Alt-F4 #51 - The Fluidic Power Experiment

[AlternativeFFFF]

For issue #51 of Alt-F4, long-time contributor and editor extraordinaire stringweasel delights us with a deep dive into the history of mods trying to make Factorio power network management more realistic. All of them have their own issues and trade-offs, which is why he then introduces his own take at this age-old problem, with great results!

Continue reading: https://alt-f4.blog/ALTF4-51/

[mrvn]

The fluidic power could could help with other aspects too. With a fluid you can have overflow valves and top-up valves. You can use a tank and pump with circuit connection to activate or close at any power level. This would be much more flexible than the simple power switch in vanilla.

You can measure the rate of energy transferred with 2 tanks and 4 pumps, alternating filling and emptying the tanks and measuring the rate of change.

One thing the fluidic power could really use though are linked pipes. It would be nice to just connect power poles to each other with a single pair of underground pipes even if they are not in a straight line. Having to go around 90° bends with the pipes means the flow from pole to pole differs and pipes might get in the way of each other.

[aka13]

Great read as always