Factorio 0.18.15, Factorissimo 2.4.1, Ballast's Bolognese Modpack 0.18.15
We are playing on a server many hours in with a large modpack.
Until today everything was fine, but now we noticed, that a MK3 building, in which we have turbines, that can generate up to 1GW, is not functioning properly. Steam is transported into the building with 4 sets of bulk transfer pipes.
Until recently, the electricity grid stats correctly showed 690MW/2.0GW, as the factory has 2 GW transfer limit set and the building is the only electricity producer, but now it shows 570MW/570MW (sometimes the amount fluctuates a bit, but 570MW seems to prevalent), which is both lower than the set limit and lower than the requested amount by the base.
Changing the transfer limit seems to have effect on this, if the limit is set lower than 570MW, then it is properly limited, but otherwise doesn't reset the counter to 690MW/2.0GW
When the building is disconnected from the main base, the limit goes back to 0.0/2.0GW, when reconnected, the problem returns.
We would like to keep using the factory building to house the 200 steam turbines, but I don't see how we can fix this issue.

That's unusual. Have you changed your mod configuration or Factorio version recently?

We went from 0.18.15 (steam) to 0.18.15 (standalone), mod versions haven't changed in the last weeks, no new mods have been added, no mods have been removed. No mod setting have been changed for quite some time.

Sorry, I can't see a way Factorissimo could cause this issue yet. Are you sure you're providing enough heat and steam for all your turbines? Maybe your energy demand has caught up with your steam production. If you're sure that the factory building is the bottleneck, you could upload a save for me to look at.

So then does the factory building look at its contents and determines the true peak energy production, when it can't produce more than the demand, and changes the factory's "Max production" number on its own?
It is true that steam didn't reach all turbines and not enough power was produced, but it seems a bit weird that the building itself starts showing a max production number lower than the max throughput, that it was set to.
I apologize for my foolishness and for wasting your time, and I hope that this building's behaviour is as expected.

The way energy transfer works is as follows: There are two invisible energy storage entities, one inside the factory building and one outside. If the factory is set to export power, then the inside storage receives power, and the outside storage provides power. Every tick, this mod manually transfers as much energy as possible from the inside storage to the outside storage. If the power limit is set to 2GW, then the buffers are just large enough for 2 gigawatt-ticks worth of energy, which would be 33.3 MJ. These buffers are the reason factory buildings have configurable throughput: if the factory buildings were always set to max throughput, the necessary buffer would be huge and just placing a new factory building would brown out your power grid for a while.

Hope this explanation helps with your troubles.

@MagmaMcFry,
I think the Factorio Update broke the energy. (I am on 18.30) I have a really tiny factory, burning coal inside two Mk1 buildings, recursed into a Mk2 building, set to output 100MW. My total consumption is only 19MW.

When I disconnected the Mk2 and reconnected it to half of the factory, everything worked fine. As soon as I connected the rest of the factory, my power poles GUI went all rainbow and the Energy graph is a horrible sawtooth wave.

[edit] I set the Power Transfer Update Rate to 4. That fixed things for me!
As the tooltip warns, the graph is a mess. But now, I get all the power from the recursed factories.

Well, that didn't stay fixed long. Any help available with the power suddenly dropping to zero?

Please provide a savegame and point me to the factory building that is causing issues.

Thanks for your reply. How do I do those two things? I have the games saved as a zip file but how do I get it to you? Also, do you mean that I should provide a screenshot?

You can upload the file on Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive and post a share link. Any form of directions to the factory is fine, as long as it lets me find the offending factory building. A screenshot, or a marker on the map, or a big arrow made of walls, or just written instructions in your next reply.

Okay, this is on GoogleDrive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kBftNL9K4P-yUO44xMHv8Biwo_hhkKL7/view?usp=sharing

I pointed to the Mk2 factory. As soon as you open the save, the blackout condition should be evident.
I have a bunch of mods. Will that affect what happens when you open it?

Cheers,

Mitch

I found the issue: you weren't getting enough water into your steam engines. Use bulk transfer pipes for every fluid connection (not just the main one at the Mk2 building) and set the connection to transfer towards the inside instead of balance. That should be enough for now, but once you expand your power production you'll also need more offshore pumps.

I thought I sent a thank-you yesterday! Thanks. I learned some things: I thought the pipes were only for connecting the factory portals. The connection method is pretty interesting, too. Reading about it in the description is one thing: remembering to do it when you get to that point...that's another!

Cheers,

Mitch

The pipes are technically only necessary for connecting the factory portals, but you can use them for other stuff too. What I meant was that you need them at your Mk1 building's portals too.

Oh, okay. :)