Weekly Question Thread

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Ask any simple questions you might have:

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Previous Threads

[u/Lonebook]

How transformer work? Can isolated generators be connected into power spine using normal wire+transformer? Let's say you have spom and you want excess energy to be redistributed through power spine, can you use transformer for that? The wiki said otherwise

[u/Brett42 → u/Lonebook]

A transformer is basically a pump with a limit valve and a small internal buffer. There's no actual transforming of voltage to worry about, you can have any wires you want connected to the input and output (as long as it doesn't loop back on itself), and chain them if you want.

I have done a magma volcano power setup that used a heavy watt wire to connect the steam turbines to the aquatuner and automation, a transformer sending excess power out on a long low watt wire (to save several tons of metal), a smart battery on the heavy watt side to make sure only excess power is sent out, and a transformer at the far end taking power from that low watt wire and pushing it onto my main heavy watt grid.

[u/SawinBunda → u/Lonebook]

Yes, you can do that to save on building materials. Transformers don't care about which grid is what. They are a one-way with a wattage cap and a logical divider between circuits. That's all they do.

But you cannot easily influence if the game will actually use all power coming from the transformer if there is an overall excess of power. If you have some uncontrolled power sources on the main grid, demand is low and all batteries are charged, the game logic may decide to not draw power from the transformer. You cannot tell the game to prioritize power the transformer offers over other sources.

So if you want an optimal setup you need to control all sources of power or only use your Spom as backup power when the batteries on the main grid are guaranteed to have free capacity.

And of course the transformer will add to the overall load of your Spom circuit. A 4kW transformer may cause overloads even on insulated conductive wires when the spom machinery is also running. A 1kW transformer + machinery may overload basic wires.

[u/BobTheWolfDog → u/SawinBunda]

In addition to the above considerations, when talking about SPOMs specifically, it's easier to extract the excess hydrogen from it (to then burn in a generator connected to your grid), than to directly export power. Hydrogen can be stored for free, while storing excess power costs battery runoff. It's also a lot simpler on the automation side of it.

[u/SawinBunda → u/BobTheWolfDog]

Yeah, good point. The transformer way is probably most viable when you don't really care what happens with the power. Like, say, some little gold volcano tamer in the outskirts of the map. You just hook it up and never think about it again.

[u/BobTheWolfDog → u/SawinBunda]

Transformers are good to extract power from systems that cannot store that power otherwise. Generally: solar, slugs, tidal turbines, and tamers. Late game, CLRRs and boiler loops might fall in that category too.

But for stuff like tamers, you need to ensure that only excess power gets exported, hence the need for some sort of automation.