Talk:Mining and Construction

NOTE to test: Seems that it is not necessary to connect sockets with devices via wires. Enough just to build socket into the floor and put a device directly on this place and it will be connected to power circuit without any additional links. This applies to all devices that can be placed on floor/wall/ceiling.

This section has been temporarily placed here to make the article readable. This information will re-appear in the Advanced Concepts section at a later date.

Powering devices
We have some basic devices just now; generators, combinators, energy banks, switches, various lights and various crafting supplements. These connect together via cables and sockets, and on doing so they form power systems which control how 'power' moves between devices and hence your base works.

This by design, is meant to be only a crude approximation of real life electrical workings, there is no voltage, current, inductance, capacitance, ac, dc or phase angles. There is only power, devices depending on purpose will use, store or supply power.

Power systems, basically a collection devices connected together by cables, will sum up all the supply, storage and power usage of each device. The overall supply is simply continuously added to what is stored in the system, and what is stored in the system determines how much is available to the various devices that use power - ie, lights and such.

Note, what is actually available to power draining devices is not the full amount stored in the system, it is actually a fraction of it. The practical effects of this are thus; -Firstly if power supply drops, say generator runs out fuel, then all your lights will not go out all at the same time, they will in fact flicker for quite awhile, as the system struggles to cope with higher usage than it can sustain. Gradually more and more devices will be off at a time, until the system can not support even one. This is to give you some warning that your base is shutting down. -And secondly, power systems can take awhile to charge up; say you have turn on a generator connected to a couple of lights, they will flicker until the generator builds enough of a charge too support them. (Fyi, all generators have a little in built storage )

Minor note on connection, basically if devices are connected, usually by cables - but also adjacent sockets and devices based on sockets are automatically connected, then they are of the same system. The exception to this is the switch, power only runs through it if it is active, i.e. if it is active it follows the same connection rules as everything else, but when inactive the cables connected to it are effectively considered not so.