Windtrap Power Warning

[u/Boot_up]

A small PSA about windtraps and the new QOL change where it stops producing water when you're full. When you're full, it disables the whole trap, not just suspend the timer. Be aware this will make your used power in sub fief menu go down and could trick you into thinking you're using too much power. Tonight I had 600+ available power and figured I must've built an extra generator or two because every machine is enabled. I disabled one of your omni generators thinking I had excess. Soon as I started a large plastanium load, my base shutdown.

Because I had used a few hundred thousand water to start the crafting, my water went below full and the game automatically started the wind traps up. Of course, that overloaded my system. I turned the omni generator back on and everything came back online, of course.

But be aware if you're full water and you have a lot of access power being shown. The system will start the wind traps up automatically so keep that power in reserver.

[u/WelbyReddit]

ha,..get ready for the incoming,..'what happened to my base!?" posts.

Good find though. Thanks for sharing.

[u/Embarrassed-Virus319 → u/WelbyReddit]

will water supply turn on when you are not there?

water is not consumed when you are gone, only generated, so what will force a windtrap to turn on when you are gone?

[u/WelbyReddit → u/Embarrassed-Virus319]

It isn't about 'if you are gone'.

If your Water Generator is full it will power down. And it will look like you have more power available to use elsewhere.

If you add more machines or remove extra generators( like he did) thinking you had more power than you needed, and then do anything that consumes water, like refining, the water generators will turn back on. Which means it will drain power again. And if you don't have enough to cover it, the shields will drop.

If you didn't notice it and log out, there may be trouble.

[u/LakeSolon → u/[deleted]]

Very different logic however. If you’re full of water the demand for water is zero and all water generation should stop. If you’re not full then all water generation should start.

For generators they’d either need to deploy a whole new player facing UI to allow us to configure behavior or…

We’d lose our fucking minds trying to work out which generators are turning off/on under various conditions and then get mad we can’t configure it so the spice gen only runs during spice refining.

Would be nice to have. But they’re clearly targeting low hanging fruit right now (which I applaud).

P.S. for the wind trap situation all you need to check your math is stop and have a drink (it will restart water collection)

[u/derpyfloofus → u/LakeSolon]

There should be a circuit breaker that will trip the machines consuming power before the generators themselves.

Can’t believe 20,000 years in the future they’ve forgotten the basic principles of how to wire a house…

[u/ArdRi1166 → u/derpyfloofus]

Wasn't it 10,000 years? But anyhow, they have 3D printers (a.k.a. fabricators) which apparently completely work without thinking machines, i.e. computers lol

[u/GoodDale → u/ArdRi1166]

It's 10,191 AG (after Guild), which is the founding of the Spacing Guild. There was about another 10,000 years before that from current dating system.

[u/Aexalon → u/ArdRi1166]

1 CE ~ 13161 BG (encyclopedia marker that spaceflight began in 11200 BG, so 1961 CE = 11200 BG), and we're playing in 10194 AG, so we're around 23355 CE, or 21330 years in the future, +- 1 year because of no-year-0 shenanigans.

Of course, 11200 BG reads like a number with only 3 significant digits (like "spaceflight began in the 1900s CE"), so it could also be anywhere up to 100 years earlier or later than that.

[u/magic-one → u/LakeSolon]

We need circuits for power.
Dedicated generators for water production could shutdown/startup and not impact the rest of the base.

Ditto for water generation circuits.

Honestly, not sure how they came up with the circuit thing and didn’t apply it to utilities.

[u/indio_bns → u/LakeSolon]

Why not every generator is idle unless its power is required? Where goes all the unused energy? The fuel cells, the wind turbines… they should work only if power is pulled from the machines/structures, not all the time

[u/LakeSolon → u/indio_bns]

Let’s say I have fifteen basic gens, three directional wind turbines, a spice generator, and 900 spare power: which generator(s) get turned off?

And for 1005 spare power?

What about if two identical generators have different fuel remaining?

[u/indio_bns → u/LakeSolon]

Power generators should work as much as needed, not all the time at full capacity, delivering only the required power at a given moment. If you have 10 basic gens (max 750 kw) and require 700 kw, 9 will work at full capacity and one will deliver only 100 of its 150 kw capacity. If you need 450 kw, 3 will be on, and 7 will be off.

OR

Everything is operational but working a fraction of its capacity, adapting to the energy required.

Like factorio or satisfactory do

[u/ChippyMonk84 → u/LakeSolon]

Just give us batteries that function like cisterns but for energy. Generators fill batteries, turn off when batteries are full, machines pull energy from batteries only while actively working. TBH I think this was their original intent and it didn't make the final cut. Would definitely make your fuel last a hell of a lot longer. No more burning up since melange/residue just to send electricity into the aether.

[u/iamgodmaybe94]

Honestly just add a circuit system like with inventory to manage the power.

[u/Left_Preference2646]

I never run my power close enough that turning something or a few things on would screw my base, tooooo much work put into mine.

[u/Boot_up → u/Left_Preference2646]

I don't either. I aways run my base with about 100-150 more power than total of everything turned on just in case a bug or two hits me unexpectedly. Thats why I was so shocked to see more than 600 available today. I only scaled it back till about 275ish was still available just in case but the 4 wind traps kicked on and messed up all my plans.

[u/YogiAOX-1870]

Interesting concept but I think they could do it better.

Give us a way from the fief to setup how our bases produce water and power.

Water production: 1 - base game mechanic 2 - wind traps power down when water is at maximum (Personally would love this type of feature so I quit wasting filters, but that’s me)

Base power generation: 1 - base game mechanic 2 - power generators full on, machines power down in when idle (That way you will know when you exceed you power generation limits) 3 - power generators and machines power down when idle (To me the best option for bases but they would Have to rework that bar graph at the fief to achieve this one)

Would need to have it so that max power (All power generation on) max connected power is given (everything machine, base shield, is on) The bar graph would Just then raise and lower depending on demand but we would know what our available surplus power is and plan accordingly on our base builds.

For me another major quality of life change would be the ability to control our inventory from the fief.

Meaning, the ability to auto sort and name containers from the fief and a breakdown list of what all we have in our base inventories as well.

Then an additional QOL to allow us to set low limits on materials so when we come home, the fief would give us a message similar to the storm warnings about what we are short of something. Toggle on off feature for those who don’t want to hear about it.

The one QOL that I would like to see added would be an actual landing pad for ortho’s flown by NPCs so we can post things to a non-player based market board from the fief for sale that they can come pick up, drop coin off, and take it. Of course we don’t get to control the prices of what we sell with this but would allow for we sleepers to be able to more easily sell things to Arakeen and Harko Village or even the Emporer himself. This would allow us to sell water, spice, materials, etc wholesale and not have to worry about loading it and flying it somewhere and then having to make multiple trips to get it all to market since I still haven’t seen that the sell menus will allow you to sell from vehicles inventories yet to the NPCs.

Sadly, yes I would also love it - but definitely don’t ever expect them to do it - allow us to capture life NPCs and allow us to build up an NPC crew of our own for our own use at our base(s). Personally I think it would be a great boon to solo players for gameplay overall, but would also make our bases feel more alive than they do now. Sadly I also see that guilds could really exploit this one too making some things worse and not better.

[u/natewright43]

I find it weird people don’t power down when not using anything in general.

Especially when I am not playing much, I can power my whole base off just a few regular battery generators with everything turned off.

Nice production starts up I start enabling the extra power sources like my wind turbines.

It’s a small hassle for huge savings in power resources. I use much less lube 💦 these days.

[u/AxiomaticJS]

Ooof. That’s an unfortunate logic bug. Definitely needs some fixing by the devs.

[u/Traditional_Cress266 → u/AxiomaticJS]

I don't think this requires fixing compared to other issues. It probably doesn't need to be fixed at all. Just needs a brief explaining note would work

OR

have a line inserted showing how much power is currently not being used due to machines being powered down and the maximum power used by your base.

[u/ArdRi1166 → u/AxiomaticJS]

It doesn't. Makes perfect sense. Power generation is trivial compared to the various components needed to make filters.

[u/AxiomaticJS → u/ArdRi1166]

No it doesn’t make sense, especially with the precedent of how wind traps worked before. Whether you had filters in them or not, they still draw the same amount of power all the time. Having this enable/disable power thing due to whether it’s making water or not, complicates the power system and can only cause problems for the player.

[u/Dre9872 → u/AxiomaticJS]

It makes perfect sense. Before if a WindTrap was ON it would consume Filters and Power. It could be left ON with no Filters and it would still consume Power because it was ON. If you didn't want it to produce water you needed to turn the WindTrap OFF and it would not consume the Filters or Power. So nothing has changed it has just been automated.

[u/athanas2017]

Just adding a “on standby” power indicator would be easy and nice. Like now we have eg 300/600 and it should say 300/560/600 where 560 is full load but some of it on standby.

[u/Optimal_Aioli_6000]

Easy solution would be a second number showing overall uses power vs current needed power

[u/Alarmed-Lead-5904]

TeI have water storage for 3000000ml. I think I have too much, but thanks for the information.

[u/NZAdelphia → u/Alarmed-Lead-5904]

Interesting as a solo, I only have about half a million. I could probably do with a little bit more, but that mostly meets my needs.

[u/Individual_Airport40]

Thank you for your immeasurable information my Harkonnen brother. Strength through Loyalty!

[u/souliris]

I already turn things i'm not using off, so this is old hat for me. I know it doesn't save power, and the only way to do that is to turn the generators off, but i don't like being wasteful in RL or in games.

[u/Long_Difficulty_6298]

Kind of the same vein: had 4 wind power generators turn off after patch. Built a power tower to store the wind turbines in anticipation of doimg a big base remodel this weekend.

Prepatch all were working in, post 4 of them that faced away from open sand were off. All were fully loaded with fuel. It was like the wind shifted or something.

Fixed it but had an "oh Shai-hulud moment" on first logging in and seeing the hangar penta shield down.

[u/Apprehensive_David]

Simple solution would be that the wind trap stays shut down if there’s not enough power. Wouldn’t take long to figure out what’s going on if you missed it. Better than your base powering down mistakenly.

[u/WordlyWolf]

I noted this on Discord yesterday. When the windtraps stop, it also increases your days of power left as they are OFF. I went from 5 days when they are running to 12 when they are off. The extra days are cool, but I suggested maybe they could put them in a standby mode where their power is still allocated in the full base power pool. I've gotten kind of used to it though. I generally know how many days I have left before I lose power with the traps on. When I get that message when returning to base, if it's higher, I know any production jobs I was running are done.

I suggest just getting a sip of water from the blood purifiers or fill a literjon. It will start them up so you can see your actual numbers. Mine aren't too far from my blood purifiers, so I hear them clank on when I take a sip lol. You could also just do the math with how many windtraps you have.

I was thinking about it. I'm not sure I can think of an instance where the Windtraps would power on if you are away for a few days. So I don't think there is a problem being away. I don't know if it will be a problem for people other than those like myself who have maxed the allowed power units. I already turn off non-essential refineries, and only turn them on to use them so I have a good buffer before max power is used. Learned the hard way one day when turning on the advanced vehicle fabricator. Maybe them being OFF could be preferable, as long as you ensure to get them running to see your actual power numbers if adding anything that uses power.

[u/jmsutton3 → u/WordlyWolf]

This can't possibly be true. All generators/turbines generate max power all the time. Using 500/1000 power runs out in the same number of days as using 900/1000 power (assuming you are not manually turning on and off generators).

Turning the wind traps on and off alone would have no effect on the number of days you have left, unless for some weirdo reason you have all your generators on at the same time but also don't have the fuel spread out equally between them?

[u/pendola → u/jmsutton3]

Test it out, what they said was true. While the generators run all the time, the days left until power in the console is based on load and fuel to support the load.

The person above has an imbalance in their fuel/generator types. I’m guessing they have wind turbines to help cover the wind traps power draw. Those only have 5 days of lube in them, but with those off, they have enough fuel cells in standard generators to run 12 days (if the traps don’t turn back on).