Power Sources not Showing Correct Wattage Usage.

[ricp]

Could people do me a favour and sanity check this please? I want to raise a bug but need to make sure I'm not being an idiot here (..there is a high chance!). Thanks in advance...

For reference, this is the most recent stable branch build, version 1.1 b14 and this bug is relevant for all power sources; battery bank, generator, and solar panels (with cells).

TLR; In short, even if you turn off the item being powered, it still shows the power being used.

:: Image 1 - Battery Bank ON, Lights ON, Switch ON ::

I have two lights connected to the switch, the switch is itself connected to the battery bank. The power usage is, as expected, 15w -  2x lights @ 7w each, 1 switch @ 1w.

:: Image 2 - Battery Bank ON, Lights OFF, Switch ON ::

As you can see, the two lights are off, and the switch remains active. Lights when switched off show 0w usage, which is different to a switch as it reports 1w usage whether it's switched on or not. As I have the switch on, and the lights off, you could argue the lights take 1w each to match the logic of the switch where it's still pulling a little power despite not being active. Either way, even if you factor in some residual power going to the turned off lights, the battery bank is still showing full wattage being used, 15w. This should be at minimum 1w (and perhaps 3w as discussed above).

:: Image 3 - Battery Bank ON, Lights OFF, Switch OFF ::

Finally, I turn the switch off, and now the battery bank is showing the correct wattage use, 1w, for the switch.

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This seems to be a visual bug, as in my current playthrough I have a solar bank/cell setup that provides less power than is being drained from the system, yet that system is set up to use timers so not all items drain power at the same time. So in my game it's regularly reporting using more power than it's actually generating.

Just to confirm, this is not an issue with the way the solar panel/cells work. In my tests I have isolated all three power sources, used them independently then daisy chained them in different configurations, however I get the same results.

I will raise a bug for this if others agree there is an issue here, it's not game breaking as it seems to be a visual bug, but it is confusing.

 

[SylenThunder]

 

[ricp]

I appreciate the quick reply but the first paragraph is clear, I wish to have people do a quick sanity check to make sure I'm not doing anything stupid before I report a bug.

As a dev myself, I consider it worse to report a "non-bug" and waste developers time, than it is to wait while people double check something that could be a bug but isn't a game breaking one.

Also, did you move this to the General Support forum, or is this where I started it? Honestly don't know, but I would have preferred it to be in general discussion purely because it would get "more eyes on" and thus speed up any bug reporting. That said, it's totally possible I started the thread in this subsection, and not general discussion.

That said, the bottom line is, you are a mod here and what you decide goes. If you want this thread in here, then here it goes..

 

[seven]

It has worked this way for a long time, since A19 at least.

The way I have understood it is that that lower value isn't the actual power being used, but the power needed for all the devices in the circuit if they are on. That way you know if it will overload the power source. When the switch is ON, then the potential power needed is 15W. With the switch off the lights are disconnected and no longer in the circuit so potential power needed is only 1W for the switch.

So, I think it's more a tool to make circuit design easier rather than adding up all the W values yourself.

 

[NekoPawtato]

This is a known bug and we have a ticket for it already, thanks for the heads up though  

For reference it is "electric consumption remains same with devices on/off by using the "E" to turn off devices" in the Buffs and Blocks tab on the known issue list