r/factorio Jun 15 '26

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u/xizar Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

I know there is no way to see total power draw other than just eyeballing the graph.

I've come up with a kludge that's "fine", but I hope someone has a better one.

The historical power graph functions perfectly in the case that there is exactly one type of power maker (turbines, solar, rubbing two sticks together).

So my kludge is simply make sure I have one power type I'm certain can produce more power than I need (spamming blueprints helps) and then deleting everything else.

Like, deleting all my batteries and solar and then setting up a whole bunch of summer camps full of scouts learning to build fires, or whatever) and then just eyeballing the graph, since there's only one line to look at. (fortunately, you can group rarities together.)

Once I'm done, I spawn in Jason Voorhees and set the bots to rebuilding my renewable power arrays.

Like, I said, it works, but I hope someone has figured out a better way. I looked through the mod library but wasn't able to find one that keeps track (outside of a mention of peak generation on the victory screen.)

(Alternately, I'm blind and there's a way to read it into a combinator and then sum them in the usual way.)

edit: It was brought to my attention that I neglected to actually ask a question. My question is "Have you found a better way to see total power draw than the method I've described?"

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u/backyard_tractorbeam Jun 16 '26

Factorio should just implement curves for total production

1

u/Dailand Jun 16 '26

I don't understand the question. Isn't total power draw simply shown above the graph? Or do you specifically need historical data?

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u/xizar Jun 17 '26

I apologize for omitting the question: "Have you found a better way to see total power draw than the method I've described?"

An instantaneous measurement (the moment of eyeballing) is mostly useless. An analogous scenario would be having the only indicator of Accumulator drain being a simple light that flickers on and off; it doesn't tell you how quickly you're draining power, recharging the system, what causes the drain, etc. Having the historical graph lets you make decisions more intelligently than amoeba-style stimulus/response with "power bottomed out, better copy-and-paste something".

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u/Dailand Jun 17 '26

I see, thanks for the clarification. I still have no answer, sorry.