Power
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Power is both the representation of electricity required to power a wide variety of appliances and buildings, and the name of a section of the architect that contains buildings that interact with this system.
Mechanics
This section is a stub. You can help RimWorld Wiki by expanding it. Reason: Does not cover the mechanics of power sufficiently - how is the order of power loss determined when demand>supply? When do power generators tick? When does battery capacity tick? etc.. |
Power is measured in the form of Watts (W). Power generators create watts, and appliances will consume a certain amount of watts to function. Most appliances will use power even when not actively being used - they must be manually switched off. Some appliances use less power when not in active use, sometimes referred to as "stand-by" power.
Power conduits can randomly short circuit whenever they are powered, and many power buildings or appliances can also short circuit while in rain or snow. See Zzztt... for details.
Transport
Power only exists within a power grid and requires something to transport it. Any power that isn't used or stored is wasted.
Power travels through power conduits, waterproof conduits, power switches, batteries, and all generators and generator equivalents. These power transporters must be directly adjacent to each other to connect and transport power between them. This is distinct from appliances, which do not transport power, but can connect to a power transport from up to 6 tiles away. See Appliances for more detail.
Configurations of connected power transporters are called grids. All points in a grid have instantaneous access to all power generated and stored by buildings attached to the grid. Grids that are not connected by power transporters, or only connected via a power switch that is turned off, are completely independent from each other.
Storage
Power is stored in the form of Watt-days (Wd), where 1 Watt-day can power a 1 W appliance for 24 hours. Each battery can store up to 600 Wd, but only store at 50% efficiency. This means that, for the purposes of storage, 1 W for 24 hours would only give 0.5 Wd inside a battery. Batteries lose 5 Wd of stored power per day, even if they aren't connected to anything or are uninstalled in their minified state. The stored power is drawn from if, and only if, the current load wattage on the grid exceeds the current generation wattage. Power can be stored and drawn from at any rate - the 500 Wd generated by 1000 W power generator over the course of a day and stored in 50%-efficient batteries can be consumed in 6 hours if the connected grid is 2000W below demand or last for days if demand only exceeds supply by a few watts.
Appliances
This section could use some more or updated images. You can help RimWorld Wiki by uploading images to make this section better. Note: Image of the "power cord" connecting a constructed appliance to a conduit, image of the "yellow wire" showing a prospective connection point when placing a blueprint, image of the "pink wire" showing the actual connection points once built. |
Appliances are structures or buildings that consume power but don't transmit it. Most appliances will connect automatically if placed up to six squares away from a power transporter, or when one is placed within range.
When placing an appliance's blueprint, the most direct connection point to a power transmitting structure will be displayed as a golden yellow connection between the current blueprint position and the power. Note that it will display a connection even if the grid it attaches too does not have sufficient or any power, and that while an appliance will default to that connection point it will be able to connect to other sources with range using the reconnect gizmo mentioned below. If no yellow wire is shown, there is no connection point in range.
Once constructed, this connection will be displayed by a black "power cord" that runs from the connecting power transmitting building to the appliance in question. This cord is graphical only and cannot be interacted with or damaged in any way. Additionally, when viewing the power grid, a magenta wire similar to the yellow above will display the connection point of appliances in view.
When connected to the power grid, it can take a few moments before an appliance turns on.
Selecting any power transporter or appliance attached to a grid will display the "Grid Excess/Stored" values in the info pane. If the demand for power exceeds the current supply and cannot be made up for by consuming stored power, appliances connected to the grid lose power until the supply is once again below demand. It is currently unknown how which appliance is disabled is selected - it may be random.
Managing appliances
Reconnect: Click to force an appliance to reconnect to a conduit line or power source. This can also be used to change which power source an appliance is connected to if there is more than one in range.
Designate toggle power: Click to mark an appliance to be turned on (✔) or off (X) by a colonist set to Basic.
Reconnect
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Designate toggle power
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Mechanoid power
This section relates to content added by Biotech (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
Enemy mechanoids - that is, all mechanoids without any DLC - do not require any source of power. However, your allied mechanoids do. When controlled by a colony, an active mechanoid's power need falls by 10% per day. Non-working mechs lose 3% power per day. They can enter a dormant self-charging state, which instead restores 1% power per day for free. Mechanoids in a caravan do not consume or gain any power.
A mechanoid's power need does not directly translate to electrical power. However, mech rechargers require a constant 200 W, large mech rechargers require 400 W, and both chargers restore 50% of any mechanoid's power per day. When recharging, mechanoids create Toxic wastepacks, which can lead to pollution.
Power generators
Type | Cost | Fuel (per day) |
Size | Base Output (Watts) |
Output Per Tile |
Variable Output |
Day | Night | Placement | Market Value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Solar generator | 100 + 3 | 4 × 4 | 1,700 | 106.25 | In sunlight | 295 | ||||
Wind turbine | 100 + 2 | 7 × 2 | 2,300 | 164.29 | In open ground | 265 | ||||
Watermill generator | 280 + 80 + 3 | 5 × 6 | 1,100 | 36.6 | On riverbanks | 600 | ||||
Chemfuel powered generator | 100 + 3 | 4.5 | 2 × 2 | 1,000 | 250 | Anywhere | 295 | |||
Wood-fired generator | 100 + 2 | 22 | 2 × 2 | 1,000 | 250 | Anywhere | 265 | |||
Geothermal generator | 340 + 8 | 6 × 6 | 3,600 | 100 | On geysers | 945 | ||||
Ship reactor | 350 + 280 + 70 + 8 | 6 × 7 | 1,000 | 23.8 | Outside (can roof over afterwards) |
5440 | ||||
Vanometric power cell | N/A | 1 × 2 | 1,000 | 500 | Anywhere | 1200 | ||||
Unstable power cell | N/A | 1 × 1 | 400 | 400 | Anywhere | 400 | ||||
Toxifier generator | 125 + 3 | 2 × 2 | 1,400 | 350 | Anywhere | 360 | ||||
Electroharvester | 1 + 25 + 50 | 2 × 1 | Varies | Varies | Anywhere | 160 | ||||
Bioferrite generator | 50 + 100 + 4 + 1 | 6 | 3 × 2 | 4,000 | 666.7 | Anywhere | 740 |
Version history
- 0.0.245 - Electrical devices now short-circuit and cause fires if left out in the rain while running.