Electric Grid

by 0n0w1c

An overhaul of the electric network, engineer an Electric Grid! The overhaul is optional.

Overhaul
8 hours ago
2.0
512
Power

g Suggestions

23 days ago
(updated 23 days ago)

Hi, really nice idea of a new electricity overhaul.
I added it to my new playthrough and I wantd to ask if you can consider some changes:

1.) Can you please make the power pole length adjustable?
It would be very nice if the big power poles have the default vanilla values and the new huge power poles have double the length
because I don't want to change/adjust all my blueprints tbh and double the length would be anyway nice.

2.) Can you expose/provide the values of the input and output current strength of a transformer , when connected to a curcuit network, so it's easier to control the transtomers?

3.) General question - Will this mod have a huge impact on UPC?

Thx for the great work

23 days ago
(updated 23 days ago)

Adjustable pole lengths can be done for sure, and it may be a good suggestion. however, quality could an issue, I need to investigate. For instance, if you set the huge pole to wire length x and you acquire say a rare version of the pole, which pole is superior? Does quality scale a modified pole?

Exposing information via the circuit network is on the todo-list, I expect it can be done but something I have yet to attempt.

As for the performance impact, currently it is pretty small, it does not do too much during runtime.
However, that could change features are added. I recently added a startup setting to change the interval of the checks, so you can manage the impact yourself.
For the megabase type builds, a transformator does separate electric networks, this by itself has an impact on the game engine, or did with 1.1.
It also loops through the list of transformators and performs a couple of checks, so as that list grows, so will the impact.

For the future features, my goal is to make them optional via the startup settings.

23 days ago

After a little research and testing, it appears that making wire connections adjustable should work fine.

23 days ago
(updated 23 days ago)

On further reflection, I decided to go with just the huge pole as being adjustable (30-64). The big pole is tied to the substation and longer wire distances lead to more auto-connect short circuits, which then require manual removal. Version 0.1.11 has been uploaded.

23 days ago
(updated 23 days ago)

Tbh I am quite interested but unfortunately I don't know anything about factorio modding.
Regarding quality afaik quality is optional (additional mod) so I guess it must be implemented explicitly.
(https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-375 - "To make things clear, the quality content is exclusively part of the expansion. The non-expansion binary works the same internally, it just doesn't allow any mod to define anything other than the normal quality. ")

Thanks for making the the huge power pole adjustable, that's a very nice feature but unfortunately I have to ask again if is it somehow possible
to set the length of the big pole back from 18 to 32 (vanilla)?
Sorry not sure what you mean with "more auto-connect short circuits" since substations have a length of 18 and are also connectable to big poles in vanilla.
The reason why I am asking is that it breaks nearly every blueprint out there and also the well known city block blueprints.

Regarding performance, maybe it's possible to implement something like paging /segmentation of the list of tranfsormers like LTN did with the stations.
Settings like:
- Update frequency (ticks) - How fast in ticks will be updated
- Updates per tick - Limits the number of updated transformers per tick

23 days ago
(updated 23 days ago)

.

22 days ago
(updated 22 days ago)

I added the ability to modify the big pole max wire connection, new version has been uploaded.

It is not advised to change the big pole maximum wire distance. There are negative consequences with this mod due to the proliferation of wire connections and the short-circuit conditions they will cause.

22 days ago
(updated 22 days ago)

My apology if my above reply seems a bit curt, I was in a hurry.

It is even possible to use big poles and not use huge poles at all. But, say you are building with city blocks, and your design is for each city block to have its own electric network. When you approach intersections of the blocks, the big poles will start connecting to nearby big poles and substations, causing either a short-circuit, which effectively negates the transformator, or a cross-circuit joining electric networks messing with your design. You can of course make it work, but you will be faced with manually disconnecting more wires and cursing when removing a pole and the engine auto-reconnects to nearby poles. The longer the reach, the more annoying this becomes and the more likely to you start hating on the mod. :)
This is why the huge pole was introduced, since they only connect to themselves, far fewer wiring issues.

Edit: And an important note, if you use the underground substations, you will not even see these wire connections messing with your work.

9 days ago

With version 1.2.0 the wiring rules and electric pole modifications are optional.

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