Poor balance of electric poles/substation costs

[Turtle]

When I first started playing, I found myself using small poles ALL the time because I didn't find medium poles that much better. A few months ago though, I created myself a mod to increase the range of the medium pole by 1 tile and it's SO much better. The problem, at least IMO, is because both the small and medium poles can't reach the other side of a machine. My modded poles can reach the other side to power inserters and that makes them sooo much more worth it.

before:

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supply_area_distance = 3.5
maximum_wire_distance = 9

after:

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supply_area_distance = 4.5
maximum_wire_distance = 10

The only reason I increased the distance was because it seemed weird that max distance would provide full coverage. With distance of 10, there's at least 1 tile of no coverage.

med-poles.jpg (206.45 KiB) Viewed 3976 times

[ssilk]

My modded poles can reach the other side to power inserters and that makes them sooo much more worth it.

Of course:
Before: 49 tiles, After: 81 tiles. That is 3 times more than the small. If you change that, you need also to change the area of the substation!

But the idea is worth thinking about.

[bobingabout]

I think the definitions of the pole itself are fine, I'd rather see a change to the cost than a change to how it operates. and overall, I think it's fine as it is anyway.

[hitzu]

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that I need even smaller area for poles, like 3x3, to power up just neighboring objects on a separate power grid. It becomes very important in case of power and logic switches.

[kosievdmerwe]

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that I need even smaller area for poles, like 3x3, to power up just neighboring objects on a separate power grid. It becomes very important in case of power and logic switches.

Can't you just simply manually wire up the poles in that case? Or am I missing something?

[ssilk]

How about an area like so:

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  XXX
 XXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXOXXX
XXXXXXX
 XXXXX
  XXX

That's 31 tiles for the "small pole with circular covering".... The medium has: 5+7+9+9+9+9+9+7+5= 69 tiles.

[hitzu]

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that I need even smaller area for poles, like 3x3, to power up just neighboring objects on a separate power grid. It becomes very important in case of power and logic switches.

Can't you just simply manually wire up the poles in that case? Or am I missing something?

In tight layouts where several electric grids meet they cover too much.