Hi
I have a problem when connecting Solar-Farms to my grid:
It does not always supply the whole power.
I am trying to use a substation to connect and in some cases (If it is relatively far away) it only supplies halve (1.8MW). The info itself still shows the full 3.6MW and it can supply it if adjecent to the substation. This is even the case if it completely covered in the supply range (thanks to Chunk Aligned, but the same position without chunk aligned still has a 2x2 overlap between the blue area and the solar farm which should surfice).
I assume this has something to do with hidden poles you are using?!,
On a simelar note:When putting a wooden pole just not covering a solar steam power plant, it still connects in some cases (other poles as well I would presume).
Both isues could be a feature, if the corresponding wires (and attachment locations) would be shown and could be used normally, not needing a supply overlap and themself extending the network (and still obviously still fully connect internally) which does not currently seem to be the case as adjacent farms don't seem to increase the supply. The way it currentlic works just causes problems, since your power supply literally "does not add up".
Regards
Stm

I think what happens is this: Unconnected power poles constitute a separate network. If a substation is placed out of reach of the hidden pole (which is right in the center of the solar farm), but the edge of the solar farm is within the area covered by the substation, the total output of the solar farm will be split between the two networks. Simple test: Place a substation to the left of the solar farm, so that it covers just a tiny part of the solar farm. Place a small pole on the right side of the solar farm, right next to it. Click on the substation to bring up its production menu, and it will show 1.8MW. Click on the pole, and you'll see 1.8MW as well.

Removing the hidden poles will make the solar farm a single network, so clicking on substation or pole will always show 3.6MW. Alas, two adjacent solar farms wouldn't be automatically connected, so you'd have to manually place a pole. I'm not sure yet what to do about it …

Well, the third option would be to just show the hidden pole and make it into an interactable entity (You did for bio-farms). In that case you were at least be able to find the problem, though it would still confuse people, so you probably should also get rid of the "blue-area" connectability in that case.
As I already mentioned above: The problem is more the inability to debug ones setup, as you can only demolish each entity and check by how much your total power changes.
The issue with hidden poles is even agravated due to the fact, that the connections in a power-grid depend on build order (as you already mentioned in the power-rails thread).
In my personal opinion the hidden poles actually cause more harm and don't fit well with the rest of the game anyway, but a lot of people probably would disagree with that assessment

Well, the third option would be to just show the hidden pole and make it into an interactable entity (You did for bio-farms). In that case you were at least be able to find the problem, though it would still confuse people, so you probably should also get rid of the "blue-area" connectability in that case.

I've already thought of that, but it doesn't look nice with the default poles …

As I already mentioned above: The problem is more the inability to debug ones setup, as you can only demolish each entity and check by how much your total power changes.

… so I'll ask our graphics artist if he could come up with some reasonable connection points for the solar farm and solar boiler images. For now, I've extended the wire reach of the solar farms' hidden poles a bit, so you can leave gaps between the poles, wires will be drawn, and the poles supply area is limited and hidden by the panel.

The issue with hidden poles is even agravated due to the fact, that the connections in a power-grid depend on build order (as you already mentioned in the power-rails thread).

At least for the solar farms, it would be nice if one could manually detach the wires -- I'm still struggling with that, though.

In my personal opinion the hidden poles actually cause more harm and don't fit well with the rest of the game anyway, but a lot of people probably would disagree with that assessment

Unfortunately, things like Musk floor or powered rails wouldn't be possible without hidden poles …

At least for the solar farms, it would be nice if one could manually detach the wires -- I'm still struggling with that, though.

OK, I've figured out how to do that. Already implemented this for the Bio-farm, so now you can manually attach or detach wires to/from the connector! It also works with the solar farm + hidden pole, just need to wait for the new graphics. I think I'll raise the wire reach of the solar-farm poles to 19 now. This way, you can build two solar farms 10 tiles apart from each other, which is sufficient to build an 8-tile road + an express underground belt on each side between them. They'll automatically make a connection, which can be broken if you want to keep them on separate networks.

As I already mentioned above: The problem is more the inability to debug ones setup, as you can only demolish each entity and check by how much your total power changes.

How about this tooltip for the pole of solar farms?

"A Solar farm that's in the area covered by a substation, but not connected to it by wire, will provide half its energy to the substation while the other half will be available on the wired network."

Do you think that's a good enough explanation?

Thanks for the good work!

How about this tooltip for the pole of solar farms?

"A Solar farm that's in the area covered by a substation, but not connected to it by wire, will provide half its energy to the substation while the other half will be available on the wired network."

Do you think that's a good enough explanation?

Though I would ofcourse prefer if it would behave differently, it would be a good idea to mention it in the tooltip of all relevant structures, yes.

Three points to your expanation though:
- can not only happen with substations
- you can have more than one area covering an entity wich are on different nets
- not "energy", "power"
so I would suggest something like:
"A Solar farm will distribute its available power evenly between all connected networks, including it's own!"
although the part about "it's own" probably needs work
Stm

Three points to your expanation though:
- can not only happen with substations

It happens with poles, and substations are actually based on the "electric-pole" prototype, just with a large supply area.

• you can have more than one area covering an entity which are on different nets

As a side effect of the increased wire reach, this is less of an issue now, at least for vanilla entities: Poles/substations where the supply area just overlaps with the solar farm will be in reach of the hidden pole, so they usually should be connected to it. Of course, this doesn't apply to BI's huge substation (wire reach is smaller than the radius of the supply area), or if the hidden pole already is hooked up to 5 other entities (the in-game limit).

• not "energy", "power"

You're right, thanks! :-)

so I would suggest something like:
"A Solar farm will distribute its available power evenly between all connected networks, including it's own!"
although the part about "it's own" probably needs work

Thanks for the suggestion! I've changed it to this:
"Each Solar farm is on a separate power network that can be merged with other power networks by wiring the connector. It will be connected to additional power networks (no wire!) if it is within their supply area. The power will be split evenly between all networks -- even those that don't consume anything!" ("merged with other power networks", "additional power networks", and "all networks" are highlighted with [color=yellow][font=default-semibold].)

The text is a bit on the long side, but explains in detail what's going on. Also, this will only pop up if the connector is selected, the main entity has its own description.