grid bugs mostly forget to connect the Generators to the main grid. The quickest way to solve this is to count how many Generators you have and what is the Capacity of your grid. It'll be very easy if you only have Coal (and Biomass) running.

As a side note, if your grid doesn't stay after you flip the switch. It is most likely your Coal Generator wasn't working. Check your generator if it has enough Coal and Water to run a new cycle or not. If it isn't, you'll have to provide them with Coal and Water before it can start back up again. This is a very early problem most people had. But as long as your Coal always gets Water and enough Coal. This will never happen.

[Lasagna]

for water lately I've been connecting 1 water extractor per 2 coal generators, and underclocking the water extractor to 75%, that way i can keep all my pipes separate and not have to worry about balancing. I usually just manifold my coal generators, each one takes 15 coal so a single mk2 belt can carry 120 coal to power 8 generators. I kickstart my system with some portable bioburners just to get the coal built up in the first couple of generators, they should make more than enough power for the miner and water extractors then leave it until the manifold fills up, only once the whole system is full saturated with water and coal do i hook it up to my main power grid (well if the rest of your factory is fairly small you can get away with this after 4 or so coal generators are 100% full).