Minor Solars can become grumpy about charging if you set them too high

[locusts]

This has been a problem for a while now. If you set the solars beyond a certain input level (I don't have an exact figure but I estimate it around 70,000) they switch from charging to not charging, and will never ever turn back. Which makes them useless for the round!

[Cirrial]

Yeah I've been informed that this is intentional in the past. The idea is that the SMES units don't accept input of anything lower than what they're set to, so you need to set it to something reasonable that the input will be above while being high enough to get as much power as possible.

I knew how it worked for the output amount, but until I heard that a lot of how SMESes worked was beyond me. Output caps the out, input sets the minimum threshold to start charging. I guess thinking of it it makes no sense for input to cap the in, otherwise why not just set it to max all the time?

So yeah, not a bug unless they never charge again if you lower the input level.

[Mordent]

I've never bothered with proper power management on Cogmap2, but on Destiny (where rounds regularly last 3+ hours) I can state with some authority that the following setup works wonders and nigh-on indefinitely:

Port solar SMES: 110k in, 109k out
Starboard solar SMES: 110k in, 41k out

The starboard SMES is used first, so it hits its output cap of 41k, with the excess (about 40k under normal load, with spikes due to manufacturers/telescience) going to the port one. The charge duty cycle is sufficient to keep the power level steady, and actually slowly increasing.

Of course, if someone messes with the wiring (like hotwiring it) or whatever then all bets are off and you can definitely damage the power output irreparably.

[Forthwrong]

I'm pretty sure that as of a few weeks ago, setting up the solar SMESs to 85k/40k (north) and 95k/50k (south) maintained power indefinitely in cog2; I've definitely seen 100% station areas powered at the end of reasonably long rounds with those settings without a running engine. Even though the wiki says that setting the south one higher than the north one would drain the grid of energy.

I'd love to know how the power grid actually works.

[locusts]

Maybe I wasn't being clear enough, it's not that they stop working if you set them too high, it's that they never charge again even if you turn them down.

edit: It's not consistent though, I just tested it and one started charging again and the other didn't.
edit2: Now that I toy with it a bit, you can sometimes get them to start up again if you turn output off but even that's not consistent, so I guess this needs to be reduced to a minor bug.

[atamusvaleo]

Maybe I wasn't being clear enough, it's not that they stop working if you set them too high, it's that they never charge again even if you turn them down.

edit: It's not consistent though, I just tested it and one started charging again and the other didn't.
edit2: Now that I toy with it a bit, you can sometimes get them to start up again if you turn output off but even that's not consistent, so I guess this needs to be reduced to a minor bug.

Could the issue be that the "sun" is in a position that the station blocks the solars?

[UrsulaMejor]

Could the issue be that the "sun" is in a position that the station blocks the solars?

Yes.

Nothing about this thread seems to be a bug, it's just how power inputs and solars were coded to function