Day/Night Switches

[nicolaasvanwaveren]

I only purchased this game a week ago and I think it is great, thanks for the good work.

During the day you have to use solar panels for your factory and store power in accumulators for energy use at night. I would like to suggest modules that can be installed on electrical equipment, day/night switches to be precise. That way you can install these switches on equipment that do not have to be used at night and safe energy during the night so that less accumulators can be used. For example mining drills can be shut down during the night and the rest of the factory can use ore stockpiled during the day to continue production at night.

[BurnHard]

I was also thinking of something like that, to switch of my miners and furnaces at night. Not sure if it should be an ingame item or just a global switch in the energy menu.

[ssilk]

There are plans to make the described sensors and to turn the transformer station into a switchable device, but I think (as I understand the current work of the devs) they will not come in the next version. Until then you can do the following:

Accumulators have the lowest priority. I plug the radar especially in the beginning always on one or two accumulators.

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Main power network ---> one or two accumulators --> radar power network ---> radar station

That limits the energy usage at day to the accu loading speed (with one it is 300 watts, which is the half of the needed radar power) and in the night the radar network is only powered, if you have enough steam power left.

See also
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... Production
which describes it also.

Below on that page is a trick to measure the loading state of the accus. With a small modification you can use that, to measure day/night: replace the accu there with a solar field. So you measure if it is night. Place lights to turn the inserter on/off sooner or later. Use the circuit then to turn production on/off. I use that sometimes to put parts of my furnaces off.

I was also very successful in using solar panels for radar. It's a good idea to place some radar stations far, far away, just one or two solar panels, no other power. When it is destroyed, bad luck, but sometimes that gives me a really wide view into the map.

Very useful also: power far mining sites only by solar fields.the pollution is not so high, you need not to defend it that much and later, when you need more you put accus on.

Also successful was to place solar powered laser stations. 6 solar fields are enough to power about 12 lasers and load 6 accus for the night. Survives one big attack during night (but I'm currently not sure, if was really 6 and 12.)


So you see, there are still many options, and some things to play with.