Energy Exchanger

Charge personal batteries where power is plentiful, ship them anywhere, and discharge them into another grid.
Inspired by the energy exchanger of Dyson Sphere Program. Also adds a wind turbine.

Features

Energy exchanger. Put empty personal batteries in and they come out charged, or the reverse. Modes: charging, discharging, auto (does whichever each battery needs) and idle. It can be controlled by the circuit network, report the battery's charge, be limited to a set power, and "work like an accumulator" (charge only from surplus, discharge only when other generators can't keep up). Blueprints and copy-paste keep all its settings.

Charged batteries are their own items. Move energy by belt, train or rocket to a grid that needs it: an outpost, another planet, a space platform. They recycle like normal batteries, and with Space Age there are two more tiers: MK4 (1 GJ) and MK5 (5 GJ).

Battery-powered vehicles. Charged batteries fuel locomotives, cars and tanks. The empty battery comes back out, and an inserter at a train stop can take it. MK3, MK4 and MK5 also make vehicles faster, like solid, rocket and nuclear fuel, more so with better quality.

Recharge station (research). While it discharges batteries, an exchanger first recharges the armor of players standing next to it and the batteries of parked vehicles; the grid gets the rest. Turn it on in the exchanger's panel, in discharging or auto mode.

Wind turbine. Free power that follows a slowly changing wind and the air pressure: 100% on Nauvis, up to 150% in thick air, 30% on Aquilo. On Nauvis and Gleba the ground matters (deserts and open water are windier, farmland and grassland calmer), and Fulgora's nightly lightning storms push the wind up.

Research raises the exchanger's rated power and its charging efficiency (up to 95%: storing energy always costs a little).

Nuclear reactor meltdown (optional, off by default). A reactor that reaches its maximum temperature with spare fuel sounds an alarm and starts a countdown. If you don't cool it or take the fuel out in time, it goes off like an atomic bomb of its own quality. Hardcore mode counts the burning cell too.

Achievements: Pocket power plant, Wind farm, Close call.

Settings

• Startup: the exchanger's base power, starting charging efficiency, optional charge loss over time, wind turbine power.
• Map (can be changed during a game): meltdown mode (off, normal, hardcore) and countdown length.

Compatibility

Factorio 2.0 and 2.1. Space Age and Quality are optional (MK3 to MK5 need Space Age). English and French.

Credits

The current graphics are placeholders made from the base game's own electric furnace and radar. I'd like to pay an artist to draw proper Factorio graphics for the energy exchanger and the wind turbine; if you're interested, contact me.