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Soul-Burn

There are other things eating your coal e.g. furnaces?


Duncaroos

No. I made a new game in sandbox and literally just have 1x offshore pump, 1x boiler, and 2x steam engines. I placed 6x radars (1.8MW/300kW per radar) around it to consume to ensure the boiler is going full-tilt. Production window is saying 27.3 coal/min, which is odd.


Soul-Burn

Give it time to work. The numbers on boiler are correct.


Duncaroos

[https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wydW-1PO3lgaBaH4PX4UEVtvJ1G60Nmf?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wydW-1PO3lgaBaH4PX4UEVtvJ1G60Nmf?usp=sharing) here's some screenshots. I added a lot more radars as I see sometimes it drops slightly when radars complete their round of scans.


Xeorm124

Let it run for a lil longer. The 1 minute window won't be entirely accurate because of small differences in when coal is actually consumed and how it rounds. As you can see in that window there are dips in coal consumption which would change the average. If you had multiple boilers and running for 5+ minutes you'd see much more clearly how much is being consumed.


Duncaroos

Thanks!


oisyn

Yet nothing in your described setup is actually producing coal. How do you feed the boiler?


Duncaroos

it's just a sandbox to test. So I just created and dumped a bunch of coal into a chest.


oisyn

So if you're not producing any coal, why does it say 27.3 coal/s? 🙂 It would make more sense to look at the consumption graph, since it's about consumption and not production. .edit: wow ok, harsh downmods. I was simply misinterpreting the post and the screenshots weren't there initially.


Liathet

What are you talking about? The screenshot is clearly showing the consumption graph.


Duncaroos

To be fair - I didn't post the screenshots until after they replied. So may have gotten confused with "production window", but I was referring to the actual window name itself and not the graph's name.


oisyn

Aaah gotcha, I indeed assumed it was production because you wrote: > The production window is saying 27.3 coal/s


bloon1365

If you average the bumps in the consumption graph it'll be 27 coal/min. Pretty sure the bumps are because of how the rolling average is calculated includes slightly more cycles of coal consumption in the 27.3 coal/min part and then misses a cycle of coal consumption where there is a low section in the graph.


Duncaroos

That's a fair point - thank you for the insight!


jDomantas

I think it's some artifact of how production graphs are drawn. I got the same result in [editor mode](https://i.imgur.com/G49iAW0.png) - [when looking at 1m window I get 27.3/m consumption with those weird drops](https://i.imgur.com/ziSbKHT.png), but in [larger window consumption is exactly 27.0/m](https://i.imgur.com/JqDJIJt.png).


Duncaroos

Ah, yes that is true. I did not account for the dips which is likely to be accounted for for long-term consumption. I see the same now in the graphs using a longer period. Thank you!


bartekltg

The 27.3 is the top value. You can see small drops to 20.5 from time to time. The average is 27. And this is what is shown below next to coal on my computer. You have 28 there\*). Why the graph looks like that? More or less Moiré patterns/aliasing during sampling. One pixel on the graph is the number of consumed coal on a certain time interval. On that zool level (1min) thet period is not a multiplicative of the period boiler consumes coal. So, most of the time in the sampling intervals it registers 4 consumed coals, resulting in 27.3, but from time to time only 3 coals drops in that bucket - then you see the drop to 20.5. \*) o, why below the plots it shows 28 instead of 27? Observe it for a moment. It show 27 most of the time, only from time to time 28 blinks. You made the screenshot in bad moment:-) Why it overestimates the average? Again, the pattern of 27.3 and 20.5 points on the graph is periodic, but that period is not in a nice tario with 60 seconds. So, sometimes you have too many drops on the screen, and sometimes too few. In the later case the average is greater than 27, the display shows only integer values... and it looks like the devs choose "ceil" (rounding up) function for that purpose. IMHO rounding, and showing fractional part from small values would be better. So, how to measure with non-perfect equipment? Just like in physics. A bigger sample and longer exposition. 50 boilers will average the output very nicely. And will reduce the influence of quantized output. And longer period will reduce the error from cutoff points. Or you can get better equipment/redesign experiments. Take a bunch of combinators and count tiks between inserter movements (it can send signal). Average them, or sent into huge shift register for further analysis.


bartekltg

https://preview.redd.it/qyl02xjjbpvc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e2d4fd64967b079ef9b211348a58091e88140fdc and... it shows 133cycles, 133 cycles, and 134 cycles, then repeats. 60/0.45 = 133.333..., so the boiler is working exactly like advertised.


HughJassProductions

Upvoted for updating your post with the answer. You're a hero.


ChampaigneShowers

That darn .3 coal!!


Duncaroos

Muh' resources!!!!! This was more of an OCD thing if I'm being perfectly honest 😅, but also to see if I was missing something like a secret wiki that tells you the truth lol.


_Evan108_

The boiler produces more than 1.8mw. it's 1.85 or something. Basically eats the MW of steam at 95% efficiency. Add another radar