Power plants under powered or what?

[El_Prezidente]

What is the use of electric substations? Do they generate any more electricity? In a very urbanized tropico, I find that I've got to have way too many power plants on my island just to generate enough electricity for all the buildings.

Has anyone figured out a way to boost the power they output instead of having to build more of them?

[Mrs_Robinson]

I think all that the substations do, is make the power grid cover more areas.  They don't boost power, just provide the areas farther from a power plant power.

mrs r.

[El_Prezidente]

Yeah, that was what I was thinking, so if it were possible to take a small corner of your island and put all your power plants there with substations to bring the power across the island, I wonder if that would help in beauty of the island instead of having them all over the place.  But then i'd need some efficient way of getting workers out to the building site to build those power plants.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH, that takes me into a giant circle again, since there is no public transport, I can't just put power plants in that out of the way corner without putting in enough facitlies for a whole city, i.e. houses, farms, entertainment else my power plant workers will be spending more time walking to work than working.  It's a truly viscious cycle.

[Mr.P]

El_Prezidente, if you need to have workers buildinff in the far corners of your island you need to create 'satellite' communities.

Have the Construction Workers drop down 6-8 Bunkhouses (they are quick to build, so no problem) then 2 Construction Offices next to them. Then drop a Market and perhaps a Pub and you will have them close to where you want the construction to begin.

And as Mrs Robinson says, the Substations add to the area covered by your Power Stations, just make sure you build the Substations within the green area (coverage area) of your Power Stations.

I find it best to have a little 'Power Community' going on, with 3 Power Stations next to each other, with all of the normal facilites (Hospital, Market, entertainment, housing) near-by to keep them working at the power plants.

[Mrs_Robinson]

That's a good idea about grouping power plants together.  That's what I do and then build substations to make my power grid larger.  I also like to build luxury houses for the power plant employees so they hopefully will stay at the power plant, not farming corn somwhere else.

mrs r

[Junta_Joe]

Though I would recommend good housing for them, you should place your power plants as remotely as you can on the "dirty" side of the island. Then use relays to distribute the power.

The power plant workers generate the same amount of power whether they are at work or not. The only benefit you gain by them being at work is an increased job proficiency which they gain fairly rapidly. After a few years with the same crew, you max out in power output. If they lived and played across the island, it wouldn't matter. The bigger point is to make sure they have everything they want to keep them from emmigrating.

Actually most jobs are like this. Exceptions: Teamsters, Dock workers, Construction, Resource gatherers, Factory workers.

[Coconut Kid]

...  The power plant workers generate the same amount of power whether they are at work or not. ...  Actually most jobs are like this. Exceptions: Teamsters, Dock workers, Construction, Resource gatherers, Factory workers.

One of J_J's untested assumptions; although here I see he recognizes that Factory production increases when the workers are actually in the building.

Issues about Power Plant Engineers: The amount of power output per employed worker varies. We know from the documentation that it varies based on the individual's experience level. However, a careful observation about presence\absence has not been reported. Following the pattern of the rest of the game code, a more likely assumption is that the output when absent is the same as when present but completely inexperienced; the output when present aligns with the level of experience. Since there are six employees, the variations are so multiple that only serious problems are noticeable. Also, the Engineers are female. If married, they will live close to their husband's job since he chooses the house; and they will take nine months off work for pregnancy from time to time.

Issues about other "indoor" workers: The various service buildings have a variable "throughput" rate which varies based on the experience level of the employees which also is registered in the Service quality rating. The inferential extention of the known use of production code is that the patrons recharge their gages faster when the employees are actually present, with the none present base rate being analogous to the factory, a single completely inexperienced employee.

To assume no variation just is not logical.