Purchased power not connecting with city
I've seen a lot of posts about similar issues without solutions, but I was told to post here anyway, so here goes. I'm playing solo, and I've got a region with two cities right now. One of them has ...
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Thanks for the notes. I'll check and see about the solar thing when I get a chance tonight. That may explain the outages.
As for purchasing power from my other city, I only have two, so the fill excess should be available. I also haven't had outages in my main city since well before I started City 2, so that shouldn't be the issue. I know it can take some time to sync that, but it doesn't ever work. I've let it sit until my entire city2 burns down (hours in real time) and it never connects. I've also switched to my main city and let it run for an hour or two and it never connects from that end either. It always says "buying 0 of 2000MW" or whatever the actual number is (somewhere in the 1900's actually). If I switch to regional view it'll show the arrow indicating I'm sending power to the other city, but it'll never actually connect. I don't think it's a time delay thing, I think it's just not connecting to city2.
Incidentally, if I purchase power from city1, that should cover me when city 2 runs out over night (assuming that's the issue) and keep the blackouts from happening, correct? It'll purchase when the supply drops and then stop once the supply picks up again the next day? So rather than shut down my solar plant I can just leave it on and see if the blackouts stop and that should tell me if it's actually connecting? Just looking for a way to keep from having my whole city burn down while I wait to see if it actually connects.
I'll post some screenshots tonight.
JAW
Yes, City 2 will use whatever power it has available in the city first, and then connect / buy from City 1 when needed. It's been my experience, though, that you will always have an in-game hour or more waiting for the power to flow from one city to another. That's why I suggested turning off the solar to see if it works. Another consideration is where the two cities are in time - what year / month are each of the cities in?
You may want to zoom in to make sure all your roads are actually connected - sometimes in building and bulldozing, you can accidentally take out a small snippet of a road. If that happened right inside the entrance, it's possible the power can't get to the rest of the city.
Since you're playing offline / single player, you could do a "save as" and test a few things out first to see how long it takes to synch up various ways. Then go back to your main save to implement the solution that works.
My roads are definitely all connected, so that's no the issue. I'm including 3 screenshots. The first one is after letting the city run for a full day, showing I've got power surplus but still have portions of my city without power at 4:39pm game time, so after 9+ hours of daylight. There's no (reasonable) rationale for it to take that long for power to get throughout my whole city.
This next one is after I've shut down my solar plant and let it sit for over 24 hours of game time. You can see there's still no power reaching my city from my main city (and the main entrance road is clearly connected). I've let this sit similarly for 3-4 days of game time and nothing changes. For what it's worth, I have no idea why it says I have a surplus. I have no other power source in my city, and clearly power isn't reaching there from anywhere else, so that also seems to be glitchy.
This third screenshot is the view of the region showing that I should be receiving power, and that I'm using 0 MW of the 1969 MW that are available. Meanwhile, my whole city is shutting down and burning up because no power is reaching it.
I should add that I am able to share things like police, fire, trash/recycling, and I'm able to purchase ControlNet, (although not enough to cover everything when my towers are all down).
Thoughts?
JAW
Okay, I have a theory. I saw that power surplus despite my solar plant being turned off and all my buildings without power and I thought that didn't make sense. So, I bulldozed my solar plant, and the surplus went UP(!) to 65 MW! No buildings got power, but somehow I had more without a plant than I did with one turned off. So I don't know why the heck that's happening, but my guess is that's what's causing the issue with purchasing power. Since my meter shows a surplus, it's not going to purchase any from the region. The problem is, I clearly shouldn't have a surplus when I've got a city full of buildings and no power plant.
JAW
OK - first thoughts: Do you have a megatower with a power cap on it somewhere? That might account for the extra power that you seem to have.
For the 1st screen shot, it appears that you just don't have enough power to run to the whole city. It's definitely powering some, then running out of steam for some reason. In neither of the screenshots do you show your city buying power from the other city.
Have you tried choosing "Stop" in the region view, and then start buying again? It just may not have registered for some reason.
Screenshots of the data maps, rather than just the city, would be more helpful. (click on the lightning bolt to see the data map, hover over the graphs to see the actual power used) I tested adding solar power (not enough) to a city I have that is running entirely from another city's power. Here is what I would look at:
If you're purchasing power from another city, it will ALWAYS be right on the dividing line - never more or less capacity, always at 0 (unless the city you're buying from doesn't have enough to fill the deficit)
In the region view, it appears to be a bug with the arrow. This is the same setup as above, and mine says buying zero power even though it was buying it.
However, after running a bit it showed the actual usage. You can hover over the bars to see the numbers for each. The arrow shows all available to purchase; the graph bars show generated / consumed / deficit. The deficit should equal what you're actually buying.
Make sure you've cleared the "sell power to neighbors" checkbox on the solar farm, and try stopping and then restarting the purchase.
Please let me know how this turns out, and if it's still an issue, screenshots of the data maps like the ones I shared above could be helpful. 🤞
Thanks for your reply. There were a lot of points, so I've tried to respond to each one below.
OK - first thoughts: Do you have a megatower with a power cap on it somewhere? That might account for the extra power that you seem to have.
No, I have no megatowers in this city. No power sources at all. And if I did, and had that surplus, all my buildings should be powered, no?
For the 1st screen shot, it appears that you just don't have enough power to run to the whole city. It's definitely powering some, then running out of steam for some reason. In neither of the screenshots do you show your city buying power from the other city.
The first screenshot shows a 234MW surplus. The fact that it's not reaching my buildings is exactly the problem (one of them, anyway) I'm having. With that surplus all my buildings should be powered, at least during the day. You mentioned it could take some time if I don't have enough battery power overnight, so I included that one to show that even during the day after it's had time to recharge I still don't get power to all my buildings despite that surplus.
Have you tried choosing "Stop" in the region view, and then start buying again? It just may not have registered for some reason.
Yes, several times over the course of the last few weeks. Nothing changes, I think because my city is registering a surplus despite having no power source.
Screenshots of the data maps, rather than just the city, would be more helpful. (click on the lightning bolt to see the data map, hover over the graphs to see the actual power used) I tested adding solar power (not enough) to a city I have that is running entirely from another city's power. Here is what I would look at:
I'll grab a screenshot of that map and post it shortly in a separate reply. I also figured out how to get a wider view of my city, so it'll be a little easier to see more of it.
If you're purchasing power from another city, it will ALWAYS be right on the dividing line - never more or less capacity, always at 0 (unless the city you're buying from doesn't have enough to fill the deficit)
Yeah, I know how it *should* work. I buy some things from my other city (namely ControlNet), so I know you only get exactly what you need and will always run at net-0.
In the region view, it appears to be a bug with the arrow. This is the same setup as above, and mine says buying zero power even though it was buying it.
However, after running a bit it showed the actual usage. You can hover over the bars to see the numbers for each. The arrow shows all available to purchase; the graph bars show generated / consumed / deficit. The deficit should equal what you're actually buying.
I know there is sometimes a delay. That's not the issue. This *NEVER* connects. Ever. It's not a delay. I've had this city running for months of game time and hours of real time with no connection.
Make sure you've cleared the "sell power to neighbors" checkbox on the solar farm, and try stopping and then restarting the purchase.
I have. And right now I don't have a power plant at all (hence my confusion about how I have a surplus).
