Energy Production in this game seems broken

[Psych Cow]

I'm using several tier 3 magma refiners with many tier 3 pumps and storage, it says my energy consumption is negative, but what really happens is it fluctuates wildly at around 100-2k power without ever hitting zero.

[Carighan]

And what is the broken part now? It sounds like the UI jsut doesn't update quickly enough if your production flipflops that much.

[Psych Cow]

Originally posted by Carighan:

And what is the broken part now? It sounds like the UI jsut doesn't update quickly enough if your production flipflops that much.

My energy production is negative and i never hit zero

[Carighan]

Yeah that's what I mean, it probably isn't actually negative, the sum number just doesn't update frequently enough. Feels like the production works.

Although... I earlier managed to get into a weird "feedback loop" where I needed energy to run the gas filtering plants to produce energy via my gas powerplants. Might it be something like that? It has rather weird effects, I think the devs maybe didn't consider how that works once some energy is "in the system", so to speak.

[Panterich]

Originally posted by Psych Cow:

Originally posted by Carighan:

And what is the broken part now? It sounds like the UI jsut doesn't update quickly enough if your production flipflops that much.

My energy production is negative and i never hit zero

Production can`t be negative. Energy balance is negative, but only when everything is working.
Things don`t work when power is not enough. i`d point at T3 lab. When its energy storage reaches 2k, it works, and then it doesn`t. Some other building with consumption of 100+ loses its share and skips a tick.
Your storage doesn`t drop to 0 because there are no consumers of 100- which can`t be fed that tick ...probably.

[Psych Cow]

Made a smaller version of my base, even with a full tank of magma directly connected to the magma refiner, you still get massive crests and troughs on energy production. So I dug deeper. If pumps are put into another pump the pump power doesn't stack. So a pipeline that should be benching 400 magma/sec isn't. That's wack. You literally need 2 pumps feeding directly into the refiner and you cant place them side by side.

[Tasolth]

How much power storage do you have? Screenshots of what you are seeing?

[Psych Cow]

Originally posted by Tasolth:

How much power storage do you have? Screenshots of what you are seeing?

I'm pretty sure I solved the issue by experimenting with a smaller base. I found out that if your pumps are in series instead of parallel then you don't get enough magma flow despite the fact that it should be about 100 m/s over.

By putting my mini base's pumps in parallel the crests and troughs disappeared.

[Panterich]

What do you mean by

Originally posted by Psych Cow:

If pumps are put into another pump

Originally posted by Psych Cow:

if your pumps are in series instead of parallel

Pumps only have an output and only on 1 side. You can`t put anything into pumps, or chain them.

[Bobucles]

When the base goes through a brownout, facilities turn off and on. Things turn off, power goes up, things turn back on, power goes down. That's why it bounces around at a low number. It's still an energy crisis, try not to do that.

[RaptorSolutions]

Originally posted by Psych Cow:

Made a smaller version of my base, even with a full tank of magma directly connected to the magma refiner, you still get massive crests and troughs on energy production. So I dug deeper. If pumps are put into another pump the pump power doesn't stack. So a pipeline that should be benching 400 magma/sec isn't. That's wack. You literally need 2 pumps feeding directly into the refiner and you cant place them side by side.

Screenshot? Linking pumps together works for me in the sense that their output are all linked together. I don't know what you mean by pump into another pump.

[Bobucles]

Pumps have an exclusion radius around them, and only ONE exit port. The port is not very well illustrated and it is easy to mess up a pipe network because it's connected to the wrong side.

A handy trick is to enter build mode and highlight a pipe. It will show the supply and demand. It glitches out when an upgrade is in progress, but otherwise is useful to make sure things are in working order.