Electric system

This page will be renamed to Electricity/Electric network, and contains what an electric network is, how to split and use separated electric networks, about the priorities of deliver and consume, links to the poles, wiring, autoplacing

The Electric network is used to power a lot of different machines; the game can hardly be played without using Electricity. Every machine has its own internal electric capacity. When energy is produced, it is evenly distributed to all machines in the network that need electricity.

Basic

Task: connect producers to consumers with distribution network and balance the consumption with the production.

• Power poles (distribution) cover some area. It can be seen, when hovering a pole.
• Every electrical device (producer, consumer, storage) within this area is invisibly connected to that pole.
• Build Steam engines, to generate power. See Power Production.
• Connect the poles to build a bigger network, so that the power can flow from production to consumers.
• Left-click on a pole (at the bottom of a pole!) to open the Electric network/Infoscreen for that network.
• Hover a pole, to see if the network is satisfied. Hover a steam engine, to see more info.

Poles and networks

• Unconnected poles build their own electric network! You can make as many electric networks as wanted.
• If you build near enough to another pole, then it is auto-connected. This takes no extra wire(s).
• Use shift-click on a existing pole in order to make a unconnected pole (till v0.9 you could shift-click for doing this, but this places now a ghost-building)
• Unconnected poles can be connected with a single Copper cable dragging from pole to pole (Right click on the bottom of the pole.)
• You can use place-key while running/driving, to auto-place poles.

Advanced

• Electric network/Priority of power Production

The power demand of a network will be fed by the sources in a specific order. If the primary source cannot fully satisfy the demand additional power is drawn from the second source and so on until no more sources are available. The current order (version 0.9.8) is the following:

1. Solar panels
2. Steam engines
3. Accumulators

Regarding this order it is common to charge accumulators with Solar panels over day and use the stored energy of accumulators in the night automatically.

• Electric network/Wiring

Newly placed pole will be automatically connected to nearby poles according to a set of rules:

1. It will be connected to the closest pole available
2. It won't be connected to 2 poles connected to each other (ie. it won't form a 3 pole triangle)
3. It will be connected to other available poles, starting with the closest ones

See How to switch off steam engines in the night, when enough accumulator capacity is available?!

• Electric network/Placing matrix: a overview which placing methods are possible
• Electric network/Placing without auto-wiring: already mentioned above; remove the connection between wired poles by left-click on a pole.

• Electric network/Manual wiring

Copper cable can be used to manually connect 2 poles. It will use up the wire, which can't be later retrieved. Automatic mode doesn't use up wires.

• Electric network/Autoplacing Poles

It is obvious, that belts and all other entities can be placed in masses by keep pressing the place key. This works also for power poles too: Hold place-key (default is right mouse button). The first pole is set. Now run in any direction and keep pressing the key. The next pole is set at the farthest point and connects to the previous.

This works also from car or train, which enables you to place the electric poles very quickly!

• Power Production: for questions, that depends the Interaction between two networks (currently only Liquid network and Electric network).

Expert

For more practical usage show Power Production.

See also

• Electricity
  • Electricity/Distribution
• Liquid
• Units
• Powering sequence - the order in which accumulators are loaded. This is also about how the electric network orders internally new networks.

Examples

• Electrical-network-example-1.png

  A basic modular power plant.

• 

  High density accumulator array consisting of 48 basic accumulators and a substation providing 240 kJ capacity.