ENERGY DLC

[choum]

Hello,

I already red some idées on utilities.
As i see things there should be many different way to exploit energy.
1) electricity :
- can be used in some factories to build things, nearly everything in fact. SO i could be used as an intrant (1 of the 9 boxes) , or as a hidden intrant like manpower
- can be used in town/houses, appartements, commercial buildings for light, heating, computers, house appliances etc. So here can can modelize 2 ways. 1st as a retail service sold in business center or someting. 2nd as for telecom (maybe better).
- and of course energy has to be produced! from coal+water, oil+water, gaz+water, solar, wind. So maybe in factories or in farms with specific technologies. And rendement sgould increase with tech level and factory level. For exemple 1 tech point could reduce cost of power production or increase production with better cells for solar pannels, hugh efficiency turbines, etc
- it should be accessible for first ones like tiny coal generators (but produce expensive power), and very expensive for fusion reactors (and produce nearly free power)
- there should be a lot of competition as everybody needs energy
- there should be researchs dependency like for digital ages (i like this system).

2) heat
- the same with heat that can be used in some factories to produce cement, to heat houses and towns, etc

So here i talk about a new ecosystem in the game with a lot of dependencies and a lot of code revork héhé

[David]

When an electricity company shuts down power plants, how will the firms that rely on it be affected? Will their operations be completely halted until they can find another electricity supplier?

[choum]

yes! no power = no production

to avoid it in early game, maybe allow firms or mayors to build small unefficient solar power plants or something? or something that depel like a mine. Let's say a woodpit power plant :p

[David]

Any suggestions for maintaining the gameplay balance when the energy supplier can abruptly stop the supply? If the government has to always keep a surpass of energy supply in response to the energy shortage caused by deliberate actions by an energy supplier, how can the government's energy firms achieve profitability ?

[mdemircan2]

Any suggestions for maintaining the gameplay balance when the energy supplier can abruptly stop the supply? If the government has to always keep a surpass of energy supply in response to the energy shortage caused by deliberate action by an energy supplier, how can the government's energy firms achieve profitability ?

Can we think of this situation as an energy crisis?

[Zeke_Bohansen]

One solution to player owned energy companies going bankrupt and paralyzing cites is to have a National Grid.
This off map suppler would automatically make up any shortfall.

The game would start with 2 or 3 local government energy companies that could become available for sale in the same way media companies do.

The national electricity grid would always be supplying power to your cities, player owned energy companies would
compete for a share of that market, the same way all the other products work in Cap lab.

[cantdownloadit]

More things to build can be a concern, the maps get very full and crowded already.

And if your going utilities then surely water/sewerage and gas would also be included.

The UK national grid for example is essentially just the transmission system, so if a major power company did go bust they would have to try find the energy from somewhere, as its not feasible to just build a power station and have it start working instantly like happens in capitalism lab, its also a public company not government owned.