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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0016767Stars Beyond ReachGameplay IssueMay 23, 2015 1:53 pm
ReporterMiikka Ryökäs Assigned Tokeith.lamothe  
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version0.821 
Fixed in Version0.850 (Cities to Districts, and Left Sidebar) 
Summary0016767: Fear the brownout
DescriptionAttached is the same save file that I attacked to my previous report. It's from turn 180. When I click next turn, I'm slammed with a massive brownout on turn 181. When I disable all buildings except small solar collectors, set the power rate to 150%, and click next turn, I'm still slammed with a massive brownout on turn 181.

Also attached is a save from the turn before. When I shut off the science labs and then end turn twice, 181 comes without a brownout.

Being unable to prevent the brownout by reducing power usage or cranking up the power rate on the previous turn is a bummer.
TagsNo tags attached.

Activities

Miikka Ryökäs

May 18, 2015 1:29 pm

reporter  

Aargh.save (718,213 bytes)

Miikka Ryökäs

May 18, 2015 1:30 pm

reporter  

179.save (717,881 bytes)

Chris_McElligottPark

May 18, 2015 1:43 pm

administrator   ~0040962

Doesn't really address your issue yet, but this is related and was inspired by your comment:

* Water production and hydroponics farms are no longer susceptible to brownouts, nor are any waste-handling buildings or holo resorts or police forces.
** Those particular things result in a huge death spiral of your entire city just because of one brownout, however temporary.
** It only makes sense that those key infrastructure bits would be able to have some degree of redundancy during a brownout.

Chris_McElligottPark

May 18, 2015 2:01 pm

administrator   ~0040963

Okay, this should resolve it:

* Ack! Disabled buildings were still:
** Requiring water.
** Requiring power.
** Generating power.
** Transmitting power.
** Providing extra construction skill.
** Making progress on market item construction.
** Getting wounds from excessive pollution.
** Taking damage from power overload (if a power plant with that budget way up).
** Being hit pointlessly by brownouts when those happen.
** Having criminal activity cause deaths and/or woundings at them.
** Cremating bodies.
** Generating trash.
** Incinerating trash.
** Doing diplomatic stuff.
** Doing spy stuff.
** Doing thief stuff.


That said, do you know why the brownout is happening on turn 181? From a cursory look I could not find the cause (which is probably a problem in and of itself). Any light you can shed would be helpful for me in terms of helping make the reasons more clear to other players when this sort of thing happens to them, too.

Thanks!

ptarth

May 18, 2015 2:16 pm

reporter   ~0040969

Anecdotal but I had a massive power drop in my last game for a turn. No idea why or what happened. I blew it off as me imagining it. A few turns later I had over 100k excess power. It wasn't due to Toxin Screening. And I was only using solar, so that's a 9 solar plant difference.

Chris_McElligottPark

May 18, 2015 2:22 pm

administrator   ~0040970

Hmm. That definitely doesn't sound great.

ptarth

May 18, 2015 4:57 pm

reporter   ~0040979

It retrospect it might have something to do with disease impairment affecting power plants (even though they have no employment). But that is 100% guessing based on all the disease focused thinking I just did.

Chris_McElligottPark

May 18, 2015 7:03 pm

administrator   ~0040991

Huh! Yeah, that's a really really good point. I need to make it so that for some of these sorts of buildings staffing doesn't reduce effectiveness, but rather it increases cost to use. That still keeps a notable penalty, but without the death spirals.

Chris_McElligottPark

May 18, 2015 8:19 pm

administrator   ~0040993

--It appears in this savegame that when a few buildings are finished with construction, they cause a rolling brownout because they overload the power grid.
--- We need to make it so that, instead, we have these auto-suppress themselves until power is available for them. When power arrives, they should automatically turn on.
--- I'd like an empire design issue explaining how many buildings there are in this state, and when they are disabled in this special fashion I'd like there to be a power brownout icon on just this building.
--- In the tooltip for power production at each city, I'd also like to see the count of buildings that are suppressed due to insufficient power.

ptarth

May 18, 2015 9:08 pm

reporter   ~0040994

Last edited: May 19, 2015 1:53 am

How is that going to impact income producing buildings?
Will this lead to stalls where all your income is spent on increased upkeeps?
Is negative bank balance possible due to upkeep? If not, which buildings get penalized?

Chris_McElligottPark

May 22, 2015 2:28 pm

administrator   ~0041064

Hmm? There's nothing in here related to crowns usage, not in my last post anyway. This would just keep new buildings from coming online and causing a brownout by the fact that they arrived. If you wanted to disable some other building that is costing you money or doing whatever, and thus free up some power, you could. You could also build a power plant, and since that doesn't draw down power (instead increasing it), it would finish without incident.

ptarth

May 22, 2015 3:54 pm

reporter   ~0041066

It was in response to this.
"...staffing doesn't reduce effectiveness, but rather it increases cost to use..."

I think it was from me misunderstanding your shorthand description of how the change was going to work. I had thought that you had meant that every building that was understaffed would have a increase in upkeep cost (which would have been massive).

Chris_McElligottPark

May 22, 2015 4:11 pm

administrator   ~0041070

I can't remember if I implemented that or not, honestly. But it would be just for a few key buildings like power plants, if so. I think I remember coding that?

ptarth

May 23, 2015 1:39 am

reporter   ~0041085

I figured out what was part of the problem. Due to how turn order works, your power plants will be built and look like they are functioning, the turn before they actually start producing power. So if you are doing large amount of building you would get gaps in power plant completion and power generation.

keith.lamothe

May 23, 2015 1:53 pm

administrator   ~0041097

For 0.841:

* Now when a city goes into brownout it prioritizes buildings that finished construction in the last 3 or so turns. This way you can see that there's a disruption and have time to deal with it, but it won't immediately ravage your pre-existing city.

Thanks :)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
May 18, 2015 1:29 pm Miikka Ryökäs New Issue
May 18, 2015 1:29 pm Miikka Ryökäs File Added: Aargh.save
May 18, 2015 1:30 pm Miikka Ryökäs File Added: 179.save
May 18, 2015 1:30 pm Miikka Ryökäs Description Updated
May 18, 2015 1:33 pm Miikka Ryökäs Description Updated
May 18, 2015 1:43 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0040962
May 18, 2015 2:01 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0040963
May 18, 2015 2:01 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
May 18, 2015 2:01 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => feedback
May 18, 2015 2:16 pm ptarth Note Added: 0040969
May 18, 2015 2:22 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0040970
May 18, 2015 4:57 pm ptarth Note Added: 0040979
May 18, 2015 7:03 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0040991
May 18, 2015 8:19 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0040993
May 18, 2015 8:19 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To Chris_McElligottPark => keith.lamothe
May 18, 2015 8:19 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status feedback => assigned
May 18, 2015 9:08 pm ptarth Note Added: 0040994
May 19, 2015 1:53 am ptarth Note Edited: 0040994
May 22, 2015 2:28 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0041064
May 22, 2015 3:54 pm ptarth Note Added: 0041066
May 22, 2015 4:11 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0041070
May 23, 2015 1:39 am ptarth Note Added: 0041085
May 23, 2015 1:53 pm keith.lamothe Note Added: 0041097
May 23, 2015 1:53 pm keith.lamothe Status assigned => resolved
May 23, 2015 1:53 pm keith.lamothe Fixed in Version => 0.850 (Cities to Districts, and Left Sidebar)
May 23, 2015 1:53 pm keith.lamothe Resolution open => fixed