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Backup generators
A generator can back up your batteries. Convert it into an Off-Grid backup generator, run a cable to a controller, and the controller runs it: it starts when the batteries run low and stops when they are nearly full or the sun has taken over. It only ever feeds its controller.
Right-click a placed generator: Off-Grid › Convert to Off-Grid backup. You need Electrical 3 or to have read Magazine: How to Use Generators, and a screwdriver. The generator must be turned off, disconnected and outdoors, on a square without a backup already. If something is in the way, the row is greyed out and says what to do.
It keeps its fuel, its condition and its brand's paint, and gets an Off-Grid label, a green band, a cable box and a lamp on top: dark while it is stopped, green while it runs. At night a running one also gives off a small green glow.
Off-Grid › Convert to normal generator turns it back into an ordinary generator with the same fuel and condition, facing its brand's default way. Stop it and cut its cable first. Each connected barrel's hose is left on the ground.
Removing Off-Grid from a save? If Off-Grid is removed from this save, this generator is removed with it. Convert it to a normal generator first.
Right-click it, Off-Grid › Run cable from here, then right-click the controller: Off-Grid › Connect Backup Generator (...). A controller takes up to four. The cable goes straight to the controller, up to 12 tiles (Sandbox › Off-Grid › Link radius (tiles)). A backup can't chain through a panel, a rack or a transformer.
| Generator | Output |
|---|---|
| ValuTech | 2,500 W |
| Old | 3,000 W |
| Lectromax | 4,000 W |
| Premium Technologies | 5,000 W |
What is switched on is served first; anything left charges the batteries. While the generators and the sun cover what is switched on, the house has power even with empty batteries. With the controller switched off, a running generator still charges them.
The monitor's fifth key, GEN, shows every generator with its switches. A switch glows while it is ON, its knob at the right on a lit track, and is dimmed while it is OFF, its knob at the left on a dark one; press it to flip it. A greyed switch cannot be pressed. Like every page, GEN is blank while the controller is switched off.
- The AUTO switch at the top is the controller's Auto. Once a generator is cabled to it, the controller's menu has it too: Off-Grid › Generator Auto: turn off (or turn on). START AT and STOP AT set the battery levels with their - and + buttons, 5 points a press. In the cold START AT shows where Auto really starts, which can be above the level you set; - and + still change your level.
- Each generator has two lines, and a faint line parts it from the next: its state, output, tank and barrel fuel, how much it burns, time left and condition. At the right are its two switches: AUTO, its own Auto, and ON/OFF, on while it runs. While its AUTO is on, its ON/OFF switch is greyed: switch its AUTO off to start or stop it yourself.
| State | Means |
|---|---|
STANDBY |
Stopped; Auto may start it. |
RUNNING |
Running. |
OFF |
Stopped, and its AUTO or the controller's Auto is off, so Auto will not start it. |
NO FUEL |
The tank and its barrels are empty. |
FAULT |
Worn out, or burnt: repair it. |
INDOORS |
Inside a building, or walled and roofed in: move it outside. |
OFF BY SERVER |
The server has switched backup generators off. |
Beside the state a row can also show:
| Mark | Means |
|---|---|
FAR |
Its area is not loaded. It still works, on its tank alone. |
MIXED FLUID |
A barrel holds something other than gasoline (rain in a barrel it emptied, say), so it is skipped. |
HOSE LOST |
A barrel was taken away, moved or left out of reach: it was disconnected, and its hose left beside the generator. |
While one of its generators runs, STATUS says GEN RUNNING, even when it has nothing to supply.
- Auto runs a generator only while both switches are on: the controller's Auto and the generator's own AUTO.
- It starts the generator with the fullest tank (its barrels included) when the batteries fall to START AT (35% for most racks, 45% for Improvised Battery Crates and Improvised Wall Cells), or at once if the house has been cut off for low battery. It stops them at STOP AT (90%), or, the last one started first, once the sun alone has carried the house for 30 minutes and the batteries are 10 points above START AT.
- A second generator starts only when the running ones and the sun cannot cover what is switched on, once the first has run 30 minutes. Auto runs a generator at least 30 minutes, and rests it 30 minutes after stopping it.
- In the cold the start level rises with the battery cut-off, so a generator always starts before the house is cut off.
- With no batteries the sun alone cannot power the house, so Auto runs a generator, day or night, whenever the controller is on and something is switched on. It stops it 30 minutes after the controller is switched off or nothing is switched on.
Switch its AUTO off first, on the GEN page or with Off-Grid › Auto: turn off on the generator. Until then its ON/OFF switch is greyed, and Start and Stop say "Switch its AUTO off first." Then its ON/OFF switch, or Off-Grid › Start, starts it. It runs day and night until you stop it, it runs dry or a fault stops it, and Auto starts others only if it is not enough. Turn its AUTO back on to hand it back to Auto.
It burns what a normal generator burns for the same appliances; charging the batteries costs a little more. With Sandbox › Off-Grid › Realistic Mode (1993 panels) on, it burns what a real gasoline generator does instead: 0.15 L an hour for each kW of its rating, plus 0.45 L for each kWh it delivers. A Lectromax idles on 0.6 L an hour and burns 2.4 L at its full 4 kW; its full tank runs a house drawing 1 kW about 9.5 hours. Sandbox › Off-Grid › Backup generator fuel use scales either: 1 is the rate above, 0 is free.
- Off-Grid › Refuel with a Gas Can or any container of gasoline, also while it runs. The tank holds 10 L.
- Off-Grid › Connect fuel barrel with a Rubber Hose: pick a barrel or tank of gasoline within 5 tiles, on the same floor. Up to eight per generator; a barrel feeds only one generator. The tank tops itself up from them while it is under 9 L. A barrel with anything but gasoline in it (rain in an emptied outdoor barrel, say) is skipped until it holds only gasoline; an empty one stays connected. Disconnect fuel barrel gives the hose back. Gas pumps can't be used.
- Out of fuel, it stops with NO FUEL.
It wears like a normal generator of its brand. At 40% condition or less it backfires now and then, a bang zombies hear up to 40 tiles away, but it never starts a fire. At 0% it stops with FAULT. Off-Grid › Repair the generator needs Scrap Electronics and Electrical 3 or the magazine, with the generator stopped and no fire on its square.
It is as loud as a normal generator of its brand and draws zombies.
It will not run indoors: it can't be converted or placed inside, and if you wall and roof it in, it stops with INDOORS until it is outdoors again. A walled yard without a roof counts as outdoors.
If its square catches fire it stops with FAULT and stays where it is. Put the fire out and repair it.
Pick up works as for any Off-Grid part, once it is stopped. It stays converted. Its cable is released, and each connected barrel's hose is left on the ground.
It keeps running while nobody is near. When you come back the controller settles what happened, for up to 72 hours, as it does for the sun.
Anyone nearby may refuel and repair it. Its controls follow Sandbox › Off-Grid › Who may pick up solar parts, as Pick up does: its AUTO and ON/OFF switches, Start and Stop, connecting or disconnecting its barrels, running its cable or cutting it, and on a controller the GEN page's top AUTO switch and START AT / STOP AT. To run or cut a cable the setting has to let you use both ends, the generator and the controller. By default that is whoever converted the generator (or placed the controller), the members of the safehouse it stands in, admins and moderators; a stopped or running generator makes no difference, and none of them needs a screwdriver for a switch. For anyone else those rows and switches are greyed with the reason. Pick up and Convert to normal generator follow the setting as for every part. Sandbox › Off-Grid › Allow backup generators off stops the running ones (GEN shows OFF BY SERVER) and refuses new conversions; Convert to normal generator still works.