User talk:AnthonyQBachler

Power production - positive/negative feedback loops

Hey, I wanted to remind you of rule 1 concerning editing which states that you should not edit war. Concerning the topic: The feedback loop when steam engines run out of coal is positive, since it reinforces itself, instead of correcting itself. Another way to describe it would be that the gap in demand and production widens (you produce less and less) instead of narrowing (you recover). This is positive feedback by the first definition here. I don't think we should consider the second definition on a wiki since it refers to emotional connotation. You can also find an explanation directly for factorio here. I hope you now understand why I reverted your first edit, and hope that we can come to an agreement on whether the feedback loop is positive or negative. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 11:56, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I discuss the edits on the pages talk page, btu my intention is not an edit war, rather that the page be technically correct. That is why I linked it to the more general wikipedia article on feedback, rather than positive or negative, since the feedback referenced is a special case which can be considered both negative because the system acts to reduce output rather than increase it, and positive with less than unity gain (gain < 1.0). As stated I explained the situation in more detail on the articles talk page. AnthonyQBachler (talk) 12:06, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Since you removed the wrong information from the page, I will let this topic go. But I recommend you to also read the first few paragraphs of Wikipedia:Negative feedback. These should further explain why the feedback loops we see in power production during brownouts/blackouts are not negative. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 12:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

If lack of power leads to even greater lack of power, that's a positive feedback loop. If lack of power lead to a self-correcting process which re-stablizes the power, that's a negative loop. In factorio, a lack of power makes drillers, inserters, etc, work slower, not faster, leading to less fuel, leading to even more lack of power. That's a positive loop. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 20:32, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Again, only in limited circumstances where you are artificially limiting the system to the power production cycle. in a real system e.g. where increased power may cause circuit network controlled power switches to activate large parts of the factory, increasing power production can in fact lead to reduced power availability, leading to reduced fuel production and reduced power. In addition, if the factory manufactures and autoinserts logistic robots then increased power leads to more robots which leads to less power. Both of these very common, very realistic scenarios make it a negative feedback loop. That is why I linked the article on general feedback, so the reader cna get context on the fact that real systems are rarely so easily pigeon holed into being 'positive' or 'negative' feedback loops. AnthonyQBachler (talk) 21:26, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm. I agree that the Factorio system is complicated and cannot be easily labeled a positive or negative loop. But I don't think we should be analyzing the whole system and all scenarios. We're analyzing a low-power/brown-out scenario. That is, we start with the fact that a system has more power demand than supply, and the in-game "satisfaction" bar is low. Given that initial state, does the system always eventually collapse into a total blackout by default? (Assuming the user has not intentionally created constructs that counter the brownout, such as a circuit-activated coal cache or a circuit which activates additional power plants). If the answer to that is yes, then by default, a brownout scenario causes a positive feedback loop by definition, ending up in total blackout. -- SafwatHalaby (talk) 00:22, 22 May 2018 (UTC)