Satisfactory (Early Access)

[LowPolyOWG]

Are those pipes in a elevated area? Gotta use those pipe pumps.

Speaking of pipes and long lines, a guy on the Satisfactory discord told me about backflow and how to prevent it. Yes, it's a thing in the game for "realism". To fix that, every 25 foundation (200 meters of pipe), add an unpowered pump that faces the same direction as the fluid. If elevated, every 20m (2.5 foundation) and it must be powered. Basically, they will w0#k as a check valve to prevent the fluids going in the wrong direction.

Turns out that for reasons unknown, the coal generators keep dropping out for lack of water. I had it before and thought I had built something wrong. But it has kept happening. Randomly. I did everything from adding more pumps, water reservoirs, rerouting half the water to the back six generators and the other half to the front six generators to give an even spread.. nothing. Eventually they start to dry out and falter, resulting in power dropping below my average consumption and BANG! fuse is gone again.

Hopefully, this tip from the Discord user should help with this. I think I ran into a similar problem with my nuclear plant on my Epic game store save. I made another pipeline grid to fix that.

Spoiler

The official Satisfactory wiki

[Art Blade]

cool, LP

My setup at this stage.
3 Water Extractors, connected to one Biomass Burner, manifold pipe layout with one line connected to coal generator   
1 Coal Miner, connected to one Biomass Burner, conveyor belt connected to coal burner
1 Coal Generator, connected to Biomass Burner

The extractors start-up and as soon as the water indicating glass on the extractors show full they shut down.
The water pipes expand between the extractor and manifold but not in the manifold or elsewhere in the pipeline

3 Water Extractors, connected to one Biomass Burner, manifold pipe layout with one line connected to coal generator

One water extractor consumes 20MW power x3 = 60MW power needed.
One biomass burner produces 30MW power = half of what you need for the water extractors.

One coal generator consumes 50m³ water.
One water extractor produces 120m³ water x3 = 360m³. You're drowning your coal (as in, you don't need that much water)

You're going to blow the fuse (and you said so, they shut down) due to more power consumption than is being produced and you don't even need that much water. You should get rid of two water extractors and you'll be fine.
   
1 Coal Miner, connected to one Biomass Burner, conveyor belt connected to coal burner

Sounds OK

1 Coal Generator, connected to Biomass Burner

I don't get that one. Both generate power. Why would you connect them?

The only effect is that you add power to power which at this point is probably not what you intended to do. Also "connect" is unclear: did you draw one power line between them? That would block both generators from connecting to a power pole because only one connection is allowed per whatever unit (machine, generator and so on) so you should connect whatever it is to a power pole, never directly UNLESS you want to power one water extractor with one biomass burner, that is OK because you don't need that biomass burner for anything else. BUT. You might. For those pipe pumps to cope with elevation, they need power, so it might be an idea to connect the biomass burner to a pole and the pole to the water extractor and a pipe pump.

That is what I did to get the coal generator running. The coal generator needs water but doesn't produce power without water so it cannot power the water extractor. Hence the biomass burner which can do exactly that: power the water extractor. It will then pump water into the coal generator. You may have to "feed" the coal generator with coal manually to help it get started: just collect a few lumps of coal and use the E button to configure the coal generator which also allows you to add coal from your inventory to it.

Once the water is pumping and the coal generator kicks in, you can dismantle the biomass burner and connect the water extractor (and the pipe pump if you got one) via pole and power lines to the coal generator. Now it is self-sustaining.

Then you can draw power lines from the coal generator to the coal miner and dismantle the biomass burner there as well because the coal generator will power the miner.

[Art Blade]

Meanwhile, my problem with power drops around coal and fuel generators are solved.

For some reason, I saw the power production drop and come back up and drop again until the coal power completely faltered. That led to a complete stop of my factory. After several investigations I know that some of the pipes that supplied the coal generators with water dried out, for no apparent reason.

My first setup was one pipe line that had crossings to branch out and distribute water left and right to the adjacent coal generators. The ones that were farthest away dried out. I did use pipe pumps and the whole water supply system did run just fine after setting it up but eventually it collapsed. Many times. It was so annoying that I decided to find a way to fix it if possible.

So my second setup was to divide one line into two. One coming from the front and supplying the first six generators by branching out left and right, the second line was the same only coming from the back. Still, either the front or the back line eventually dried out.

My third and current setting has been radical and ugly: one water extractor connected straight to one coal generator. A lot of pipes, 12, that look more like the entrails of a monster than a nice water supply system but now it has been stable.

Apparently those crossings that can split up one pipe into three are prone to failure.

The other problem with my fuel generators appeared to be of the same type since they used those pipe crossings but it was actually a simple stupid mistake that caused the fuel power drop-out. Part of the fuel production was from crude oil straight to fuel which kept working until the other part failed and caused a complete stop of the factory because the total power consumption was higher than the total (remaining) power production.

The reason for that failure was that the second part used residual fuel which is a byproduct of rubber or plastic production (forgot which one) and once that production is stopped, residual fuel production is stopped, and that of course led to fuel generators dropping out.

As a side note: I knew exactly whether it was coal or fuel: when coal collapsed, I lost 900 MW, when fuel collapsed, I lost 300 MW (and more after boosting fuel to some 500MW) which made it easy to run to the correct location and man, my coal is about 1.5km away from base (where my fuel is) so.. a lot of running around, still.

The production of fuel stopped because I was simply producing plastic and rubber without knowing what to do with that stuff yet but I wanted to get more out of oil than just fuel. So I produced plastic and rubber and as a side product, residual fuel, and that powered two of my three fuel generators. Rubber and plastic? I set up some storage containers and conveyor belts filled them with rubber and plastic.

When the storage containers were full, the plastic and rubber production stopped. And the residual fuel, too. And that created a shortage of residual fuel and subsequently the whole power grid collapsed. Twice before I knew why.

The craziest thing about that fuel problem: I started to add fuel power because my coal power wasn't enough any more and I did not want to tap my coal sources for more power. I need coal for steel products, too. So I came up with fuel generators to add power to the grid. While I was setting up the rubber and plastic stuff, the coal power dropped out and I left the fuel as it was to fix the coal. When I returned, fuel collapsed because I had spent so much time with coal that the storage containers were filled with rubber and plastic. I realised what the problem was but coal collapsed again before I could do anything with fuel. In the meantime, in between fixing coal, I was adjusting the main production of those heavy frames and had to take care of the fricking coal in between. So the storages had filled up with plastic and rubber again and caused another power outage. That was when I knew what it was, but still it had happened twice.

[Art Blade]

And my new toy: glass floor and windowed walls

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[LowPolyOWG]

Maybe it's time to set up an AWESOME sink to get rid of the byproduct by refining the residue to something that the AWESOME sink can consume 

Yeah, glass panels are cool. I haven't set up an AWESOME sink yet so can't buy them. I will definitely use them for my skybridges.

[Art Blade]

it can consume anything except liquids (unless you pack them)

At first I thought I was imagining things but it is quite obvious by now:

The amount of points needed for the next coupon is increasing. I am pretty sure that at the beginning it was at some point like 230k points for one coupon..

..now it's over 630k.

The Awesome Sink "pays" points according to the production effort. Just a random and completely imagined example: iron ore 50 points, heavy modular frame 20,000 points. The numbers are completely made up because I don't know the values and because there's no price list but you can watch the points after feeding single components and find out for yourself if you like

Well, I think that I have sunk stuff worth around and up to 50 coupons so far, maybe more. At first I spent it on my coffee cup, then on a few components that seemed easier to buy than to produce (did that a few times) and then I bought wall mounts, stairs, walls.. the fun stuff.

There are statues, the most expensive one costs some bloody 150 coupons.. I can't even begin to imagine how much stuff you need to sink in order to get that many coupons.

[nex]

OK, I just redid my whole setup.
For now I have four water extractors and four coal generators, I will shut down two extractors tomorrow
and connect one extractor per two generators.
I connected two burners to the first extractor and a water line to one generator and the pipes filled beautifully,
I connected the coal conveyor straight to the generator but the generator panel reads "no connection"
As soon as I connected a power cable from the one burner to the generator it kicked in, I followed the same
procedure with the other three generators and they all started producing, only then did I remove the two burners.
Now I must get power to my base, but I will also only do that tomorrow.

 

[LowPolyOWG]

Yeah, generators do not w0#k until a wire is connected. Nice that you got coal power up and running

[Art Blade]

damn it, LP you slipped in that post before I finished mine, so it's kind of a double now

***

nex, nice

That "no connection" essentially means that the generator doesn't know where to send the power to that it is producing. As soon as you connect a power line to it, that message disappears. That power line can be to a pole, and from that pole to two more generators, 3/4 points used, the last point of the power pole will have to lead to a new pole (1/4 connection points used) so you can add the fourth generator to that pole (2/4) and then draw a new line (3/4) to a new pole (1/4) From that pole connect a new pole (2/4) and start drawing a power line composed of power line > pole> power line > pole and so on until you've reached your factory.

I found it best to place that last pole (coming from the coal power cluster) somewhere prominent so you can find it later. It was very useful when I had to w0#k on my coal power cluster, I simply cut off one line connecting that cluster to the factory. The factory shuts down and you can w0#k with the coal power without fuses blowing out all the time as there won't be a whole factory trying to suck energy, only the coal miners and the water pumps, and that makes it easy to make changes to the coal cluster. When done, just connect the cut-off pole again and bang, power restored to the factory.

***

Ever since I changed my coal setup to "1:1" (one water extractor connected straight to one coal generator without merging pipes from other extractors) I have FINALLY been able to play again without having to worry about random power outages.

[nex]

The devs should have thought of a power substation type of setup, just like it's done
in real circumstances, then you don't have cables all the place

[Art Blade]

well.. it's a game, after all.

Like, this isn't really a conversion of a pneumatic post system but still.. I just enjoyed my very first hyper tube ride.

hyper-tubing 
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[Art Blade]

added "feet" (pillars) to that floating platform
also, my HUB, MAM and other stuff is up there.
Always had that in mind and now it's done
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[nex]

3 Water Extractors, connected to one Biomass Burner, manifold pipe layout with one line connected to coal generator

One water extractor consumes 20MW power x3 = 60MW power needed.
One biomass burner produces 30MW power = half of what you need for the water extractors.

One coal generator consumes 50m³ water.
One water extractor produces 120m³ water x3 = 360m³. You're drowning your coal (as in, you don't need that much water)

You're going to blow the fuse (and you said so, they shut down) due to more power consumption than is being produced and you don't even need that much water. You should get rid of two water extractors and you'll be fine.
   
1 Coal Miner, connected to one Biomass Burner, conveyor belt connected to coal burner

Sounds OK

1 Coal Generator, connected to Biomass Burner

I don't get that one. Both generate power. Why would you connect them?

The only effect is that you add power to power which at this point is probably not what you intended to do. Also "connect" is unclear:

I had a power pole between the biomass burner and the generator, a cable from the burner to the pole, the water and coal were
connected to the generator but the generator would not w0#k, and only when I connected the power between the biomass burner and the
generator did it start to w0#k, you have to give it power first before it will produce power (kickstart). Once that was achieved I removed
the power line between the burner and generator. I double-checked the official satisfactory wiki link LP posted, my method was correct.
The only reason my setup didn't w0#k before is the extractor didn't have sufficient power.

[Art Blade]

nex, you got it working in the end but maybe you misread that wiki information.

The message you get to read on a new generator is "no connection" and not "no power" so you just need to connect it to a power line (not to a running power generator or power grid)

So your method wasn't entirely correct.

First, you had too many water extractors (one would have been more than sufficient) and that one extractor would have received sufficient power from your single biomass burner.

Second, you thought you had to power the coal generator but that's actually wrong.

Spoiler

You can check it with a simpler form of generator:

Build a biomass burner, stuff it with whatever you got (leaves, wood, biomass..) and look at it. The message is "no connection" and it does nothing. Just add a power line to nowhere but a pole, and the burner will start powering up.

So whoever told you that you needed power to "kickstart" a coal generator was wrong.

Fill water into the coal generator (for the water you need a powered extractor) and manually fill coal into the coal generator, then simply start a power line from the coal generator (that line automatically ends in a pole) and the moment you connect the generator to a power line (even if that line leads nowhere but a pole) it will start producing 75W.

Because I didn't remember whether or not I might accidentally have connected actual power to the coal generator to get it started, I set up a fresh coal generator just to make sure that it really was correct what I told you.

So I did exactly that: I had water pumped into the generator and manually fed it with some coal, then started a power line from the new (not yet started) coal generator ending in a pole that led nowhere.

It worked.

So, no power to start power, which sounded ridiculous to me in the first place, hence my previous post you quoted. The only reason to connect more than one generator to a power pole is to create a power grid with more total power.

Try again and see for yourself if you don't believe me. All you need to do is dismantle the power line from any coal generator and it will stop working and the message will read "no connection." Connect it to a dead end (power line to a pole leading nowhere) and it will start up again.

[nex]

A question Art.
The mk2 power poles can have seven lines, one from the source and one to the next pole,
then three to whichever machines you need to supply.
If you have six coal generators (like I have at this stage), does that mean you run a pole from each
generator to wherever you need power, or do you run one combined line to your factory and then split them up
into six again?