Power and your Grid : Tutorial nuggets : Oxygen not included

[@rfm3253]

“Why is that red, you know what never mind” saved us 10 minutes there. Thanks for the guides even now their so good! The idea with all the transformers and branching off to where needed never thought of it!

[@crazyjaybe]

Words that frighten me: 7:46 "It's still *very early* in the game...121 cycles in" 11:03 "Why is that red? You know what? No...it's *not* a problem" 15:17 "I'm not even sure where *half of those things* go anymore" 18:53 "You could generate a *thousand kilowatts* of power..."

[@ObsidianGloria]

I've only been playing for about a week and a half and I have already said these words. Good to know I'm playing right

[@crazyjaybe]

@@ObsidianGloria Stick to this channel. I really upped my game with his info.

[@scorndog9937]

3 simple words that make my day... "And... we're back."

[@datman2433]

me it's the ''and uuuuh, good luck!''

[@dunning-kruger551]

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve nearly caught up on his videos!

[@Morilin]

I decided to watch this wayyy too soon. Half of it went in one ear and right out the other omg - and it shook my brain up as it traveled, judging by the headache, lol

[@FrancisJohnYT]

ONI is one of those games where one day you trying to figure out how to filter your polluted toilet water, then before you know it your tapping into the molten core of the asteroid and it's been a year since you have been outside.

[@SoyKhalid]

"Aaaand we're back.." I live for these small yet uniform expressions! 😂

[@bungygungy7654]

Done aaaand dusted

[@joeblack4436]

One little bit of apocryphal wire wisdom (which may not be relevant anymore since it is from way back in early early access) that I can add is that you used to not even be allowed to use say... conductive wire bridges over heavy watt wire without overload. That might have been a bug, but since I have never really tried it again I don't know if it's still relevant. My shiniest power management tip is that any power using building that needs an input of some liquid or gas to work whatsoever can have their power usage modulated with valves. The daily report lets you hover to see what uses the most power and if say... you want plastic, but the presses are using too much power for your current generation then you just put a valve set to 83g and you have a press that effectively uses only 24W. Want cool water, but the Aquatuners don't have enough power then just put a valve set at 1kg before it and make an aquatuner that effectively uses only 120W. Transporting liquid from one reservoir to the next, but in no real hurry. Valve. Steel works using too much power. Valve. Let's you start slow but steady and then later adjust values to max once your grid becomes rock solid and creaking with power. 2nd shiniest tip. Power control stations work with lead. Which is a free, early game 50% boost. 3 generators for the price of 2. To be fair this tip is only really world changing until a body can make one of your awesome new simplified, no fuss metallic volcano tamers. Power rooms should always be in cold biomes that also have a nullifier in them for cooling imho. Even manual generators generating 600W is serious business if you really need it at some point. Excess H2 from SPOMS - Yum. And of course... A steam turbine can run an aquatuner if it's chipped - 500W free if you can run the operation full tilt - Which come to think of it invalidates my statement about needing a nullifier. I've never tried putting a steam turbine in a power room though tbh. 3rd: Calculate the per second output of H2 and Natural gas vents across the full dormant/active cycle. Leave enough room around vents to fill up to a nice total. Valve set to a few grams below this value going to generator. Constant power - Even if it isn't the max. Rather a known constant effective 237W from an H2 generator fed by a vent than the full 800W some of the time. (There's a nifty little mod that calculates vent per second output and displays it on the vent once researched which, as an information related mod, is one of the few I deem appropriate) Sometimes you are lucky and a single vent can run 1 and a bit, or two full generators constantly. (Now consider again the humble Power Control station) And... Sorry for another long comment lol But yeah.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Power bridges were patched, those were dark days back then. Power to the lights kept shorting out.

[@GigsTaggart]

There is still a minor bug, if you build a hevi-watt join plate over a conductive wire, it completely obscures that the conductive wire is still there, and will overload it constantly as the conductive wire is considered connected to the hevi watt grid. Just something to keep in mind when "painting over" old infrastructure with newer wire types.

[@thriceandonce]

Still don't understand Klei's decision to make large transformers give out 4kW.

[@SnaFubar_24]

Exactly!

[@SoulGuitarMetal]

"If you want it easy, you are playing the wrong game." probably by Klei's colony-making board executives.

[@saffron584]

Makes me wonder if low resistance wires were meant to carry 4kw instead of 2kw

[@muhseenmusthafa3769]

​@saffron584 it's intended to be convenient to chain,ie say you want to split 20kw heavy watt wire(20kw) split from heavy conductive wire(50kw), that would require 20 small transformers, a huge pain compared to 5 large transformers

[@GForceIntel]

That's has been busting my head over the last 2 weeks. In my head. There is no 4 kw wire. 😅

[@DrMcFly28]

7:45 "This is still very early in the game, 121 cycles in" I'll get me coat.

[@13MaryLou11]

I have >500hours in the game and still learn stuff from your videos! I would call the tutorial a success, although solar was missing - I'm guessing you are saving them for a separate tutorial. As always excellent work! P. S: I still remember the thread you started asking about power in the forums ;-)

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Solar I'm saving for after regolith management, this video went to long without any of that. Wow that thread was a while back, to think if this game had better tutorials I would not have all the fun of this channel. Weird the way the world works :)

[@ivanshiek]

On mixing wires, if your heavy wire is running 4kW then the smaller wire will also run 4kW even if it isn't designed to handle it. Which results in damaged small wires. This principle is true in real life as well, so props to the Dev for the research they did! In the game, I mouse over the heavy wire to see what the total charge is. If it is over 1kW, I use a conductive wire with it, but need to make sure not to add anything to that circuit w/o adding a small transformer either to the old circuit or new one. You can use small transformers for small rooms that you know won't go over 1kW. You also need to be aware that you might not be producing enough even if your transformers have power. There may be a setting that shows what you produce vs consume. If not then you will have to manually count each generator.

[@erburu]

I love these videos, thank you for making them! They're really helpful. I've played around 50 hours of ONI and still have no idea what I'm doing but it's really interesting how deep and complicated it can get.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

ONI has one of the features of all the great games, simple to learn the basics but with huge amounts of dept to keep you sucked in for an age.

[@garethsloan5118]

Francis John you've done it again, excellent video. Have you ever taught before? You have a great way of explaining things so they're easy to understand.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I'v never taught before but my mother was a teacher so maybe it runs in the family :)

[@TikkaBeezy]

"Why is that red? You know what? No, not a problem." 11.02. I feel your pain.

[@Mimi-xf8qd]

The way you speak and explain things really captivates my attention for some reason.

[@piratejack6577]

I stared at my phone for a good 20 minutes straight thinking about how complicated all this is and I think I learned about 2 things

[@punkcanuck69]

I enjoy your videos for ONI, however in this one you missed the capability to "upstep" power to the main grid. This can be useful when it's difficult or impossible to run a heavy watt wire to your power generators. You run conductive wire to the power gen, keep it under the 2 KW of generation, then put it in the Input for the Transformer, and then output to a heavy watt or heavy conductive. and upstep the power.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I usually use something like that for steam turbines that will be generating power on the edge of the map. Should have included it. I think the reason I forget it is my tendency to centralize power production.

[@MichaelZhang12345]

Francis John can u please explain? So say steam turbine - if I put a conductive wire to the main heavy what grid with a reverse transformer (heavy in output instead of input), then the steam turbine can add 800 watts to the main generator room?

[@Jules_Diplopia]

Wonderful. I am just about to rebuild my early power grid.... Just the iinformation that I needed. Now I know what I was doing wrong... batteries on the wrong side of the generators...

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Happens to everyone the first five or twenty times, the power in this system is not intuitive at all.

[@Kuecke]

Love your tutorials. One about ways to make supplying more efficient would be great, how to avoid duplicants walking for miles just to deliver a small thing etc.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

The closest to that would be the priorities tutorial, in the game I find it advantageous to have dupes that build/dig and then dupes that run supply. Also the "enable proximity" will help minimize the long journeys. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hV6pdZicg7Zpq6c

[@ZeroXcuses]

So. I'm on day 600 of my fourth attempt at a colony. I've found all kinds of power, including TWO natural gas veins. I've exhausted them all powering my base, even with automation on batteries. I had almost switched off to coal, but I"m trying to power a rocket, and so, I am burning through petroleum to power my jet suits and rocket. I had multiple power rooms, but you have ONE and power your entire base with strategically-placed transformers. WOW!!! I learn so much from your videos!!! Thanks!

[@ShadowWolfTJC]

With how easy it might be to overload your power grid with excessive amounts of electricity being generated from centralized power stations and passing through individual channels while en-route to the devices that need power, methinks I might want to consider treating my power grid like I would treat a road transportation network in Cities: Skylines: as an interconnected, webbed, and branching road network, complete with road hierarchy, of electrical wiring to help avoid overstressing any individual channels whilst keeping material usage and decor maluses to more reasonable levels (no sense using heavy watt wire to run my fridge for example), using transformers as essentially the "service interchanges" of your power grid, that connect your smaller wires, which serve as feeder roads that connect to your individual power generators and devices, to the wider highway of heavy-watt wires that allows your power system to flow smoothly without risk of any circuits being overloaded. (For example, I might want to create a large loop of heavy watt wire to serve as essentially the electrical system's equivalent of a ring road, so that your electricity might be provided with options with where to flow through without having to run a large risk of causing the equivalent of a traffic jam, which, in Oxygen Not Included, would mean overloaded wiring.)

[@minh-ducle2863]

props to the creator!!! his designs saved many of my bases

[@ProudVet-Russ]

sir, i very much appreciate the power guide here. but any chance you'd be willing to make a 2nd episode to this that illistrates some of the concepts you talk about in this video? specifically i'm talking about how you mentioned building a power spine down the center of the map. having the transformers down the center of the map, presumably alone with your ladder, fire pole, and transit tube for movement with or without power along with the two small transformers on either side of the gap in order to make 2k power lines going to the right and left seems like a ton of floor space thats going to eat into your initial base layout. i'd like to try implimenting this myself, but i'd need to understand what i'm even going for lest i basically have to rip out the entire starting base from top to bottom just to rebuild it slightly more pushed to the sides. i imagine even with a power spine down the center like this well still prolly need another power spine to the left and right of that towards the edges in order to help provide another 2k line in towards the center for a total of 4k in those two central pockets and seperate 2k lines on the two outside areas this creates.

[@YouCountSheep]

I use the big transformer to feed the main batteries with the remote power generators. That way I can easily run normal conductive wire from lets say a natural gas geyser or metal volcano with max 2kW x2 into a big transformer. And that big transformer is connected with heavy wire (since it could carry these 4kW to the batteries and from there branching off with small transformers again for 2kW circuits. The feeding circuits can have some pumps connected or whatever but of course should not go over 2kW load. Since these things run sporadically they always trickle in some joules into the main power stations.

[@saeklin]

Transformers are "one way", meaning the "high" main grid can't pull any power back out that is produced/stored on the sub-grid of a particular transformer. So if you connect the heavy watt grid to a transformer to an electrolyzer and hydrogen generator setup, the electrolyzers benefit from the hydrogen generator while the main grid does not. Simply treat sub-grids like an isolated system and don't put too much potential load on it, or add another transformer between the sub-grid battery bank and whatever machines it is powering. Batteries/generators on a sub-grid will only supply power to that sub-grid (and whatever children grids off that sub-grid) and not the main grid, meaning you can have a backup battery bank for crucial systems such as transit tubes and suit docks (where even a brief power outage can cause a traffic jam). But those sub grid batteries can also pull power from the main grid through the transformer, so the isolated system CAN charge up off the main grid if necessary. Also, transformers operate as batteries for the sub-grid, meaning they hold a small amount of charge. Generators on the high grid treat transformers (where the input is connected to the high grid) as part of the total battery bank for the high side. I haven't tested it but I believe generators on the high grid are blind to batteries in any of the sub-grids, meaning if a sub-grid battery is getting drained to zero repeatedly, while the main grid battery bank is maintaining at like 50%, the high grid generator should only be looking at the main grid battery bank for its threshold. Of course, this is using pre-automation tech. I always fast track to automation and smart batteries and don't rely on the generators' own built in threshold mechanics. If I am in error of any of this information, please feel free to correct me. I did just test the "one-way" mechanic to double check, but some of the other stuff I'm only 99% sure about.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I think your accurate on everything there. One thing to note batteries on a sub grid will charge first and also drain power from batteries on a high grid to do it. So as long as the main grid has power the sub grid batteries should never go below 100%.

[@TheAntverpia]

Even though meanwhile some things might have changed, I still learned a lot by watching your tutorials.

[@Corey_Mckilling]

Yes indeed we are back lol I never thought about slapping 2 transformers together to double my power output.. yet again you amaze me..

[@dark14life]

Just got into ONI (thank you Steam sales) and I was a little iffy about how to set up a proper power grid but now I feel like I can do it. I know this video is old so if you don't answer, that's fine. But, why not use wetwalls to hide the wires that produce high negative decor? Is there a reason why you don't do this? Mesh tiles aren't an issue as they still hide the negative decor value. I find it makes setting up and wiring my base much easier since Dupes only have to see the wires when they build them. Saves a lot of time and resources making decor items to counter them.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Wet walls? I have not played for almost a year so I may have missed some new developments. Generally you either hide the wires or just overpower them with statue décor. But usually only in high traffic area's, if dupes don't go their often it's not really an issue.

[@MrThaddeusRex]

This was hugely informative and super useful. I didn't understand it all while watching it, but that's my own comprehension issues. I'm still new to ONI as I only started playing since it left early access, but this will help a lot in my next few games.

[@05AquariusNova]

Excuse me while I go back to blow up my base (again) after watching yet another video by Francis

[@fastfiddler1625]

When I first started playing this, I thought it was silly how the power draw will burn up the weakest wire on a line even if the items attached to it don't draw enough to overload that particular wire. That isn't how things work at all in real life. But it is realistic that you would have a larger capacity line with multiple transformers splitting off of it. That's how it gets to your house from the street line. But they change voltage, not what this game does. Either way, having thought about it more, the CPU requirements would probably be way too high if they were to try to stimulate how current actually flows through lines.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Most games simplify it down, even factorio you can run as much voltage as you want through any cable. Would love to see the standard power cable that can handle the output of a nuclear power plant.

[@jonfairhurst71]

Haha! Yes, you’d need a decent computer to have a constantly calculating AMTECH programme running

[@ivanshiek]

I just realized what the Large Transformer is used for after watching your video on it. I believe it is designed to supply 4 smaller transformers further away. Though I don't know why the Dev didn't consider just building another L transformer at the other spot?

[@Saktoth]

Only reason to use it is when you are running more than 20kw on heaviwatt, or more than 50kw on heavy conductive. So if you need to run 52 transit tube entrances or 31 molecular forges all at the same time. But you still need to break your grid up if you do that so it's almost useless.

[@EveloGrave]

No mention of Solar Panels? A shine bug reactor is a very nice way to generate power at the cost of a small amount of phosphorite and FPS. If you have a large vat of water you are willing to slightly heat up, can easily make it before cycle 200. Likely though the power generated will be minuscule until 100 cycles or so when you have had a sufficient amount of time ranching your shine bugs. If it weren't for the arrays I made it would have taken so long to get the Super Sustainable Achievement.

[@TheRodentMastermind]

You don't even need to feed them phosphorite, they can't starve over their life span, so once you have the required amount of Shinebugs in the glass water pens they will just lay a single egg and need no food.

[@EveloGrave]

@@TheRodentMastermind the food is for the ranch. Not those in the array.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I try and stay away from the free stuff, infinite storage, infinite pacu, infinite power. Personally I feel like it removes some of the fun. Though I got to give it to Brthgar that shine bug reactor is a very good practical power solution from what I'v seen.

[@LTL_king]

The wood burner may not produce as much power as coal gen but you have to factor in the amount of wood vs coal produced. You can produce wood with no maintenance. x trees on no harvest will keep a wood burner going longer. That's the balance they decided. I know not with your play style but there is a map with no hatches.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Hey I have used them, the CO2 they provide is great for keeping oxyfers running 24/7.

[@FerrybigGaming]

Wire overloading is only caused by the sum of "batteries --> output" and "generators --> output", you can have more than 1000 W of power generators if only batteries are connected (A transformer counts as an output and a generator)

[@HianDenka]

thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!! im a total newbie to ONI and your guides have been so so so useful for getting over the "what the heck is going on I died in 10 cycles" slump hAHAHAHAHAH I was close to scratching my hair out over my wires overloading

[@cheesewheellord1434]

Thankyou so much this is so difficult for me to wrap my head arround and you just explaned how do you coll everything

[@neilpavao7348]

OMG thank you, i was literally gonna ask you to do a power grid video.

[@sixstringninja666]

I think it would have made more sense to use fuse boxes instead of transformers. But its just a game lol and a great one at that

[@enricobianchi4499]

fantastic as always. i think you should do oxygen without electrolyzers next.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Not sure that is a thing, you will eventually run out of Algae and Rust. To get them from space requires O2 and you spend more than you get last time I checked the math. Electrolyzers are mandatory in any run that goes long enough. (You could use slime and pufts but the amount of pufts required would crash your computer)

[@jordsoo1]

Thanks for this video, made me realise the importance of transformers.

[@RandomMan1]

So one thiny I've started inlis using a power transformer in combination with a smart battery. This will shut off the transformer power draw and heat usage while the circuit isnt fully loaded. Its pretty great

[@jaroslavdzurilla5103]

When connected in parallel 2 × 1kw transformers = 2kw conductive wire 5 × 4kw transformers = 20kw heavy-watt wire Transformers also move power in only 1 direction. I always got annoyed that smart battery doesn't allow jumbo bateries to fully charge so I set up: generators + 1st smart battery -> transformer wall(enough to cover entire power production) -> jumbo battery battery -> 2nd transformer wall -> 2nd smart battery. To control the generators, have them on output of memory toggle with [set] input from 1st smart battery and [reset] input conected to 2nd smart battery through NOT gate. This set up should charge all jumbo batteries fully before turning generators off and have all batteries drained before turning generators on. Also considered using wattage sensor to monitor for when power consumtion spike over maximum power generation to turn generators on to give yourself more time to deal with it while using batteries as buffer to cover extra power consumption. Sensor could also be conected to automated notifier to alert you to the fact. But all that ignores heat production.

[@augustinesim1672]

what was that at 19:22 ,scared the crap out of me lmao

[@blazingfish8486]

*The beep*

[@ClayCGaming]

Having 2 power transformers of 1kw each sharing input and output wires will happily output 2kw onto your conductive wires :)

[@nickwilson3499]

20 mins in he mentioned it

[@aaronwalters5820]

@@ragil-ardi mmkay

[@roceythecatbg2846]

Those are some THICC tutorial nuggets!

[@warmaps78]

Just ended up binge watching your videos, and not the first time over the years. One thing I didn't see you do, but may have missed it, is a small matter of breathable air/O2 management. More precisely, I am still after 1200 hours not 100% on how I want to do my oxilite production rooms. Long story short, 16:31 I see only 4 vent pipes going out of this box. While 1 gas pump almost gives a max volume of air for a single vent pipe. So why 7 gas pumps with only 4 vent pipes? Your top gas pump only does hydrogen?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Gas pumps only move 500g/s and pipes carry 1000g/s so two pumps can fill one pipe. So the six bottom pumps will produce 3kg/s of O2 out 4 of the pipes. The top pump only has to remove Hydrogen and can't remember the number off the top of my head but it's less than 500g/s. That is what the 4th pipe is for.

[@warmaps78]

@@FrancisJohnYT Thanks for the explanation and yep ok I see what you were doing. Last question sorry, you manage to control the pressure to avoid having to use gas filters for O2/H2?

[@warmaps78]

@@FrancisJohnYT ran into a couple of your videos in the meanwhile explaining that in more detail so nevermind!

[@supercables251]

19:23 my ears :

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I need to get a new headset, this one does that sometimes I have no idea why.

[@G33KST4R]

I jumped so high lol

[@OscarChabrand]

yeah, ouch

[@Darion350]

@@FrancisJohnYT I just so happened to be scratching the right side of my head when that happened... Freaked me out, lol.

[@avder42]

So I have a bit of a different situation going on. In my base I'm using an aquatuner + 3 steam turbine setup on a cool steam vent to harvest said steam and cool it down to (plant) drinking water temperature before i send it into my main base. My main grid at the moment is subject to intermittent brownouts....I'm working on that. But since the aquatuner is what I consider to be mission critical infrastructure because of how water poor I am thanks to early game first playthrough mistakes, I have actually put some smart batteries -behind- the transformer and use the smart battery to turn the transformer itself off until it gets down to about 50% charge, at which point it reconnects to the main grid in order to draw off of that during non-brownout time to top off. Since I have the aquatuner running even between eruption periods cooling water, it builds up a lot of heat to such a point that when the eruption starts the three steam turbines actually generate, for a short period, more power than the aquatuner draws, and they often fill the batteries and keep them full until things cool off enough that their combined output drops below 1200 again. Since my main grid is experiencing intermittent brownouts, it would be nice to get that brief burst of energy positive production on to the main grid for use by the rest of the map rather than having it go to waste since the batteries on its grid are now charged. Is there any safe way for that to happen? Basically what I want to happen is if my isolated batteries get above say 98% they connect to the main grid and supply power to it until they drop down to about 95% or so. How is battery charging and battery draw handled in this situation where I actually want to cross grids? What loads are added to the other grid when one grids batteries draw from the other?

[@TheRealMartin]

Never through to use 2 small transformers to limit power to 2kw, that's brilliant.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Can be nice for a large intermittent system like 20 exo suits and several auto sweepers.

[@dickdailey189]

Wow! Again, the exact thing I was working on! You're reading my mind man! Thank you!

[@kamilpavelka2157]

The video is AWESOME! I love your narrative skills :) Thanks!

[@NamelessY]

yesss i needed to look for ideas for power distribution, i liked urs

[@teux01]

I never knew that batteries on the wrong side of a transformer had that effect. Time to redesign some power systerms.

[@mikehanks]

transformers create 1kdtu\s of heat, smart batteries only 0.5kdtu\s so making this combo and being carefull to limit the line of machines on the wire to a max of 2kj will give of less heat. i must say this video finally made it clear why people were being angry that the large transformer did 4kj instead of 2kj. making a conductive wire grid with more than 2kj of machines on it is never good. either you get damage or the safe way with the 2 transformer setup some machine won't get power. for some machines like cooling or bunker doors etc. i want them to be able to work whenever. ill choose the damage part, it will tell me i have to many machine on the grid that need power all at the same time so i need to expand.

[@orphanssong]

@@mikehanks So is the benefit of the heavy transformers being able to go up to 4kj of power more so that things aren't interrupted in function? For the longest time I've been trying to split it somehow with the 2kj wires to use 4kj of power on a heavy transformer the whole time without luck.

[@zotaninoron3548]

@@orphanssong You can use the heavy transformers for one way power flow onto the power backbone or battery bank. If you wanted to partition batteries on networks to build priorities. So the output of a heavy transformer might itself be heavy watt cable and not the conductive cable. Power was always drawn from the end most input of the transformer. So you could build a Power Source > battery bank A > transformer > Battery Bank B > Transformer > Consumer. And it will always draw empty from Battery Bank A before drawing from Battery Bank B. Which can have some useful applications. In this situation, you might want the whole 4k from the transformer.

[@S_Black]

You can have more than 2kW on a wire...as long as not everything is running at the same time. There are plenty of cases where some machines are running only a little here and there. Many autosweepers for example. Or some stations like exosuit forges.

[@burneden]

He covers this, you just run the risk of overloading IF everything runs all at once. One nifty trick around this is to set automation with a clock sensor, ie autosweepers set at different intervals making sure 120w are only consumed at any given time.

[@Overquoted]

I put batteries on the 'wrong' side of transformers, but.. I make sure the potential power draw isn't over the max of the wire. I don't want the heavy machinery drawing down all the power in my base should something go wrong or if I'm needing to edit my power grid. The batteries on the 'wrong' side gives me a little leeway in the living/dupe areas since they can't be drained from anything on the opposite side of the transformer.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I have used batteries on the far side of a transformer before, hooked up to back up coal gens. If the main power failed the batteries would start to drain and the back up power kicked in.

[@DrHlus1]

Can anybody confirm claim that batteries can accept any amount of power? I recall reading that all batteries accept up to 200W, so you'll need 4 batteries per coal generator to avoid wasting power (but it may have changed, not sure when). Thank you Francis for a great tutorial video!

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I tested 4 petroleum generators hooked up to a different amounts of batteries. Batteries accepted all the power regardless of how few there were. This was many months ago but I don't believe they have changed the behavior since.

[@DrHlus1]

@@FrancisJohnYT Great, thank you for your testing! I found the source I mentioned (oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Guide/Power_Circuits, section "Batteries"), my own experience also tells that batteries do not have charge speed limit.

[@sudarshansingh5806]

Oh my god dude... I've recently started following your channel and man are your tuits a gem! And kid you not, I was just wondering yesterday if you have a nice power management guide or no and voilà! Thanks for the high quality content bro! Gl going forward!

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Thanks, I got in to this for the tutorials.

[@engineer0239]

Fun fact: Batteries not counting as loads enables for very cheesy tactics. If you set up two smart batteries, so that one is always charging, while the other is discharging and then switch when they're done, the charging side never has any load attached. You can literally beam unlimited amounts of power over a 1kw wire. Of course the discharging side needs a few heavy watt wires to connect to transformers, but from there you can again use the cheap and pretty wire. I like my power spline to be a single 1kw line with multiple of these stations attached. Very cheap, very fast to build, no decor penalty. You can even daisy chain these stations, but you need to go through transformers again since batteries don't charge each other.

[@rotony1]

You are so funny. "we are back with a short tutorial" video 21:01 minutes. Thumbs up for the video.

[@TheVeryHungrySingularity]

Temporal Tear help us if he ever makes a long tutorial

[@FrancisJohnYT]

The target is 15 minutes every time, every so often I mange it.

[@Arkaon666]

11:03 isn't that red wite still bugging you XD

[@motivationlife381]

Whether it's bugging him or not it's bugging the heck out of me

[@FrancisJohnYT]

It's a save from two play through's ago, what ever it was I found and fixed it last time and finished the map. I need to learn to stop getting sucked into "fixing" things on maps I'm not even going to save when I'm finished demonstrating. Time management. Also it was from the SPOM setup, I put to much power draw on one of them and it could not produce enough hydrogen so it stalled. I just moved the water pump over to the other SPOM and....... GOD DAMMMIT every time.

[@aarbgick06]

Not gonna lie. I use the "bigger capacity" mod and modify the power cables portion because I absolutely HATE trying to manage power.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

No judgement, mod the game away. I'm going to have to do a run with all the QoL mods installed.

[@aarbgick06]

@@FrancisJohnYT it makes it much more relaxing and I can make the base look a lot cleaner which makes me less stressed. ;-)

[@lulabyte]

This is exactly what I needed, thank you

[@Pherenetic]

Thank you again for this very informative video! Keep it up :-)

[@christophersosa887]

How do you get a steady enough supply of petroleum and Natural gas to run 5 petroleum generators and 4 natural gas generators? Also how do you predict the power needs of your base and expand?

[@fruity4820]

Nowdays that i am a bit more experienced with the game, i tend to skip on the heavy watt and go straight to the heavy watt conductive wires, and its not even a matter of not wanting to bother with replaceing them in the future when 20kw isnt enough anymore, because i never got to a point where that wasnt enough, i just want the better decore. Plus, even with just one metal volcano, refined metal is cheaper than metal ore, i rather reserve my metal ore for rails (in my corrent colony i didnt refined any of my ore and got my first refined metal straight from a volcano, and i still ended up needing to use steel for some of my rails😅)

[@dakon2154]

Thanks for the tutorial. Compact and informative as always. I tried to put my generators in a "industrial sauna" but I had the problem that the polluted water my natural gas generators were producing was cooling the room so much that the polluted water won't turn into steam and collect at the bottom were my petroleum should be and was producing polluted oxygen that started collecting at the top. I had 4 natural gas generators together with 2 metal refineries, a rock crusher, 3 kilns and a bunch of batteries and preheated the room to 160°C before starting the generators. Now I am afraid to switch to petroleum generators because they produce over 10 times as much water. How do you manage to produce enough heat to evaporate all that polluted water? EDIT: I just read the wiki page again and might have been wrong to assume that the problem were the natural gas generators. How is the temperature of the output of polluted water actually calculated?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

The nat gas generators will output the water at 40C minimum or the temp of the power generator if it's hotter. But they will not allow outputs to state change, so assuming your nat gas generators are 160C the polluted water will be output at the just below boiling about 120C. It should only take a little bit of energy to make it boil and that is where the CO2 comes in. That will be output at the full 160C. Don't let the the generators sit in their own polluted water output this with instantly start cooling them down before the CO2 has a change to make the water boil. So mesh tiles beneath the water output. Also helps to have a few heat producing buildings in the sauna but you appear to have that already.

[@jaldarith]

Regarding decor floors: what tiles are you using that allow your decor to bleed through the deck? I've been following your mid-game hump setup, but the red and the green zones seem to cancel each other out... Unless I'm just not using enough decor.

[@S_Black]

Glass or diamond

[@jaldarith]

@@S_Black oh my. DUH. Thanks! I haven't researched into windows yet. Makes total sense.

Is there a way to Feed your main power grid with some steam turbines WITHOUT connecting them with Heavy-Watt wires? Most of the time these turbines would be part of Vent tamers and you would just be happy to tame the geyser but in respect to Min/Max these would always bother me. well of course you can always hook up some batteries to soak the steam turbine energy but you might still lose some power. You would lose even more with the simplest designs which dont include the Aqua-tuners like the ones you have done in your previous Tutorial. I have read some ideas about REVERSE connecting them to your main power grid with transformers so that you avoid all those negative decor and extra metal usage etc.. Maybe you could show that if it actually works or not ? I just never tried it myself....

[@mina86]

Use heavy wire (and vacuum seals to prevent heat transfer), regular/conductive wire and transformers in reverse as you've described or regular/conductive wire and don't connect to the main spine but rather to one of the 2k spines with a battery.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Have a steel transform in your volcano tamer steam room that connects back to your power spine, have the smart battery connected to it or a power shut on the output wire. When the battery is at 80% or above it turns "on" and allows excess power to be sent to your main grid. If the power dips below 80% it turns of and it saves power for the volcanoes systems.

[@MarcellodiSimone]

The slider on the coal generator controls when to order a dublicants to refill it, based on the percentage of coal that is in the generator, NOT based on how full the batteries are.

[@TheRodentMastermind]

I'm not sure that is the case, which could be why I was having real issues getting them to refill. His explaination would at least explain this, though I would have to test.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Hook a coal generator set to 5% up to a battery and nothing else. It will get one load of coal and fill the battery, once the gen runs our of coal no more will be brought to it until the battery has degraded to 5%.

[@MarcellodiSimone]

@@FrancisJohnYT Yes, with a smart batterie and an automation cable, not with the regular one... But I'll test it, however it would be completely contrary to how other stuff works and it's labeled "Fuel request threshold".

[@cspacer]

Thanks for a great tutorial! Exactly what I was looking for to build central power production. One question: 10:43. In your plug socket, you have heavy transformer connected to 2kw wires. I thought it ran the risk of overloading. Shouldn't you use 2 small transformers together? Or, are you just making sure that you don't connect more than 2kw power consumption in each socket?

[@keeperofdusk]

If you're still wondering, I believe that power generation will never overload wires. Wires only care about the total consumption of energy when it comes to overloading.

[@DarthPoyner]

Dear Lord. Your info is just about the best I can find, but OMG do you talk fast and don't pause. Makes it hard to keep up with your info when you are new to the subject.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

youtube tip, check out the speed controls under the cog symbol. Several people may have mentioned x.75 as a preferred listening method :) Though several others have recommended x1.5 speed.

[@timothypearson9728]

Can you demonstrate how to hook up a build that generates power but isn't always self powered, so you can both draw power from the main grid as needed and then disconnect and run on internal power battery(s) when it is power positive? For example a steam turbine/aquatuner setup where the turbine can't solely support the aquatuner but you don't want to waste the turbine's power when it's running and the tuner is not, and you don't want to have 2 connections to the main power grid (turbine -> transformer -> main grid, and main grid -> transformer -> aquatuner)

[@Redsammeh]

Just connect the steam turbine into your main power grid with heavy conductive wire.

[@timothypearson9728]

@@Redsammeh I don't always have the luxury of space that double conductor plate vacuum sealing requires to thermally insulate that. Looking for a creative automation solution.

[@defiantnight2668]

@@timothypearson9728 It's not easy, or at least not intuitive. Your best bet is cooling it if you can't insulate it, but if you can't cool it and can't afford a few tiles of vacuum either then you might not have the space to automate it either. It'll require at least two batteries or transformers, and some power shutoff switches to or away from them, only connect to the main grid if you need to draw in power or the battery is nearly full. Yes, this will mean that if a battery is nearly full or nearly empty, the power cutoffs will repeatedly flick off and on, so I recommend going into options and turning off automation noise when not in the overlay for it.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

This is unfortunately not my best example but the only one I could find kzbin.info/www/bejne/bYCwioytqNR9jbc All you need is a power shutoff and a couple of smart batteries.

[@veliablues2470]

Great video, i learned so much :) its really gonna improve my gameplay :)

[@melananighthawk]

Another very interesting video on power in ONI is kzbin.info/www/bejne/jn3Nhqujr814d5Y which uses automation and power shutoffs to toggle batteries between being connected to either generators or consumers but never both at the same time, with the battery pairs at the consumer locations rather than all around the generator locations. When connected to the generators they charge, but as a generator to battery connection only they cannot overload the wires in between (so no heavy watt/heavy conductive wires needed for the main spine - you can use the smallest plain wires). When connected to the consumers, you need to keep the consumer side to the 1kW/2kW as you would normally have done with transformers. Means you end up with more batteries than normal (more refined metal for those), but not as much material used for long power runs of heavy watt/heavy conductive wire and not as much decor penalties as you get for the heavy watt spine power grid.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Yeah I have seen that before, I never got into it as it felt a little un intuitive and a bit exploitative. It removes the usefulness of heavy wires entirely.

[@marcun666]

Klei should just add 2 kW Power Transformer, it would be nice quality of life improvement.

[@defiantnight2668]

Just use two small transformers next to each other

[@marcun666]

@@defiantnight2668 I do that but why waste space and get extra heat generation? For me 4kW is kinda useless so they might as well swap it for 2kW.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Agreed, would be a nice improvement, I can't think of any design that would be negatively affected by this.

[@wesleythomas7125]

I can never get my power grid to work. Once you need transformers, I can't keep up trying to keep it from melting down :(

[@raritykagamine4628]

15:15 you claim to have a mess of the power grid, but it's linier to me. what would be a refined/organized grid look like compared to this one?

[@Redsammeh]

You didn't mention solar panels! I know they're not the greatest, but I still think they're cool!

[@TheRodentMastermind]

Unless you use shinebugs then they can be totally broken. I have 15 of them running at max 380W permanently for no fuel cost, and they spawn lime for Steel.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Solar is awesome but to do solar without shine bugs I would have had to cover bunker doors and regolith management which is another video all to itself.

[@Foxtrot2F]

Very strange power connection solutions using serial battery connections when it needs to be parallel and vice versa.

[@karriepapa7192]

Ok transformers always buffled me but I dont understand what you mean in 20:45?The wire will overload on the large power transformers..thats the point..of using 2 small ones..What happens if I use 2 large transformers?The 2k wire will overload right?

[@karpa.183]

can you make a video about putting ice makers in a vacuum ? I think it's the best cooling solution for cycle 20-50. currently using it on a max difficulty playthrough on oasisse

[@FrancisJohnYT]

For early cooling you really only need to cool your plants, outside of that heat is usually not an issue. I have a nugget on heat management in the playlist.

[@karpa.183]

@@FrancisJohnYT yes but if you do the same challenge that gearhead gaming is doing then you run out of space in the starting biome

[@FrancisJohnYT]

@@karpa.183 That is a rough challenge, max difficulty, hot map, forced to accept lots of dupes. I would go mad, the amount of times I would have to pause and plan the next 20% of a cycle. I would hate that, I like a bit of flow to the game.

[@karpa.183]

@@FrancisJohnYT well it also comes with the benefit of making lots of refined metal

[@TheMule71]

I think power should flow much like liquids do, from transformers to consumers, at least where the tranformers are connected. Meaning you could connect 2 2kW wires to a single 4kW transformer with power flowing half on one circuit and half on the other. Instead they chose to make it one single circuit, so large transformers don't protect anything. That always puzzled me, 4kW transformers are clearly a design choice, they would have changed them by now otherwise, yet it's a choice nobody understands.

[@defiantnight2668]

Plenty of people understand it. It's an industrial version for use with heavi-watt wire and above.

[@TheMule71]

​@@defiantnight2668 See 19:16 in the video. We're talking about the 4kW output limit, with no 4kW wire in the game. If you understand it, please explain. When you really want to protect a 2kW wire, you have to use 2 1kW transformers. A 2kW large transformer makes much more sense. Also, right now you have to connect 5 of them to use 'heavy-watt wire are above". If that's the purpose, why doesn't it have a 20kW limit? That would protect a heavy-watt wire (20kW) connected to a conductive heavy-watt wire (50kW) in industrial applications. So, 2kW limit: it makes sense. 20kW limit: it makes sense. 4kW limit: no. Of course, I place no limit on people's creativity. Someone may come up with an idea to make the 4kW limit actually do something useful in the game. The point being: they really have to try hard.

[@LittleMew133]

Very informative, thanks

[@NikoKun]

Is it worth using the Power Control Station to Tune-up generators? Or is that just a waste of metal? Especially if we're turning generators on and off based on battery need..

[@dr.chimpanz.1324]

It can be really worth it. But only if you need power. If you don't need more power why waste metal. But if you need more power it's a good idea.

[@disappointedfather9394]

How the hell are you keeping your power room that cold? Heat's the only thing I'm struggling with, though it isn't causing major issues. I'm hoping to dig up to the surface and use radiant piping on the surface so that space cools it down. If that'll even be possible. Pretty new to the game. I'm about to start playing around with steam turbines, which help delete heat but they don't generate cold. Beyond the idea of using space, I don't know how it'd be possible to keep up with rising heat. We consume so many materials to produce power, and this generates so much heat, but there's no real way to trade resources for cooling. Not true cooling, anyway. Whatever option we have generates heat elsewhere.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Aquatuners combined with steam turbine allow you to delete massive amounts of heat. Once you get the hang of them you can freeze the map if you want. Did a tutorial nugget on them kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHLUZJ6Iid2fjZI

[@disappointedfather9394]

@@FrancisJohnYT Awesome will check it out

[@pronkel]

as always thanks for the video :)

[@FrancisJohnYT]

As always thanks for the thanks :)

[@furansisku]

Hi, it’s not really related to the video but anyway I have a natural gas geyser without the neutronium base(natural spawned) will it work ?.?.? I mean, I would need the power, the water and the carbon dioxide 😅

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Should work not a problem, might need to put some tiles beneath it but I'm not even sure that is necessary.

[@furansisku]

Francis John thank u 🤍

[@SoulStrikerX]

Would love to know what you can do with carbon dioxide geysers!

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Not a lot. It provides very little cooling due to it's low mass and heat capacity. As a resource you could feed maybe one or two slicksters. As it stands I consider them an unlucky spawn and move on.

[@romeokilo125]

very helpful thank you!

[@kristiankho]

Who else love sticking to the hamster wheel all the way through 200+ cycle?

[@phamdinhhoang1998]

does a normal jumbo battery leak out the power? or it is still a method of storing elec?

[@rugbyf0rlife]

"it's still early game with no metal refinement at 120 cycles." Me, a beginner player at 40 cycles with metal refineries and a hydrogren system and like 15 dupes

[@azulablue6988]

Me, when i lie.

[@devinrichters5609]

Could you put your plug ins on the surface of the map or is it not cold on the surface of the asteroid

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Hot asteroids drop out of the sky and dupe 350C regolith on you. You need to be careful of overheats on the top of the map.

[@mohitbhinge7794]

Why is it that every time someone makes a "quick" oni video its always 20 mins long lmao.

[@chesh05]

Or an hour.

[@MrJM0B]

Time passes incredibly quickly playing this game, I've never played a game quite like it! So 20 minutes is practically the blink of an eye

[@kelmor11]

I would really really like to hear their rational on the large transformer just being dumb. Its like its wrong just to introduce a fail mode.

[@defiantnight2668]

I don't understand. Nothing's wrong with it, it's an industrial amount of power usage. You're not supposed to hook it to somewhere that it'll overload, because assumedly you're reading all the text being shown to you.

[@kelmor11]

Small transformer matches the power max on the small wire. Large, doubles it. There is 0 value in that. Its not mechanically functional to try to use 4kw. There is not a method for that 4k to be reasonably used. Strictly from a mechanical perspective, its bad game design. It is inconvenient just to be a potential fail mode. It does not add any value. it does not improve game play.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

My view is would changing it to 2KW hurt any of the current builds out there? Would it make several other builds more viable?

[@kelmor11]

​@@FrancisJohnYT changing it to 2k , or making some kind of 4k wire would at least make it make sense and remove an unnecessary fail mode. That is not to say that it cannot be worked around. Anything can be worked around. I guess that not the type of comment I am intending. As a game designer myself, this is exactly the kind of "complication" that is bad design. Its confusion/complicated for its own sake and not to add value. I had heard there was some talk some time long ago that it was intended to have 2 outputs. If it did then the 4k would make sense and still leave the need to manage loads. That would be a good design decision that includes a failure mode. IMO of course :)

[@fannyjaramillo2362]

And the solar panel ? With shine bugs

[@FrancisJohnYT]

That gets into the territory of free stuff, I try to avoid that as usually the devs nerf it out. Then I have to remake the whole video.

[@MultiBlazingPhoenix]

Curious question FJ, is it more worthwhile to grab Dreckos to produce plastic, or a Polymer Press? From what I've seen Presses just produce lots of heat and costs a lot of power. Any insight on this?

[@Saktoth]

Polymer press produces large amounts of plastic for transit tubes, plastic ladders, etc. If you just need a little for steam turbines or small pumps then drecko is fine.

[@dr.chimpanz.1324]

​@@Saktothif you get dreckos early they are HUGE, I'm on cycle ~1600 and am very new to the game (110 hours) but those dreckos have given me nearly 200 tons of plastic and a unbelievable amount of phosphorite.

[@scars3596]

So is there any practical use for a large power transformer?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I usually use a main power spine design and run 2 KW wires off large transformers. It does not protect from overdraw but that is something I can live with.

[@scars3596]

@@FrancisJohnYT So sorry about the late reply, I just got this game and I'm addicted to this right now XD. This is all a bit confusing but is that what you meant about when batteries and transformers output electricity the wires will only ever take overdraw damage and not overload? I took an idea from the vid where you can use 2 small transformers to make up for a conductive wire but if thats the case then I can probably just be smart about the power consumption on the other end to reduce heat and whatnot.

[@Foxtrot2F]

Sure there is, you put large transformers in different parts of the base connected via heavy watt, then on each side distribute with smaller transformers and 1kw wire. Power room could be very scalable, you place 2-4 coal gens, 2 smart batteries, and 4-12 of jumbos for capacity, automation signals from your smart batteries controls your power gens, so it starts and shuts off accordingly. And you don't need to waste resources on expensive smart bats, just two of them and a lot of big jumbos.

[@Double_S2]

How do you cool down your powerplant? I'm guessing with liquid cooling

[@SwoggersLOL]

why use large transformers then if theyll always overload the wires?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Only if you put more than 2KW on them. In practice it's not to hard to keep wires below 2KW.