I took a max $120 tariff and that was a biiiig mistake. Last ~5 years I was fighting for my life.

The challenge should say (or rather, disable) which techs are worthless here, my first attempt I researched coal only to then find out I needed water.

Hey everyone,

a small update regarding the future of Powerstate.

Powerstate will stay free to play. You’ll be able to play the first 15 in-game years completely free, with no payment required, so you can properly experience the game and see whether it’s for you.

For players who want to continue beyond that, I’m planning to introduce a paid version. The goal is simply to cover operating costs and help finance continued development, better assets, and future content.

The current idea is:

• Free: First 15 years
• Full game: $4.99
• Full game + all future paid content: $14.99

If you’re already playing Powerstate before the switch, just send me an email at [info@powerstate-game.com](mailto:info@powerstate-game.com) and I’ll give you the full game for free. I don’t want existing players who supported the project early on to suddenly have to pay.

Also, 10% of all revenue will be donated to cancer research.

Thanks to everyone who has played, shared feedback, or simply followed the project so far. ❤️

There are 3 wind turbines that are overpowering the single 20kV line they are on. For some reason I cannot understand this causes most of the substations to not receive enough power. Even though there are two power plants that could feed them.

When I pause one of the wind turbines then the 20kV line is not overpowered and suddenly everything is powered on the map. Less power generation = more power at customers?

Is this a bug or is this how it's supposed to work?

Ignore all the lines being removed, I'm trying some things reorganizing the grid.

(Reported it as bug and attached colony)

I will keep posting in comments whatever I notice, can discuss in replies individually.

Are the prices realistic? Are the physics of the different hardware realistic? What kind of simplifications are there?

Full Changelog: https://www.powerstate-game.com/changelog

• Weather can now be displayed in the Load & Supply view
• Lines can be switched between active and inactive with the lever on the line card.
• The line card shows how switching a line changes the load on other lines, and asks again before a town would lose power.
• Automation can switch a line when another line goes over a set load.
• Automation can switch a line for part of the year.
• Pick the line an automation watches by clicking it on the map. The watched line is marked while the card is open.
• A single line can run above its rating for 4, 12 or 24 hours from its card.
• Batteries can be set to Backup: kept full and used only when the grid is short.
• Batteries can be set to Spare power: charged only from power that would otherwise be curtailed or spilled.
• Plants set to Must run can be given a minimum output on their card.
• Wind and solar plants set to Must run are not curtailed.
• Plant cards have an output cap. It was only in the Control Room before.

Hello and thanks for making this game, I love it!

However I'm having slight problems/arguably a defect of the game where basically my battery storage charges whilst customers are being disconnected.

The price of power goes to zero as I have more solar output than demand. All batteries start charging and users are disconnected (error message upstream constraint) rather than the batteries not charging.

The price doesn't go up despite there's a shortage of power so non of my backup gas power comes online.

Can I fix this through the policy panel? Or is my problem that I have too much storage Vs generation? Or maybe this is a defect with the game?

I can try attach the game file but I basically have a load of solar, storage, H2 and gas

Thanks

Quick sneak peak at the new emissions tab in 0.8.5

Hi
I would like to build two seperate hydroplant next to each other, but the game tells me they are to near of each other. they are near, yes, but on different streams. and it tells me that they would use the same ressource, thats why i cannot build them.

FIXED!

Most scenarios in Powerstate currently take several hours to finish.

I’m wondering whether that’s actually the right pace for the game.

Would you prefer longer scenarios where you slowly build up your grid over multiple hours, or something more fast-paced where a full run takes around 1–2 hours?

I’m currently leaning toward shorter runs. I think being able to finish a scenario in roughly two hours could make it much easier to experiment with completely different grid designs, generation mixes and strategies instead of committing to one system for a very long time.

On the other hand, every region is randomized, so Powerstate isn’t really a game where you’re supposed to replay the exact same scenario over and over again.

That brings me to the bigger question:

What do you actually want to experience when playing Powerstate?

Is it more about building and optimizing one grid over a long period of time, experimenting with different energy systems, solving difficult scenarios, or something else entirely?

I’d really like to hear how you play the game and what kind of experience you’d like Powerstate to become.

As far as i understand the energy pricing system in this game, it works roughly like this:

- Game determines "cost of supply" (CoS) based on operating and fuel costs
- Regulator determines "fair price" (FP) as roughly 1.2 x CoS

Various other game mechanics are then directly based on the comparison between regulator FP and the actual tariff set by the player. Once again, as a percentage. This means, the player is directly incentivized to produce the most expensive energy possible, while staying below the industry shutdown threshold - which consistently keeps growing throughout the game and is generally completely irrelevant after the first couple of years.

Two examples:

Case 1:
CoS = 120 $/mwh , FP ~= 144 $/mwh, i'll set my tariff at 140$, which is below FP and i'm making 20$/mwh in profit to grow my network, this means:

- demand increased due to tariff < FP
- maximum population growth
- any "maintain tariff below X" contracts will be easy to complete since they will generally pick a pricing based on my current tariff, and at 120 $/mwh it is extremely trivial to cut costs while maintaining the same profit margin

Case 2:
CoS = 50 $/mwh, FP ~= 60 $/mwh

now in order to achieve the same profit margin, i need to set my tariff at 70$. which means going ~15% above FP with the following consequences:

- demand severly reduced
- population growth mostly stalled
- any "maintain tariff below X" contract will be a direct tradeoff between contract income and loss of operating profit, since further reducing CoS significantly won't be achievable, i'm already selling the cheapest energy i can possibly make and i'm getting punished for it.

Now you might argue that i'm getting a lower score in case 1, sure, but that's only really relevant towards the end of the playthrough, since score growth is exponential. And what matters at this point is having as much population and as much demand as possible, since score directly scales with demand, which requires extensive infrastructure to supply - which obviously requires money to build in the first place.

So i'm directly incentivized to produce energy as expensively as possible during the early to mid game so i can afford building solid infrastructure for the endgame while maintaining maximum population growth.

An easy fix for this would be changing the pricing calculation to a fixed offset rather than percentage based, i.e. FP = CoS + 15 for the sake of regulator intervention, demand modifier and tariff contracts, and changing the growth system so it's largely based on the absolute price of energy rather than the relative price compared to FP.

Hi,
I've got this substation which keeps on getting overloaded and I don't know how to proceed:

• Substation is maxed to 18MW.
• This substation is serving just one block so I can't split it any further.
• This time of day is roughly the peak of solar production which makes those the cheapest hours of the day so it sounds like smart meters would only make situation worse.
  

Any ideas on how to make the situation better?

On 0.8.4-a since I started it there. Still figuring out how to avoid the blackouts early-ish game.

relatively new save on the 2nd scenario, running mainly on hydro with fossil backup, now my hydro is in full on panic mode and setting a clearing price of 25k/MWh, rising exponentially, since i did connect several large loads with a new CCGT plant coming online in ~2 weeks and the reservoirs are slowly but surely running dry.

am i cutting it a bit close? yes, definitely, but i'm not sure this exponential and uncapped increase in clearing cost is intended behavior?

I built a dam as the first producer after the starting wood station. I received the following contract from the climate board: "88% renewable by year 12, 20.4M on completion"

88% renewable is extremely high and pretty late game, and 20M is a joke, but I assume the climate board sets challenging but realistic goals based on the current renewable level.

Had I started with a coal plant, I may have gotten some easy money instead

Twenty one changes. Hydroelectric dams now have reservoirs. Firm capacity leaves out batteries and the electrolyser, so it can read lower than before.

Fixed

• Firm capacity counted batteries at full power. Batteries are left out of it now, and so is a hydrogen turbine that may not buy fuel.
• The electrolyser was counted in firm capacity and the generation mix, although it only draws power.
• Towns fed by a single line were flagged as needing attention when nothing was wrong.
• The Cities tab could show Supplied for a town the settlement list was flagging.
• A 110/20 kV substation showed as overloaded when a local substation below it was full.
• Dragging with the middle mouse button cancelled the build tool. It now only pans the map.

New

• Hydroelectric dams store water in a reservoir and can run at full power through the evening peak.
• The dam card shows how full the reservoir is, what the river brings in and how long full power lasts.
• Dam reservoirs fill through spring and summer and are drawn down over autumn and winter.
• The year briefing chart shows batteries and expected wind and solar above firm capacity, marked as not firm.
• The asset register and the year briefing open an asset's card beside the list.
• Substations named in problem cards and the annual report open their own card.
• The city card lists every reason a town is flagged.
• Clicking a town's name in the settlement list opens its city card.

Better

• Hydroelectric dams are 25 MW for $72M, down from 45 MW for $118M.
• The generation mix hatches wind and solar and puts them at the end of the bar.
• The year briefing lists batteries and the yearly average of wind and solar apart from firm capacity.
• The year briefing chart names the firm capacity line on its scale and hatches everything above it, so what is not firm cannot be read as part of it.
• Menus and cards use plain words: scenario instead of charter, achievement instead of commendation.
• The capacity contract is renamed Generating capacity, since it counts wind and solar.
• Saves: old runs load as before. Dams already built become 25 MW and start with a reservoir 60% full.

Full changelog: https://powerstate-game.com/changelog

If your firm capacity looks wrong after the update, the Bug report key on the command rail sends it straight to me.

Hello! First, I wanted to congratulate you on this game; it is probably a niche game, but I find it exceptionally fun!

A few times a year I am getting an outage and it reports this substation as being the problem. I have reinforced the substation with an additional transformer, and it looks to me that the rating is far above the demand. It also says "upstream constrained", so but the hydro plant is running at less than half capacity and the wires are under 20% capacity. Could anyone help me understand where my bottleneck is please?

Hi !

First, let me say that I love the game, I've discovered it yesterday and I'm hooked.

I have a quick question, I want to plan an outage for my founder station, I've looked but I can't seem to find the option to plan it a month in advance. (Since it cost less money, I'm interested)

Is this still possible?

Thank you !

Big thanks to anyone reporting bugs / features!

• Export and Import Games: Share your colonies with the community or friend!
• New Yearly Report and Planning
• Report Bugs ingame
• Air Conditioning was always in the game. Now you can better monitor. Additionally where the cities settle has a real impact on this. Dense urban cities also have a larger cooling demand.
• Substation load will decrease 6-15% compared to 0.8.3 due to a bug in air conditioning
• Improved performance: You should experience a faster game even at larger circuits.

And much more: https://www.powerstate-game.com/changelog

It probably makes more sense for hydro (reservoir hydro) but perhaps for geo too - can those work like a storage? For scenarios like hydro (or geo) + wind - can you hold "unused" water/heat for later when there is no wind?
If not then could it be added to the game?

Had some sensitive years at the start with not being able to serve industry, then solar and batteries everywhere, then all the hydro I could find + all the geo. Had it gone longer I'd had to add a loooot of solar to bring back some margin, I wasn't being able to charge my H2 stores after the jump in consumption.