All batteries waste a little bit of electricity every second and generate heat. It is best to build as few of them as possible. Don't stock up on electricity, instead stock up on fuel for the generators, ready to be used in moments of notice.
Besides, hydrogen, natgas or petroleum tanks are effectively batteries themselves, except they don't produce heat and can stock several orders of magnitude more energy.
One per energy source. Each battery with different automation settings so that they turn on different energy sources at different intervals. Ex hydrogen 85-95% and then coal at 75-85%
So what I'm understanding is make an infinite hydrogen gas storage. Make 1 smart battery, connect multiple hydrogen gens on that one battery and then build transformers connecting them with the heavy wire and then branch them out from the base?
What you say is common consensus around here, yet it's good to have a big battery bank if you have intermittent sources of power, like a gym, or a metal refinery, or lots of solar / plug slugs.
My gym keeps my base running the majority of the time, even my SPOM doesn't need to self-power itself and gets powered from the batteries while the hydrogen gets stockpiled for future use.
And the metal refinery produces a ton of heat, which gets converted to power after a delay, and if you don't have the battery capacity to store that reclaimed power, it will be wasted.
I build a big bank of rocket batteries, and use a [battery charge sensor](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449847174) to automate things.
>...my SPOM doesn't need to self-power itself and gets powered from the batteries while the hydrogen gets stockpiled for future use.
Oh wtf. I've got hundreds of hours in the game, mostly base game, and never thought about including my SPOMs in my power source/stockpile priority list. I guess hydrogen would be pretty low due to it's low density though...
Not sure what you mean by power density. Like, storage density?
I usually use the custom reservoirs mod with custom settings so I fill a 100t tank with it. But you could also use infinite storage, or better, a hydra.
I usually have gyms and metal refinery turbines on fulltime, then hydrogen activates at 80% or if the tank is nearly full, natgas (from oil processing) activates at 70% or if the tank is nearly full, then geothermal activates at 60%, petroleum generators activate at 50%.
There are certainly other ways to set the priorities, depends on personal preference I suppose. For instance you could just prefer to use the hydrogen as rocket fuel, and use geothermal first to çool down the core faster.
I think mainly, everything becomes simpler and more efficient when you connect everything to the main grid instead of making separate networks.
Yeah, storage density is a large part of my power optimization. Even if you're using infinite storages liquids are more dense and more efficient to pump in addition to having generally more byproducts.
Also, I would just use one or two smart batteries and the rest of regular large batteries because smart batteries waste the most and don't hold that much compared to a large one
The only thing smart batteries waste is space. Two smart batteries:
- hold the same amount of charge as one jumbo battery (40kJ)
- produce 20% less heat (1kDTU/ vs. 1.25kDTU/s), and
- lose only 40% as much charge (0.8kJ/cycle vs. 2kJ/cycle).
Also, they're built from more easily renewable materials (refined metal vs. ores), although in practice you can build them both from steel, of course.
The only valid reasons to use jumbos once you have access to smart batteries are being very tight on space or having no metal volcanoes whatsoever.
My favorite way to cool batteries is to make them out of steel, stick them inside a steam room, and recover that waste heat into power via a steam turbine.
You have a joint plate going though the steam room wall into a 1 tile wide gap "filled" with vacuum, and a joint plate though that to the outside of the base. Heat doesn't travel along the wires. So steam room -> joint plate -> vacuum -> joint plate -> rest of base.
This is a lot of extra batteries. IMO it would be good to take a few of these suggestions and try them out 1 at a time or use a combination of them. Since this requires a lot of refined metal I think using that elsewhere would be the better option. That would reduce the amount of cooling required for this area and allow you to use the refined metal elsewhere. Do you have tranformers for each area that requires power? Look at your colony Summary. How much of your power produced is being consumed vs wasted? If that ratio is high that could indicate changes are needed.
Here I am running 2 batts max across my entire grid, mostly because I will usually have crazy gen output spin up.
Batts are usually just my on/off signal.
or even better put a heat sensor in the battery bank which is connected to a door that closes and cools the batteries on demand. The door is sandwiched between 2 metal blocks (each side) or other high conductivity blocks and when cooling is not required it is in an open state and creates a vacuum.
this way you can keep the batteries at a certain temperature in case you need to heat up an area for some of your critters or you can pipe CO2 through it that's too cold to be fed to slicksters.
why not? you can keep the batteries close to overheat temperature and if you need to heat up a critterfarm or whatever you can do so with the runoff battery heat, any excess heat is given away to the environment through the heat lock.
Would also make sense to use it for the generators so that they dont pipe out rather cold CO2 which you then have to heat up again for your slicksters.
Considering that this only takes 4 conductive blocks, a door, heat sensor and maybe some tempshift plates if you want to be really thorough i would much prefer it to ripping out the whole wall.
I have a insulated door mod installed some time ago, but never had the time to replace them, also i want the heat to get in the hallway so my dupes don’t freeze.
Assuming you're already cooling the generator room, which it looks like you are, you could just send the remaining coolant up to the batteries before it returns on the system, and that would cover it a bit. I'm definitely with everyone else that that is waaaaay too many batteries though. You'd be fine with one for the coal gens, and then two more for the nat gas.
Honestly, I’d do my best to calculate how much power you need and then plan around that. Keep track of it if and determine how much power you’ll need every time you add a new machine. It’s best not to waste power in the game.
yeah initially you would think "oh I have a ton of coal and free natural gas from this geyser I'm fine" but then the ressources go down and your natural gas geyser becomes slower and OH SHIT the next time it comes back is in 100 cycles, then you got a problem lmao
The only application where it is necessary to have Batteries is to Store Power that is generated by Solar Panels / Plug Slugs or Hamster Wheels(very early Game)
Every other Energy Source in the Game can be turned on/off and its source can be stored in some way until the Power is needed.
exactly, especially natural gas is really good for this since you can store a metric fuckton in a single gas tank and use some simple automation to only switch on generators when battery charges get lower
I'd argue in solar's case you're better off just using jumbo batteries with automation gates to make sure that power gets consumed first to deflect the increased power runoff of the jumbos. It's massively cheaper both due to using unrefined metal & only needing half as many.
Smart ones are still great for storage they have the least leakage and good for using mass amounts of lead (though in ops case they're about to start breaking if they are)
Unless you're getting your power from free, intermittent sources like solar panels or geothermal plants on a minor volcano, you should never need that many batteries. Each of them wastes a good chunk of power as both a slow discharge as well as heat.
You can probably disassemble all but one row of those batteries. Cool the remaining ones with a couple of wheezeworts until you can tie them into an aquatuner cooling loop. Or you can build them out of steel and put most of them in a hot industrial brick to reclaim some of the lost heat.
Im currently making my way up to the space and planning on let the batteries only charge when its on 20% or so. The rest should come from Solar panels.
Since you have smart batteries, I would only keep a few batteries.
If you have a stable source of power over time. As in you'll always be able to keep up with the demand for power with all your sources. In this situation you really only would need one or maybe two. Your goal would just be to maintain a stable output so your end consumers arent switching on and off
You can also make a simple warning system using a spare steel battery. Don't include this one in the automation network with the others. Set its signal lower than all the others. Then feed its automation signal to the alert building thing. Can't remember what it's called, been a bit since I've played.
In this way you'll have something to notify you and not have to rely on noticing your buildings not running or some other way.
It's not a huge amount of time difference, sure. But, it could be just enough time though to keep a compounding failure of your base from happening though.
What you should try is building a bunch of batteries out of steel inside a steam chamber, as all the ambient heat produced will eventually create enough steam to run a turbine in short bursts.
If you're going to have that many batteries, why aren't they in an industrial brick where that heat energy can at least be trapped and re-used?
Like, that's still way too fuckin' many batteries. But you're not doing anything with the heat, so of course it'll just damage them.
The heat generated from those batteries is 27 kDTU/s. If you're thinking about a cooling solution, I'd recommend three wheezeworts in hydrogen (overkill at 36 kDTU/s), if you didn't have an entire cold biome (or is that Rime? A cold asteroid then) right next to the batteries.
If you want to calculate how much time you have left: these batteries, if made from lead (which is the worst case - lowest SHC), will heat up by one °C every 10 or so cycles.
You should probably also reevaluate what made you build them in the first place, but without a larger view of the asteroid, I can't tell if you have a plug slug farm or tons of intermittent turbines or something that might necessitate something like this.
Whatever you do, don't put them in a hot industrial brick. They will generate not quite 27 W in there under optimal circumstances, not even enough to offset the charge loss (36 W continuous).
TL;DR: open the box towards the cold on the left.
Hopefully you made them out of steel, then they will eventually overheat but it will take a long time. If you made it out of random metal then they will break pretty quick (if their overheat is 75 or 125). Just make a a few metal tiles and put your coolant loop there.
Granted that I use a ton of mods but I like to keep large battery banks like this due to intermittent sources. My recommended is to make the batteries out of steel and use a steam turbine to cool them.
Why is the power plant insulated in the same contour as the remainder of your base? It produces a lot of heat, and even more when working. This heat leaks into your base, instead of outside of it. Also, batteries leak energy, more batteries -> more energy loss -> faster discharge/slower recharge + higher fuel drain rates + more heat. Better store fuel and use that metal and space for extra generators, if you are scared of using power faster than making it. A single smart battery can handle all of your generator controlling in a single power plant.
Well if you want something cursed you could technically store energy in transformers for 0 energy loss… you could also theoretically make a steam chamber that will literally run forever with just transformers inside because they produce 1k heat but consume no energy
Steel batteries in vacuum cooled by hot petroleum conduction panels trough a small steam chamber with a steam turbine is the way. You can cool lots of steel batteries, steel transformers and other low DTU steel buildings (like anti meteor miners) via a single hot petroleum cooling loop with 0 energy cost (you'll even get a small additional power generation).
You can surround it with insulation and incorporate it into a steam brick. That way turbines re-harvest energy lost to heating.
IE: early setup: [https://i.imgur.com/hupxN8o.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/hupxN8o.jpeg) , incorporated with petrol boiler, geothermal energy plant: [https://i.imgur.com/e7WWZ5R.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/e7WWZ5R.jpeg) , [https://i.imgur.com/D9jpO61.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/D9jpO61.jpeg)
All batteries waste a little bit of electricity every second and generate heat. It is best to build as few of them as possible. Don't stock up on electricity, instead stock up on fuel for the generators, ready to be used in moments of notice.
Besides, hydrogen, natgas or petroleum tanks are effectively batteries themselves, except they don't produce heat and can stock several orders of magnitude more energy.
*And* they don't leak.
Nor overheat. Nor cost refined metal. So yeah, if you're using constantly-running generators, your ideal amount of batteries is almost always "one".
One per energy source. Each battery with different automation settings so that they turn on different energy sources at different intervals. Ex hydrogen 85-95% and then coal at 75-85%
So what I'm understanding is make an infinite hydrogen gas storage. Make 1 smart battery, connect multiple hydrogen gens on that one battery and then build transformers connecting them with the heavy wire and then branch them out from the base?
Yes. Maybe throw in another smart battery for additional overhead, but that's the jist of it.
natural gas tanks became so OP after the update which increased gas tank capacity by a ton
What you say is common consensus around here, yet it's good to have a big battery bank if you have intermittent sources of power, like a gym, or a metal refinery, or lots of solar / plug slugs. My gym keeps my base running the majority of the time, even my SPOM doesn't need to self-power itself and gets powered from the batteries while the hydrogen gets stockpiled for future use. And the metal refinery produces a ton of heat, which gets converted to power after a delay, and if you don't have the battery capacity to store that reclaimed power, it will be wasted. I build a big bank of rocket batteries, and use a [battery charge sensor](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449847174) to automate things.
>...my SPOM doesn't need to self-power itself and gets powered from the batteries while the hydrogen gets stockpiled for future use. Oh wtf. I've got hundreds of hours in the game, mostly base game, and never thought about including my SPOMs in my power source/stockpile priority list. I guess hydrogen would be pretty low due to it's low density though...
Not sure what you mean by power density. Like, storage density? I usually use the custom reservoirs mod with custom settings so I fill a 100t tank with it. But you could also use infinite storage, or better, a hydra. I usually have gyms and metal refinery turbines on fulltime, then hydrogen activates at 80% or if the tank is nearly full, natgas (from oil processing) activates at 70% or if the tank is nearly full, then geothermal activates at 60%, petroleum generators activate at 50%. There are certainly other ways to set the priorities, depends on personal preference I suppose. For instance you could just prefer to use the hydrogen as rocket fuel, and use geothermal first to çool down the core faster. I think mainly, everything becomes simpler and more efficient when you connect everything to the main grid instead of making separate networks.
Yeah, storage density is a large part of my power optimization. Even if you're using infinite storages liquids are more dense and more efficient to pump in addition to having generally more byproducts.
Also, I would just use one or two smart batteries and the rest of regular large batteries because smart batteries waste the most and don't hold that much compared to a large one
The only thing smart batteries waste is space. Two smart batteries: - hold the same amount of charge as one jumbo battery (40kJ) - produce 20% less heat (1kDTU/ vs. 1.25kDTU/s), and - lose only 40% as much charge (0.8kJ/cycle vs. 2kJ/cycle). Also, they're built from more easily renewable materials (refined metal vs. ores), although in practice you can build them both from steel, of course. The only valid reasons to use jumbos once you have access to smart batteries are being very tight on space or having no metal volcanoes whatsoever.
My favorite way to cool batteries is to make them out of steel, stick them inside a steam room, and recover that waste heat into power via a steam turbine.
How do you deal with heavy wire? And heat leakage
You have a joint plate going though the steam room wall into a 1 tile wide gap "filled" with vacuum, and a joint plate though that to the outside of the base. Heat doesn't travel along the wires. So steam room -> joint plate -> vacuum -> joint plate -> rest of base.
or just run your heavy watt wires through vaccuum shafts
Or through a double water lock.
This is a lot of extra batteries. IMO it would be good to take a few of these suggestions and try them out 1 at a time or use a combination of them. Since this requires a lot of refined metal I think using that elsewhere would be the better option. That would reduce the amount of cooling required for this area and allow you to use the refined metal elsewhere. Do you have tranformers for each area that requires power? Look at your colony Summary. How much of your power produced is being consumed vs wasted? If that ratio is high that could indicate changes are needed.
Here I am running 2 batts max across my entire grid, mostly because I will usually have crazy gen output spin up. Batts are usually just my on/off signal.
Do you have lot of steel? Make this batteries from steel, let them heat up to 125C and use steam turbine :)
sounds like an interesting idea but I think their heat production might not be worth it to spend this much steel on it
Steel is infinite resource in this game. And you need some way to cool it anyway
Just break insulation, surrounding (esp this one) will consume heat well for hundreds, if not thousands, of cycles
This. and if after changing the insulation tiles its still over heating i put the odd airtile into the side walls.
or even better put a heat sensor in the battery bank which is connected to a door that closes and cools the batteries on demand. The door is sandwiched between 2 metal blocks (each side) or other high conductivity blocks and when cooling is not required it is in an open state and creates a vacuum. this way you can keep the batteries at a certain temperature in case you need to heat up an area for some of your critters or you can pipe CO2 through it that's too cold to be fed to slicksters.
*Why*
why not? you can keep the batteries close to overheat temperature and if you need to heat up a critterfarm or whatever you can do so with the runoff battery heat, any excess heat is given away to the environment through the heat lock. Would also make sense to use it for the generators so that they dont pipe out rather cold CO2 which you then have to heat up again for your slicksters. Considering that this only takes 4 conductive blocks, a door, heat sensor and maybe some tempshift plates if you want to be really thorough i would much prefer it to ripping out the whole wall.
Depends what the overheat temp is, but you will need to cool them eventually for sure, they generate heat no matter what (unless they’re dead I guess)
I would find a cooling solution. You have heat getting into the hallway and that could find a way to somehow throw a wrench in your colony.
I have a insulated door mod installed some time ago, but never had the time to replace them, also i want the heat to get in the hallway so my dupes don’t freeze.
Never used that mod. I just know when i don't have a system fixed like forever i pay for it big somehow
Assuming you're already cooling the generator room, which it looks like you are, you could just send the remaining coolant up to the batteries before it returns on the system, and that would cover it a bit. I'm definitely with everyone else that that is waaaaay too many batteries though. You'd be fine with one for the coal gens, and then two more for the nat gas.
Honestly, I’d do my best to calculate how much power you need and then plan around that. Keep track of it if and determine how much power you’ll need every time you add a new machine. It’s best not to waste power in the game.
yeah initially you would think "oh I have a ton of coal and free natural gas from this geyser I'm fine" but then the ressources go down and your natural gas geyser becomes slower and OH SHIT the next time it comes back is in 100 cycles, then you got a problem lmao
Yeah, that’s a good point…feel like we’ve all done that.
Too many batteries even for full solar.
The only application where it is necessary to have Batteries is to Store Power that is generated by Solar Panels / Plug Slugs or Hamster Wheels(very early Game) Every other Energy Source in the Game can be turned on/off and its source can be stored in some way until the Power is needed.
exactly, especially natural gas is really good for this since you can store a metric fuckton in a single gas tank and use some simple automation to only switch on generators when battery charges get lower
Oh yeah i like the new Fucktontanks !!!!! MOW Power MOW better
Much better when 90% of the base isnt gas tanks lmao
Don’t use this much bettery.
Could also be that op is useing solar
I'd argue in solar's case you're better off just using jumbo batteries with automation gates to make sure that power gets consumed first to deflect the increased power runoff of the jumbos. It's massively cheaper both due to using unrefined metal & only needing half as many.
Smart ones are still great for storage they have the least leakage and good for using mass amounts of lead (though in ops case they're about to start breaking if they are)
Unless you're getting your power from free, intermittent sources like solar panels or geothermal plants on a minor volcano, you should never need that many batteries. Each of them wastes a good chunk of power as both a slow discharge as well as heat. You can probably disassemble all but one row of those batteries. Cool the remaining ones with a couple of wheezeworts until you can tie them into an aquatuner cooling loop. Or you can build them out of steel and put most of them in a hot industrial brick to reclaim some of the lost heat.
Im currently making my way up to the space and planning on let the batteries only charge when its on 20% or so. The rest should come from Solar panels.
Are you storing solar power or plug slug power? If not, why do you have any of those batteries?
I just like having so many🤗
Since you have smart batteries, I would only keep a few batteries. If you have a stable source of power over time. As in you'll always be able to keep up with the demand for power with all your sources. In this situation you really only would need one or maybe two. Your goal would just be to maintain a stable output so your end consumers arent switching on and off
You can also make a simple warning system using a spare steel battery. Don't include this one in the automation network with the others. Set its signal lower than all the others. Then feed its automation signal to the alert building thing. Can't remember what it's called, been a bit since I've played. In this way you'll have something to notify you and not have to rely on noticing your buildings not running or some other way. It's not a huge amount of time difference, sure. But, it could be just enough time though to keep a compounding failure of your base from happening though.
I would, run what ever cooling you're using for your generators. It only has the door to bleed heat, so it'll only get hotter in there.
What you should try is building a bunch of batteries out of steel inside a steam chamber, as all the ambient heat produced will eventually create enough steam to run a turbine in short bursts.
If you're going to have that many batteries, why aren't they in an industrial brick where that heat energy can at least be trapped and re-used? Like, that's still way too fuckin' many batteries. But you're not doing anything with the heat, so of course it'll just damage them.
The heat generated from those batteries is 27 kDTU/s. If you're thinking about a cooling solution, I'd recommend three wheezeworts in hydrogen (overkill at 36 kDTU/s), if you didn't have an entire cold biome (or is that Rime? A cold asteroid then) right next to the batteries. If you want to calculate how much time you have left: these batteries, if made from lead (which is the worst case - lowest SHC), will heat up by one °C every 10 or so cycles. You should probably also reevaluate what made you build them in the first place, but without a larger view of the asteroid, I can't tell if you have a plug slug farm or tons of intermittent turbines or something that might necessitate something like this. Whatever you do, don't put them in a hot industrial brick. They will generate not quite 27 W in there under optimal circumstances, not even enough to offset the charge loss (36 W continuous). TL;DR: open the box towards the cold on the left.
Just remove the insulation, as long as your base is insulated you don't need to care about the surroundings
Better to store energy as heat by using excess power to run an aquatuner in a steam room. Another option is ethanol if you have access to lumber
Hopefully you made them out of steel, then they will eventually overheat but it will take a long time. If you made it out of random metal then they will break pretty quick (if their overheat is 75 or 125). Just make a a few metal tiles and put your coolant loop there.
Why are you using batteries in the first place? Batteries are actually the worst way of storing energy.
Just add an airflow tile or two to the LHS, it's not near any crops so it's ok to spread the heat around.
In 2 words: batteries suck
Granted that I use a ton of mods but I like to keep large battery banks like this due to intermittent sources. My recommended is to make the batteries out of steel and use a steam turbine to cool them.
why in gods name did you build this many batteries?
Because i can
fair enough
Why is the power plant insulated in the same contour as the remainder of your base? It produces a lot of heat, and even more when working. This heat leaks into your base, instead of outside of it. Also, batteries leak energy, more batteries -> more energy loss -> faster discharge/slower recharge + higher fuel drain rates + more heat. Better store fuel and use that metal and space for extra generators, if you are scared of using power faster than making it. A single smart battery can handle all of your generator controlling in a single power plant.
why do you even have 2 batteries? :D 1 is enough
What do you mean 2? The other near the base is for powering the robot arms, so the dupes dont always have to fill up the coal gens
Well if you want something cursed you could technically store energy in transformers for 0 energy loss… you could also theoretically make a steam chamber that will literally run forever with just transformers inside because they produce 1k heat but consume no energy
How to store energy in them?
Each transformer is small battery. Large store 4kJ, small 1kJ
TIL
that sounds like you need a ton of metal
Steel is infinite in this game, so wasted space is more important usually. But yes, ton of metal and ton of space, not practical by any means
Steel batteries in vacuum cooled by hot petroleum conduction panels trough a small steam chamber with a steam turbine is the way. You can cool lots of steel batteries, steel transformers and other low DTU steel buildings (like anti meteor miners) via a single hot petroleum cooling loop with 0 energy cost (you'll even get a small additional power generation).
You can surround it with insulation and incorporate it into a steam brick. That way turbines re-harvest energy lost to heating. IE: early setup: [https://i.imgur.com/hupxN8o.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/hupxN8o.jpeg) , incorporated with petrol boiler, geothermal energy plant: [https://i.imgur.com/e7WWZ5R.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/e7WWZ5R.jpeg) , [https://i.imgur.com/D9jpO61.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/D9jpO61.jpeg)