Electric system
The Electric system 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.
Creating a new network
Generators
 |
The Steam engine consumes heated water to generate energy. Boilers are used to heat water by consuming Fuel. Pumps are used to extract water from the sea. |
| |
Solar Panels generate a small amount of energy from sunlight. They are expensive to build and research but provide electrical energy without consuming Fuel or producing pollution. |
Storage
| |
Stores and provides electrical energy. |
| |
Storage tanks can be used to store heated fluids for later consumption by Steam engines. |
Distribution
| Item | Total raw | Coverage area | Own size | Absolute / Effective coverage (in Tile) | Cov. rel. to small el. pole | Wire reach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |
|
5 x 5 | 1 x 1 | 25 / 24 | 100% | 8 |
| |
|
7 x 7 | 1 x 1 | 49 / 48 | 196% | 9 |
| |
|
4 x 4 | 2 x 2 | 16 / 12 | 65% | 30 |
 |
|
14 x 14 | 2 x 2 | 196 / 192 | 784% | 14 |
| |
|
Wire reach depends on joined poles | ||||
Connection
A network is created by placing electrical generators (Steam engines or Solar Panels) and electrical consumers, then covering those buildings with electrical Distributors (such as Small Electric Poles) that are connected. Electric poles cover differently sized areas depending on their type. The area of coverage appears as a blue overlay around the pole. If two poles are placed close enough, the poles connect automatically. A building is connected if one block of the building is in a covered area. Hovering the cursor over a pole reports the current satisfaction of power demands in that pole's network, and clicking on a pole will provide a detailed GUI about that pole's electric network.
- Use shift-click on a existing pole to remove its connections to other poles.
- 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 (default left mouse) while running/driving to auto-place poles at their greatest connectable distance.
Electric network screen
The Electric network info GUI can be accessed by left-clicking any electric pole nearby.
You can see only the info from the electric network to which that pole is connected! Unlike the production-info (press P) the electric network info is not measured globally, but by network.
- Consumption - What are the current consumption demands. This bar should ideally be full. If it is not, it means your buildings demand more energy than is produced by your generators.
- Production - What is the current production amount. This bar should ideally never be full. If it is full, it means your buildings are consuming all the energy you can produce, and you have no spare energy production capacity.
- Accumulator capacity - How much energy is currently held inside of the accumulators connected to your network. Measured in joules. 1Joule = 1Watt * 1sec, see also wikipedia:Joule
- Timespan - Set the time span for the graphs below
- Detailed Consumption - A list of consumers from highest power consumption to lowest. In the picture example, you can see that 2 oil refineries take the most power, at 431 kW.
- Detailed Production - A list of producers from highest power production to lowest. In the picture example, you can see that only 9 Steam engines produce all the electricity in the factory.
- Consumption Graph - Shows the consumption of the different parts of your factory over time. You can choose the timespan as detailed in #4 above.
- Production Graph - Shows the production of the different producers of your factory over time. You can choose the timespan as detailed in #4 above.
Note, that the timeframe influences the shown detailed production/consumption: the displayed watts is the summed up watts in the timeframe (in the graph below) divided by steps of that timeframe. This means you can see the consumption of radars, even if you have since removed them.
Expanding the player's network
More info
The power demand of a network will be fed by power 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:
With this order in mind, it is common to charge accumulators with Solar panels during the day and to use the stored energy of accumulators overnight automatically.
A newly-placed electric pole will be automatically connected to nearby poles according to the following rules:
- It will be connected to the closest pole available
- It won't be connected to 2 poles connected to each other (ie. it won't form a 3 pole triangle)
- It will be connected to other available poles, starting with the closest ones
Belts and all other entities can be placed in masses by keep pressing the place key, and this works for power poles too: Hold place-key (default left mouse button) to set the first pole. With the button held down, run in any direction. The next pole is placed at the farthest point and connects to the previous, eliminating the need for micromanagement of pole placement.
This works also from a car or train, which enables you to place the electric poles very quickly!
Expert
- Optimizing energy consumption with productivity modules
- Electricity/Priority of power Production
- Powering sequence - the order in which accumulators are loaded. This is also about how the electric network orders internally new networks.
- How to switch off steam engines in the night, when enough accumulator capacity is available?
- Electricity
- Liquid
- Units
- Distribution (Power poles and cables)
- Electricity/Electric networks (separated networks)
- Electricity/Electric network infoscreen (get data about your networks)
- Electricity/Generators
- Electricity/Storage
- Electricity/Consumers
- Fuel powered (Boiler, Steam engine)
- Solar powered
- planned.
- Electricity/Tutorials