This manual covers rather basic information about electricity in the game.
It is meant to help beginners to understand electric net construction and start using electric machines.
Although the manual describes only a geothermal electric plant, a player can comprehend how to build all other types of electric plants considering the geothermal one.
This manual is true as of December, 2022.
Electricity on the TA server.
Introduction.
In plain language, a player needs electricity in the game to make useful tools like a furnace work.
Electricity, in essence, is just a new type of fuel in the game besides the classical chemical type of fuel as coal or wood.
Electricity is eventually cheaper and more convenient type of fuel than the chemical one.
Although electricity requires relatively complex structures and many resources for crafting, players should choose this type of energy for their further game, and use the chemical type of fuel only at the beginning of the game.
A regular furnace requires fuel for operations. A player have to collect wood, leaves, cacti, coal in order to make a furnace cook potatoes, bricks, glass, iron ingots, and other food and building materials.
Once you craft an electric furnace, you do not need to worry about fuel anymore.
A constant flow of electric energy will be your fuel from this moment.
And your furnace is named a
machine now.
Any machine works always faster than its non-electrical variant if such one exists.
Also, a machine usually produces more outlet items from one inlet item than the workbench does.
Electricity allows a player to exploit many useful machines.
Grinder. This machine converts cobble into gravel, and gravel into sand.
Therefore, a player does not need to collect sand marring beautiful river banks and ocean beaches.
Workshop. This machine repairs hand tools (pick-axes, shovels, swords, and others) like the classical pair of an anvil and a hammer does.
Sawmill. This machine converts wood trunks into wood planks producing more planks from a trunk than the crafting grid of the workbench does.
You can find out the rest machines viewing the crafting guide in the game.
A source of electric energy in the game can be geothermal process, sunlight, or nuclear reaction.
An electric net works by generating and consuming a certain amount of energy every second.
Usually you have a persistent flow of energy from an electric generator via an electric cable.
The electric flow has a capacity, that is energy units per second.
The higher the capacity is, the more machines you can use at your workshop.
Electric power in the game divides into two tiers.
These are
LV (Low Voltage) and
HV (High Voltage) electric power variants.
Machines and cables divide into two corresponding types due to the tiers.
Generators can output LV or HV power. And consumers can use LV or HV power.
HV machines are more complex and expensive than LV ones. But HV machines work faster and use automation additions.
A player can turn LV power into HV power (and vice versa) using a converter apparatus.
From the beginning of the game a player should successively exploit all types of energy and tools in the game.
First a player has to use regular tools with chemical fuel energy. Then a player can craft LV electric tools. And further a player reaches HV electric apparatus.
It should be mentioned that you may always use the Public Machines near the Spawn in order to learn electric apparatus and facilitate your beginning of the game.
It is not recommended building too large electric nets.
Due to the map loading process of the minetest game, settings of the server, and players' disposition on the map, a large electric net can have glitches.
Geothermal power plant.
A player should begin to learn electricity in the game by building and using a geothermal power plant.
The operation concept of the geothermal station is easy. When a geothermal cell touches lava and water simultaneously, electric power can be drawn from the cell via an electric cable.
One geothermal cell outputs 800 energy units per second.
This value is capacity of the generator. Also this capacity is named
supply.
And, for example, one LV furnace consumes 200 energy units per second (while active).
This value is capacity of the consumer. Also this capacity is named
demand.
An electric net should always have supply that exceeds demand. Otherwise all consumers of the net cease working until a player adds more generators into the net or turns off some consumers.
In order to build your first electric power plant you need: several geothermal cells (three cells are enough for the beginning), one switching station, an LV furnace (as a consumer), several LV cables (twenty items seem to be enough), a bucket of sea water, a bucket of lava.
A simple geothermal station presents three pillars: a sea water pillar and a lava pillar between which a pillar of geothermal cells is found.
The geothermal cells have to connect together with an LV electric cable.
A few items of an LV cable should connect the geothermal pillar with a switching station.
Note that you must involve only one switching station into a single electric net.
Then you should extend an LV cable further from the switching station and connect it with consumers. In our case a consumer is an LV furnace.
A
switching station is a very important apparatus.
It manages distributing of energy within an electric net.
Therefore an electric net can not function without a switching station.
When you aim the game cursor at a switching station, a text prompt appears and reports Supply and Demand parameters of the electric net.
So you can find out how much energy your generators output and how many machines you can add to your electric net without upgrading of capacity.
In our case, when we have three geothermal cells, the switching station shows Supply equal to 2400 (800x3) energy units per second.
If you put some iron ore into the LV furnace, it becomes active and the switching station shows Demand equal to 200 energy units per second.
Supply converter.
In order to obtain HV energy from LV energy (and vice versa) a player have to use a converter machine.
The side near the yellow rectangle accepts electric power, while the side near the yellow triangle outputs electric power.
In our case the converter accepts LV electric power from a white cable and outputs HV electric power into a black-yellow cable.
A converter has a menu, which you can open with a right-click.
In the menu you can set a value of capacity to draw from an electric net, that is "Input Power" text field.
Capacity that a converter will output into another electric net equals the drawing value but ten per cent.
So, for example, if you set "Input Power" equal to 1000, you will obtain only 900 in another net.
Ten per cent of "Input Power" are lost due to the efficiency coefficient of the machine.
The maximum capacity that a converter can draw equals ten thousand energy units per second. If you want to pick more capacity than 10k, you have to use several converter machines simultaneously. So your two nets will connect together through several converters at once, it is a normal situation.
Any single electric net must have its own switching station. And the switching station must be only one per one net.
Therefore you must add a new switching station into a new net after you have added a converter and thus have created the new net.
Later, if you need several converters to increase capacity, you must not add a new switching station with every new converter, because your second net has already had its own switching station.
Battery box.
This machine is a consumer and a generator simultaneously.
It exists in both LV and HV implementations.
There are two functions of this machine.
1. It accumulates excessive electric power and then returns the stored energy into the net when generators can not master a while of peak consumption.
2. It charges electric hand tools.
A battery box has a certain maximum volume of energy that can be saved.
When you aim the game cursor at the machine, you can see a text prompt with information about a stored volume and a maximum volume.
Also, a battery box has capacity of accumulating and returning processes, that is approximately 10 per cent of the maximum volume.
For example, if a battery box has a maximum volume of 200k energy units, it can output into the net only 20k energy units per second.
So, if your net lacks capacity of 30k energy units per second during peaks, you have to mount at least such two battery boxes.
A player can open the menu of a battery box with a right-click.
The figure by way of the big colour pillar with the legend "Power level" in the menu shows a current amount of accumulated energy.
A battery box has the "Charge" socket and the "Discharge" socket.
The former accepts electric hand tools for charging, the latter accepts articles keeping electric energy and capable of discharging for the sake of electric net needs.
In order to charge an electric hand tool, you have to put the tool into the "Charge" socket.
While the tool is being charged, you can watch the growing colour stripe near the tool indicating the saturation with energy.
Some tools have such a large volume that you can not watch the filling process by eye due to a low charging speed.
An electric tool is not subject to wear, unlike a regular hand tool. It means an electric tool will never vanish.
When an electric tool exhausts the energy, it just ceases working. And you have to charge it with a battery box machine. Then the tool can work again.
There are many useful electric hand tools in the game.
Spray painter. It can paint sides of blocks with a thin layer of a dye.
Chainsaw. This tool serves for fast obtaining of wood.
Mining drill and
Mining laser. These are advanced mining tools with interesting features.
Energy crystal. This article can store much electric energy to supply a digtron or even a single small electric net.
And others.
Conclusion.
The geothermal power plant described in the foregoing text is basic and very simple. A player should investigate the question and invent more complex variants of the plant. Also a player may travel on the game map and learn other players' buildings and factories. It will help to understand and solve most troubles in the game.
There are several types of electric power plants in the game.
Solar and nuclear energy can be used to obtain electricity besides geothermal power. Players should study how to build plants of other types on their own. That is not difficult having already had knowledge about the geothermal plant construction.
We should enumerate some notable electric generators to whip up a player's interest:
Hybrid solar panel. It uses solar energy to obtain electricity.
This generator can work even at night-time producing 50 per cent of its day-time capacity.
But this rig can not supply your deep underground base, because it can not work lower than the sea-level that is elevation zero in the game.
RTG (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator). It uses nuclear power to obtain electricity.
A player loads certain radioactive elements into the generator to make it produce electric power.
That is all the manual so far, thank you for reading:) Play the minetest and have fun:)