so I was working to switch over my power generation to the inside of a building, and noticed that while I was inside, all the steam engines and burners were operating at maximum output. is this also true if I'm back in my factory or is it just unable to figure out how much power it needs to send out when you are inside of it?

Let me guess, you set the maximum power output to a really high value for no particular reason. But a really high maximum power output requires a really large internal power buffer (100GW of output requires 3.3GJ of buffer). So what I'm guessing is happening is that your steam engines are just all busy trying to fill up the factory's oversized internal power buffer. They will stop overproducing once the buffer is full.

I.. hadn't thought of that. good point. I'll do some more tests but that's likely it. also, I don't think i had the output set to overly ridiculous numbers had about 40 MW of production. might not have looked very long however. so could well be that.
thanks!