Factory using more energy cells than it says it is - Explained, extras used for ship construction.

[Dodgey]

Got a mega fab with 6 solar. Tooltip in Logical Overview says Production 68,000 consumption 37,300

And yet - it is always buying in stock and never going much above my manual buy amount limit.

I've put my entire fab in the web based station planner and it agrees the consumption should be met by 6 solar, and yet it isn't. 100% sunlight.

Any idea why? Not exactly critical but I'd like to understand.

[Solflame]

Haven't done much with factories, but is it possible that it's selling the Energy Cells?

[Dodgey]

Nah - not allowed to and I keep an eye on it all - to the extent it's pretty much "X4 the factory sim" for me, or X4 Skylines.

[Dodgey]

Aha! I think I know what it is.

The "consumption/hr" doesn't take into account ship building - which takes energy cells direct (has a line to S/M (and L) ship fabrication in the locical overview from the energy production box. It can't know / estimate that usages as it can't predict ship building demand.

So unlike most other mods which don't show any consumption/production stats if other production is unpredictable - the solar shows what it knows, and ignores random burst demand in the figures.

i.e. Helium storage will always show production/hr as blank as it doesn't know when and how much each miner will deliver.

[easternsun]

I wished they did a usage calculation for shipyards. I never know how much I need to supply.