I just started a new game on latest version of the mod and I'm all out of power right away. when I look at the power tab I see that the 4 core roboports somehow are sucking down 2.9MW of power - even when they're not charging my bots.
the generator I start the game with produces about 2.7 power, and the 3 solar panels I started with don't do much to help either.
so I'm in a perpetual blackout right from the start.

I don't understand how this could happen. the tooltips list the roboports at taking 500KW at most. I don't have any mods active that I think could influence this either.

game save: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F3dPE_7n9bualUSRmr4jS2qlzDp7_lpD/view?usp=sharing

so ... I just updated hellmod and somehow the problem is gone? I have no clue how in the world that mod could be the problem though. it should be just a planner.

EDIT: after dying to biters (didn't realize I started with some turrets) I started again and I think I saw the same weird behaviour again temporarily. it kinda seems as though the core generator doesn't properly generate power if it core accumulator (same building?) has no charge left.

EDIT EDIT: ah. those core roboports have a maximum use of 500 MEGAWATTS, not kilowatts. that means the 4 you start with could drain down 2TW if you let them. that's insane. a normal regular plain old vanilla roboport has a maximum drain of ~4MW. quite the difference. not sure if that's how you wanted it but imma change that locally lol.

The core roboports should have zero vampiric drain and only use electricity to charge the robots (much faster than normal roboports, and more of robots at once, so the max energy drain can be a truck load as you've seen). It is intended that you can quickly charge multiple robots at once. I'm also in the process of removing the last of the starting vampiric drains (from the lab and assemblers that you start with and cannot get rid of).

Basically, you need to be careful how you use your robots, and that is intentional. 🙂 Hopefully in the next version the starting base will have zero vampiric draw (from the core machines) and only come from buildings the user constructs, or the robots. But changing how quickly the roboports can drain does not change the total amount they drain to refill the robots' batteries. 🤖

Apparently I already published those changes and they are already live in 0.9.49 of the mod. So if you are using 0.9.49, the core base should start with zero vampiric buildings. 🚀

I would suggest avoiding having the robots clear entire forests of trees as that will destroy your energy. 🌳

yeah the vampiric drain wasn't really the thing that was tripping me up. it's just that if the 4 core roboports are trying to drain 2GW of power then in comparison all my inserters and assemblers stop completely as their draw cannot compete. I lowered the max draw by the roboports to 500KW each in my game so that even when my roboports are trying to recharge the rest of my factory can still continue to function at some decent % of normal speed. maybe that's cheating, not sure. I think the start is hard enough as it is >.> (on the subject of which, damaged mining drills putting out 30 polution is BRUTAL)

The damaged assembly machines are pretty bad too. Like twice the energy per second at less than half the rate, resulting in 4x worse production per energy. You always have the option of using burner drills. 😁 This is also why the Von Neumann map settings have much higher than normal tree density. 🌲

I've not been a fan of mods that make the game easier by introducing overpowered features, and this mod reflects that. It is suppose to be more challenging but by being interesting/complex instead of grindy.

This scenario also leaves no shortage of early challenges & goals, like upgrading damaged drills and assemblers to regular ones, establishing new power generation beyond the starting core, setting up a useful mall, and defense against biters. 🐜

I'm also a little curious as to what the robots are doing that they've managed to draw so much power? 😕 Having play-tested it multiple times, often with 2-3 players (and who play differently than I do), the only time we've drained the starting energy storage is when we try to clear large sections of forests, or try to deconstruct/reconstruct large portions of the base at once, or try to use robots for signification amounts of logistics, or we try to go too long without building coal power. FWIW, the idea is still to keep belts > bots; AKA bots are not supposed to be a replacement for belts, or you will run out of energy. ⚡

since you start with an abundance of requester chests but only a single storage chest (that you can move) and no filter inserters making your bots move stuff for you almost your only option at the start. in addition, every ore field seems to start out with a layer of ore your bots can pick up. that's a lot of bot work right away.
tried a few different maps but tree population always seemed fairly light and never had to clear that much.

if I were to start again a fourth time I would probably use a few burner drills/inserters instead so that the lack of power poles isn't a huge deal and I can try and start making proper miners/assemblers asap - never touching the broken ones.

It should be possible to get going without the logistic chests and without the damaged drills (not sure if you can get by without both, but either or should be doable); and you would only need one (drill or requester chest). The tricky part is getting the first burner drill fuel, after that, it you should not need either.

You should be able to use the damaged belts to move everything without using logic robots for moving items. You start with a very large supply of 600 of the damaged belts. 🙂