Confusion with factories

[Sluggerson]

To be perfectly honest, I'm almost certain I'm doing factories wrong. I can really only find tutorials on factories with the old versions of the game, and I'm just really confused.

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So what's happening for me is exactly the following:

Placing any Factory Block (Basic, Standard, Advanced, Capsule Refinery) with power (Power via blocks right next to the factory) works, and works relatively well. Slow, but works. Here's the issue... Once I place any other factory even remotely near it (Even hundreds of blocks away), or if I happen to connect any of the factories to a, or several, factory enhancers, I get a message that pops up every so often saying...

Insufficient Energy (500/1000)

And after the fact that that has happened, I tried to apply more energy to the factory/refinery via more blocks, and by a few friends hitting the block with their Energy Lasers. Nothing. The same message appears. I've tried to go on a planet, place down my factory/refinery, place 2 chests near it, link them, go to my build block, then add power to them by placing the power reactor modules touching the factory or refinery, then add any amount of factory enhancers, then that message pops up again. I'm really frustrated and very confused about all of this.

If I need to post this question on a different forum, let me know.


Edit: I did some actual looking around this forum, found some old forum questions, then stumbled upon a recently asked question about "broken factories" in the latest version. I'm trying Power Capacitors now.

 

[StormWing0]

You do need more capacitors and reactors. Reactors only work if you have enough of to put the generated power into so raising the power cap with capacitors is the only way to go.

 

[Lecic]

It doesn't matter if the power reactors are 1 meter away or 100,000 meters away from the factory. As long as they're on the same entity, they'll provide power. This applies to all systems, by the way. Shields, thrust, weapons, etc.

Your issue is that you don't have enough capacity for the factories, so you're going to need more power generators (to keep your power capacitors full) and power capacitors (to hold all that power you're generating).

 

[Kaamio]

What they said. Power capacitors benefit from being in one big, shapeless group so don't spread them around if you can't connect them. Not quite similarly, reactors benefit from box dimensions, so making them into long, one block lines is the easiest way of getting bonus regen. Optimal shape in most cases is a three dimensional cross or L shape, but I'm sure it's easiest to see from youtube video or something.

You'll run into the power cap thing in ships too once you start using missiles or pulse modified weapons which have high alpha damage and subsequently high power per shot requirement.

 

[Adonis0]

Also, for power concerns, factory enhancers might as well be treated as an additional factory, five factories will draw the same amount of power as one factory with four slaved enhancers, as both of those groups produce five items per factory tick.

 

[Edymnion]

Yup, your issue is that I'm betting you're building on a planet, which has no innate power capacity. So you could have a million energy per second, but your total power is lower than what both factories draw at the same time, so you get insufficient energy warnings.

Drop some power capacitors in a single block and you'll be good to go.