Electric system
The Electric network is used to power a lot of different machines; the game can hardly be played without using Electricity. Every machine has its own internal electric capacity. When energy is produced, it is evenly distributed to all machines in the network that need electricity.
Connecting up power and balancing it
Task: connect producers to consumers with distribution network and balance the consumption with the production.
- Power poles (distribution) cover a certain area on the ground. Hover over a pole to see its coverage area in light blue.
- Every electrical device (producer, consumer, storage) within this area is invisibly connected to that pole.
- Build Steam engines and/or Solar panels (with Basic accumulators for night time) to generate power. See Power Production.
- Connect the poles to build a bigger network, so that the power can flow from production to consumers.
- Left-click on a pole (at the bottom of a pole!) to open the Electric network/Infoscreen for that network.
- Hover over a pole to see overall network satisfaction/saturation. Hover a steam engine to see more info.
Poles and networks
- Unconnected poles build their own electric network! You can make as many electric networks as desired.
- If you build near enough to another pole, they will connect automatically. This takes no extra wire(s).
- Use shift-click on a existing pole to remove its connections to other poles
- Unconnected poles can be connected with a single Copper cable dragging from pole to pole (Right click on the bottom of the pole.)
- You can use place-key (default left mouse) while running/driving, to auto-place poles.
More info
The power demand of a network will be fed by power sources in a specific order. If the primary source cannot fully satisfy the demand, additional power is drawn from the second source and so on until no more sources are available. The current order (version 0.9.8) is the following:
With this order in mind, it is common to charge accumulators with Solar panels during the day and to use the stored energy of accumulators overnight automatically.
A newly-placed electric pole will be automatically connected to nearby poles according to the following rules:
- It will be connected to the closest pole available
- It won't be connected to 2 poles connected to each other (ie. it won't form a 3 pole triangle)
- It will be connected to other available poles, starting with the closest ones
Copper cable can be used to manually connect 2 poles. This will use up the wire, which can't be later retrieved. Default placement mode doesn't use up wires.
Belts and all other entities can be placed in masses by keep pressing the place key, and this works for power poles too: Hold place-key (default left mouse button) to set the first pole. With the button held down, run in any direction. The next pole is placed at the farthest point and connects to the previous, eliminating the need for micromanagement of pole placement.
This works also from a car or train, which enables you to place the electric poles very quickly!
See also
- Electricity/Priority of power Production
- Powering sequence - the order in which accumulators are loaded. This is also about how the electric network orders internally new networks.
- How to switch off steam engines in the night, when enough accumulator capacity is available?
- Electricity
- Liquid
- Units