Power

Description

Power is one of the main resources, and is exchanged and used for every Tick.

Note, power in Watts [W] and energy in Joule [J] terminology are mistakenly mixed by the developers. Power storage should be expressed in Joule, but is expressed in Watts instead. (Watt hours...) To bypass this confusion, just think of Watts as a piece of energy, which is transferred or used every tick. In the case some actual power is mentioned (flow of energy), like for cables, this is expressed as energy per Tick, which is (also) expressed as Watts.

So in summary, the energy contained in batteries, as energy being transferred, are both in-game mentioned as Watts. We try to make the distinction in this Wiki by using Juoles for the energy contained instead.

Actual Power, and Power Potential

A power network is a series of connected Cables and the individual machines connected to it. Each network has two main metrics - Actual Power, and Power Potential.

• Actual power is the active draw, or usage, of power from machines on the network.
• The Power Potential of the network is the currently accessible potential of power that could be drawn from the network. As such, the Actual Power can never exceed the Power Potential, if more power is needed by machines, you effectively have a shortage, and a cable will fry resulting in burned cables. Sometimes the Power Potential is buffered in batteries, in which case it is saved for later, but in the case of power generation - Power Potential that isn't used will be effectively lost.

This reddit post by u/Chribitz details power usage rates of most, if not all, machines/components/tools that use it.

Cables and Fuses

Individual types of cable have a maximum Actual Power limit (Normal: 5kW, Heavy: 100kW), the Potential Power can be as high as you want, but if the Actual Power draw from the network exceeds the capacity of the cable, one or more cables on the network will blow. In order to avoid random cables blowing, you can add a Fuse to the power network. Once the power limit is exceeded, the fuse on the network will blow instead of random pieces of cable on the network making it a very easy problem to fix instead of having to hunt around large networks trying to find the issue.

Limiting Power

You can also limit the amount of power in a circuit by using a Transformer. The Small Transformer is perfect for protecting basic cables because it can limit up to 5 kW. The power draw cannot exceed the limit set on the transformer, so the cable will never blow. It's a good idea to use a transformer any time you switch from heavy to standard cables.