Power Priority; ideas wanted

[Align]

Sometimes I want the steam engines to charge my accumulators so I have a backup for when the laser turrets start firing.
Other times I want the accumulators to drain completely before the steam engines start up so I can minimize coal consumption & pollution.

So it'd be nice to be able to sort the three power structures (engines, panels, accumulators) somehow to determine which has priority; like if accumulators have higher priority than engines you get the second scenario, and the other way around is the first scenario (how it works right now).

I know there are work-arounds, but it'd be nice to have this in the game official-like. Question is, where and how would this be done? The electric network info has all these clickable icons of consumers and producers, maybe something could be done there?

[ssilk]

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/sea ... olar&fid=6

And some more, if you dig deeper into the suggestions board.

The point why I'm against such ideas like having priority switches in the electric network info is:
- you can have many networks. Unlimited.
. it will make much more sense to have many then yet, when there are more devices (like the substation)
- You don't want to run to the electric networks and switch the priorities.
- Factorio is a game about automation and not about running around and doing everything yourself.

Besides that, I think it is already possible to switch the priorities of all entities by a mod.

Things you can automate:
- shut down your miners, if not enough power,
- reduce power for the smelting area,
- put on the emergency steam engines,
- turn on a warning lamp...
- turn off a mining area, if all stuff is mined to spare the drain power,
- turn on a train station, when the train comes in to spare drain power,
- turn on all laser turrets in your outpost, if enemies are near to spare the drain power,
- such things.

[MF-]

Please note, that simple priority inversion will not work,
since the capacitors have two uses

1) "capacitor" - to balance power surges, mainly from laser fire
2) "battery" - to cover the nighttime power needs

For the 1st the device needs lower priority than the steam engine to work,
otherwise it won't get recharged until all steam engines shut down
(Which can't happen until solar panels are researched)

The cited "workaround" actually manages to preserve both,
using the "coupler" cap(s) to provide "1" and the rest to provide "2"