✧✦Catherine✦✧i am playing a game
the game is "power network tycoon" https://davidmadethis.itch.io/power-network-tycoon
factorio isnt realistic enough i must feel the pain of an independent system operator at all times or its not fun
it has a "mission mode (hardcore)"
i was going to make a joke about PG&E but upon reviewing the text i have realized that the joke is on me and the actual, literal PG&E would never be able to play
a happy customer exclaims "Lights on despite rain!"
oh boy. i was not prepared
there are exactly two types of games that call something inside the game world an "asset"
one of them is this
this game is incredibly engaging, especially for early access. the UI is a little janky, some of the mechanics are a _little_ too RSI-inducing, but on the whole? an incredible amount of fun. i spent way too long on the first island because i kind of just vibed with the grid, right? that kind of game
ps. nimbys suck
Wolf480pl@whitequark hmm maybe I should try it again, last time I played it I reported a bunch of bugs and left...
Did they add simulation of grid frequency and the effect supply-demand imbalance has on it?
@wolf480pl not that ive seen
IshambardAs someone who works in this industry, energy/utility infrastructure, I feel I really need to check this out! This all sounds really cool!
Also, yes, I agree, NIMBYs are the worst.
vandorb12@whitequark oh geez, now only if we can hook this up to steam engine simulator for some reall power management hell.
Robin Bradshaw@whitequark ooooh do they have a helicopter level where you have to fly the lines with the special UV corona camera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsSXjFMHIuU
monitoring hot line washing with Ofil's corona camera
@en4rab a little higher level than that sadly
SnoopJ@whitequark the first Catherine-type game
@SnoopJ it's like laser targeted at me
irina 🐇🌷
@whitequark how sure are we this isn't just like industry training software packaged as a game
@irina industry training software would never be this good!
duck.@whitequark @irina moonbase alpha would like to disagree
fops@whitequark im speechless. like. oh my god it has complex impedance and reactive power and shit
@whitequark this game is like if factorio's grabbers had control loops you had to manually tune otherwise they won't work
demize@chfour @whitequark yeah I’m pretty sure this game is just what you get when a power engineer decides the best use of their time is making an indie game about doing their job
incredibly detailed mechanics turned into a game for people who might also like to be power engineers but never got the chance
@whitequark this game looks like a ton of fun
Galen@whitequark @astrid i feel like half the fun of this would be causing new and exciting fault conditions
Eloy. 🔜 WHY2025@whitequark this is the most convincing game review I've seen in like a decade
Peter Brett@whitequark Does it stimulate partial breakdown events (and monitoring/prevention)?
(This game seems like the sort of thing I would enjoy watching other people suffer)
@krans i thiiink so?
John
David Made This@krans @whitequark great overview @whitequark , I hope you're enjoying it!
Regarding partial failures, it does to some extent. Everything has a rated power level or rated max temperature, so if they exceed it then their reliability goes from 100% to less, so they have a chance to fail. When they fail, it's catastrophic. I wanted to add routine maintenance as an activity for each asset but it was a bit overwhelming (maybe that's life as a maintenance engineer?).
@DavidMadeThis @krans i really like it! i think my main two issues are that (a) mouse rotation is WAY too fast and can't be configured and (b) at "normal" speed the gameplay is suuuper overwhelming even at the beginning
@whitequark @krans this is good feedback, thanks. I do plan to overhaul the settings menu and add a few things. How do you think I show slow the start of the game? I tried slowing it by it only giving you one building at a time to connect until you have 10 and the penalties are zero to start with. The game also waits if you have things like loads outside of substation range but it speeds up when you build toward thing. It's been hard to balance too slow vs too fast.
@krans @whitequark In the end I opted for an interval based maintenance cost based on the network.
There is a SCADA type system for monitoring, which gives alerts of systems overheating or of failures as well.
F4GRX Sébastien@DavidMadeThis @krans @whitequark Can the SCADA network connection fail so you're left with no info available? Because this definitely can happen irl haha
@f4grx @krans @whitequark that's an interesting idea. At the moment the only time it will fail is when there are bugs I didn't fix haha.
Dan Price@whitequark This is so obviously someone's passion project and it looks amazing for it.
@whitequark this is great!
crzwdjk ✅ @whitequark I guess you can use the recommended overcurrent trip value, or you can figure that the wires probably won't melt with 10% more while you get around to building a new line to relieve this one.
Ryan Castellucci 
@whitequark As someone from California, it's both funny and terrible that PG&E has become internationally infamous for their dereliction.