Energy consumption distribution question

Xanzoken

Hi guys,

I've been playing for a while and I'm a big fan of deep sea bases, specifically in the northern Blood Kelp biome. Now I've been powering these bases exclusively with Nuclear Reactors and Bioreactors, but I haven't been using much power, just basic fabricator use and keeping the lights on. I would like to start using spotlights but their constant power drain is a bit of a concern.

My question about this is, how does Subnautica prioritise where the power is drained from? I know each power generator has a buffer of power (e.g. Nuclear Reactor has 500, Bioreactor has 100?) and it's added to a total that the base has. Does this total represent a total pool of energy that the base has at its disposal or is it just a number of the buffers combined?

I noticed when I built my first Bioreactor in my most recent base and it was still charging up, when I used the fabricator I'd notice the power drop, and then it'd charge back up quickly, presumably through the Nuclear Reactors.

Does this mean that different power draws prioritise drawing from different power sources? If I was to build a few spotlights, would they be draining from limited resource fuel supply of Nuclear Reactors, or from my 'renewable' Bio Reactors? Would they drain from both in a balanced way?

If they're not a single resource the base draws power from, how is it prioritised? Does the last constructed generator bear the majority of the power demands?

tl;dr: do bases prioritise power from renewable energy source first before going to other sources, or is it based on chronological build order, or something else?

I'm sorry if this has been answered before, I've searched and had a look at the wiki but couldn't find an answer.

e4envy

You're right that each power source holds a certain amount of energy - adding multiple will increase the total amount of energy available to be stored in your base, but it does not all stack into one 'pool'. Each power source can only provide power in total to it's capacity; if you have a solar panel and an inactive nuclear reactor, only 50/550 power will be generated/stored because that is the capacity of the solar panel. On the other hand, if it is night time and you have an active nuclear reactor, you will get 500/550 power but never more because the nuclear plant cannot hold any more than 500 energy.

If this doesn't make sense, it can be easily shown by activating either only your bioreactor or nuclear reactor.

I find it unfortunate because most of the time a lot of the power generated by your nuclear reactor is wasted - it is impossible to build extra power sources to increase the total reserve for your base. I think it'd be great if there was a module you could built that will increase the total capacity of a power source.

MrRoarke

The shown power is the buffer, or a capacitor of sorts. It's what's immediately available. Bioreactor I think shows 100, nuclear reactor shows 500. However, the fuel tank holds considerably more than what is currently "on tap". Each fuel source has a number of energy points that it contains. The reactor will consume these points, and as the total number for each fuel type is consumed into the buffer, it will disappear from the fuel tank. It should be fairly easy to figure out what the individual fuel points all the bio fuels contain, with a little bit of patience and trial and error.

For the nuclear reactor, each fuel rod holds well in excess of 500 points. I don't know how much (haven't tried to look it up). Again, as you consume energy, the reactor will draw more points from the fuel source until it is depleted.

Now, to your actual question: prioritization. Short answer: I'm not sure.

Longer answer: I have long thought that the appliances pulled from the nearest power source. I had one base with multiple power sources (this was several updates ago): Solar, bio, thermal. Before I installed the bio reactor, the base drained the solar panels first before draining the thermal plant. I thought this was because the solar panels were considerably closer (only one power transmitter away) than the thermal plant (two power transmitters away). Once I installed the bio plant (this was back when they were an external power source) right on the other side of the wall from my fabricator, the base began draining that before anything else, meaning I was constantly having to refuel the bio reactor while the solar and thermal plants were never touched.

I haven't reconfirmed this with the new builds yet. In any case, I feel like the power sources should be prioritized by most-renewable to least renewable in the order of solar, thermal, bio, nuclear.

I'll have to do an experiment to test the theory.

J

MrRoarke

Oh, and I almost forgot: Sea Treader Poop is the best biofuel I've personally used. It lasts forever. Somebody over on the wiki said that hatched fishes do better, with a hatched reefback lasting the longest.

This page has a list of fuel points:

http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Bioreactor


The wiki also says a reactor fuel rod contains 1200 energy. So there you go. Wiki to the rescue.

Xanzoken

Proximity being a factor isn't something I had considered! That is an interesting thought.

Doing an experiment to determine will be tough, I think. I was thinking about having a very low power environment and fabricating a lot of pregathered resources to drain power quickly, and then check the various power generators to see what their internal buffers were at. The problem is that some power generators don't display their own internal buffer of power, so you'd have to rely on using low power biofuel for the bio reactor, and checking solar powers / thermal plants.

Edit: oh, a good way to quicly drain power would be to charge a bunch of drained powercells in a seamoth that's docked in a moonpool, I'll have to try that.

Sidchicken

I prefer to use solar/thermal power, and therefore not have to worry about fuel.

WhiteFox77

Now that I think about it, proximity makes sense. I am strugling with this right now. My base uses solar with a bio that's supposed to be a backup, but it's draining the bio first. I wish it was prioritized based on type. Solar should always drain first, then thermal, then bio, lastly nuclear.

Osydius

MrRoarke wrote: »

Oh, and I almost forgot: Sea Treader Poop is the best biofuel I've personally used. It lasts forever. Somebody over on the wiki said that hatched fishes do better, with a hatched reefback lasting the longest.

This page has a list of fuel points:

http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Bioreactor

The wiki also says a reactor fuel rod contains 1200 energy. So there you go. Wiki to the rescue.

I have to say I find the energy per item distribution to be very troubling... I mean if you want to get the most out of your Bioreactor, you have to breed Reefbacks and then feed the babies to the Bioreactor...

This is so weird coming from a game that wants us to be one with the ecosystem and is so concerned with the use of violence ingame (which I think is a cool design for this game).
"We don't want you to kill the fauna... but hey, you can make your own and feed the babies to a reactor if you like, that's cool"... so strange.

Certain rare pieces of flora (such as the Sea Trader Manure or other ressources found deep in the ocean) should be providing the most amount of energy imho, not fauna.

gunmetal563

I haven't really set anything up too deep yet for the moment I place my starting base in the shallows near life pod 19

their is a spot with the likeness to a sandbar where I build a solar farm just above the surface and the panels get maximum sunlight,
which as it seems is the only light source they make power from (they don't seem to draw anything from bioluminescent plant life that you build near to or plant near to with the planter

WylieK

Keep in mind that power sources will drain to depletion in the same order as to the order they were built/crafted till the next power source type kicks in to contine power production. Multiple power source type and different sources ( ie Solar, Bioreactor, Nuclear Reactor) increases total available power upto thier capacity. Note Capcity is dependent on fuel source and availability as well as the current demand of power.

DarthOmnis

Please try to avoid necro-ing a thread. The last post was in 2016 and since then changes have been made to power systems in the game.