Question about electricity

[Toonarmy]

Hey so I just got the game and have been playing first steps the 3rd mission in I think where you start to get electricity I built some mining drills and they were working fine and fast started making a lot more things then started to build radars build about 7 then I noticed my drills were going really slow they were working at 0.5 speed I have no idea if I was using all the electricity on the radars but couldn't see any stats about if I was using all the electricity and the power lines were showing consumption at a fraction of the production but I decided to make another steam engine some boilers and water pump got that working added a power line so it started working and yet my drills were still going at 0.5 speed when they were going a lot faster at the start am I missing something here? any info would be appreciated

[Khyron]

In the power screen, if consumption is less than 100% you need more power.
If production is nearing 100% you should start to think about expanding your power supply.

Radars use heaps of electricity. Try disconnecting a few!

[Toonarmy]

Okay thanks so how would I make more power add more power lines? because I did add more and the consumption stayed the same I also made another steam engine and it didn't change unless I was using a lot more power than U thought

[Hogweed]

Okay thanks so how would I make more power add more power lines? because I did add more and the consumption stayed the same I also made another steam engine and it didn't change unless I was using a lot more power than U thought

Hi Toonarmy. Glad you like the game! It is terrific, and gets better the more you learn how to play. Energy production is pretty straight forward, you need to get water from a lake, add a pump, attach boilers, then steam engine.

The thing you should know is the most efficient setup uses 14 boilers versus 9 steam engine. I included a pic of the best possible setup for an enormous amount of power. If you are just playing the campaign, this is a bit much, but you get the idea. If you need to go smaller, just divide the number of boilers by steam engine to see how many you can support.




You can see in the pic the way the boilers line up in groups of 2 for maximum efficiency, which saves on space. On the top, you can see that the 14 boilers attach to the steam engine, there are three of them, then they continue in the next row (at the top of the screen, above the boilers). They are connected in the back (extreme right side of the pic) by 4 pipes that join the openings on the back of the steam engine. This allows the hot water to the rest of them without having to stretch the steam engines all the way out.

When i start a game, I will usually connect the water with the pump, add 1-2 pipes, then go underground for 2-3 spaces (allows future passage of coal for future expansion), You can see the pipes go underground in the pic to avoid problems of laying belts through there later. Then I add 11 pipes, and 3 boilers at the end with 1 steam engine for the start. This allows me later to just add boilers and steam engines later without having to move anything. Just the way I learned to play.

Also, later in the game, you can build solar panels and accumulators to store power for at night which takes the load off the steam engines, and also can be used to power lasers. Its quite cool really!

Also, power lines do nothing for increasing energy, they just connect all your devices together.

Hope this helps, you can always ask questions here, but many times I get good answers just doing a google search or watching some vids on youtube, there is a lot of walkthroughs there.

[Khyron]

One power line can carry unlimited electricity. I think you just need to make more steam engines and boilers.

Usually people put 14 boilers and 10 steam engines with one water pump.

If you need more that that, make a separate bioler/steam water network because the pipes can only move enough water for 10 steam engines.

Each boiler can add 390kw of heat energy to water and each steam engine can convert hot water in to electricity up to 510kw.

[MtNak]

Any questions you have you can post in this subforum:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=18

The consumption is how much energy you are using. If it full bar you are ok.
The production is your total capacity of production of electricity. If the bar is full and the consumption is low, you need more electricity. If both are full, you are produccing just enough electricity to power your network. If the consumption is not full means that you can produce more than you are using right know so you can put more buildings to work if you want.


ALL of this and much more is explained in great detail in the wiki

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ic_network

[ssilk]

Moved to help forum.