biomass burner should only consume resources when there is a load on the system

Question

the biomass burner always consumes resources even if there is no load on the system (IE: no power draw).  The biomass burner should consume resources proportional to its load.

Comments

i am asking for this because i found myself running around to all my biomass burners to turn them off when i was modifying my resource network.  i didnt want to waste "fuel" when there was nothing for the burners to power.

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My gasoline generator burns fuel even if nothing is plugged in. It needs turned off to not use any fuel. Yeah it's a game and not real life, but these games lack enough realism as it is. All just my opinion, you might not agree :)

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Dont really agree. I think to do this takes away part of the planning.  Besides doesnt take that long to switch to coal anyway.

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I would highly prefer a central turn off button for serveral marked generators. It would not cost any resources of the cpu and can be relatively easily implemented.

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Also the tractor burns fuel when I'm not driving it so I have to empty the tank whenever I park it.

Answer 1

That is how they function. As the load requirement goes down, so does the fuel burned until the burners are just animated but nothing is actually being consumed. If you are still seeing a power loss, build a new plant somewhere and toss in just a few burnables and attatch something on standby. I'm betting you still had something attatched somewhere that was causing the draw.

All three? times I ripped apart my base and re-orginized it, one of the first things I set up was power, including slamming them all with fuel. They all remained at the same fuel level as I begain connecting the rest of the factory until something was actually being produced.

Cheers,

-Eld

Comments

Great to hear your discoveries Eld, I always thought the animation meant fuel was being used - interesting and good to know that fuel is being burned proportionate.

Especially when you need to online an entire new power plant for 1 more small item, saves wasting fuel on the extra overhead.

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Yes. I noticed this when I had kept putting fuel into two of my burners on different circuits with roughly the same amount and then one had used more than the other every time. Final time I really paid attention was when I bootstrapped a coal miner -> coal factory with a biomass burner and when I disconnected the miner from the burner it stopped consuming biomass.

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same i tested this as well.

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Is the confusion just that the leaf drop animation never stops: https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/141/placing-biomass-burner-standby-doesnt-halt-leaf-drop-effect ?

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What is great for me is that it is still a leaf animation regardless of what fuel you put in it. Leaves, wood, biomass, biofuel... still leaves falling.

Answer 2

makes sense, because this is the way how electricity works.

Power plans measure the frequency and in- or decrease the production of electricity.

+1 to add to make the game more realistic

Comments

No, no it's not. That's literally the opposite of how electricity works. While the *available* power is always the same the electrical draw is different for electronics in standby mode (TV for example). They do not use the same amount of electric even when switched off. A simple test with a power regulator will tell you this and while things *do* still draw electric when in standby it's a lot less than when fully functional. While a lot of our everyday electronics these days are never fully off, as most just enter standby mode, it's still not using as much as something that's fully operational, and for this device that *do* switch fully off they don't use any, though the adapter itself may still drain a little energy. That said, tests were done and even by fully unplugging them and stopping the power leech, it only saves an average of £20 annually.

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Sorry if you missed the "/s" in my post denoting sarcasm. The first part of my comment was a joke and rather elementary.

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Ah, I see, honestly I wasn't quite sure what that was, assumed it was a typo. I make them all the time myself, I usually correct them, but some still get through. :)

My apologies then, I have met, and worked with, people who might have thought that's how electric worked, so please forgive me for misunderstanding.

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Hi, I have just had a holiday in a small hotel that has a biomass system and it has a built in monitor to adjust output to demand.

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Good for you?

Answer 3

Time to close this one?

Biomass burners do indeed stop consuming fuel when there is no load. Might have been added after this question was posted but either way they work as this question suggests they should. Case closed.