Thermostat costs 10 power no matter the size of the home?

ravynwolvf

I'm fiddling around with ECO living again (first mistake) and trying to get a working off the grid home (second mistake). It's the dead of winter, my sim was freezing, but I had a solar panel and a wind turbine and had no power consuming anything, yet. So I bought a thermostat to try and turn on the heat, and immediately started running a negative power. Seemed excessive, so I went to an empty lot, created a sim, and tried some experiments. Solar panel, plus during daylight hours (4ish power) Wind turbine seems to create about 5 overall (maybe a lot of wind during winter?). So roughly 9 between the two of them. But I hung a thermostat, turned it to warm, and got negative 1.09 power. Turned it to cool, and got negative 1.09 power. Turned it OFF, and got negative 1.09 power. Deleted the turbine and panel, and got negative 9.99 power. This is with the thermostat off, and nothing else on the lot. Turns out if I remove the thermostat, it goes to zero, and if I hang it back up, still off, it remains at zero. But if I turn it on and off again, it drains almost ten power either way.
So maybe the thermostat still draining power while off is a bug. And the power usage of a furnace compared to a fridge in game is fairly right, too. Adding one floor doubled the power cost, and adding two floors tripled the cost, so that's accurate. But the problem is, ECO Living isn't playing well with Tiny Living. I tried stretching out the house of my guinea pig to 30x30, and the heating price stayed the same. Setting it to a tiny home and shrinking the house down to the correct sizes, the power cost was still 10 at each tier. Even a 2X2 home is still 10 power units to heat. Really?
There needs to be a modification to tiny homes that not only lowers your bills, but your power consumption for heat (and air conditioning) at each tier. If I have a 5X6 micro home, I would need 4 solar panels just for heat alone, and that's ridiculous.

Calico45

I do not think that is a bug. There is not really an "off" option from what I remember. It is cooler or warmer, right? Well, cooler in the winter is still running. If you think about it, internal temperature control takes up a lot of power. I would pretty much never use them for off the grid play unless I had a huge production of power. Even then, it does not seem very true to theme when fireplaces and fans are an option.

Off the grid play is one of my favorite things with the IL, Eco, and Seasons combo. Speaking of, my favorite off the grid build which began before off the grid was a real thing in 4 is now the smallest type of tiny home. It works, but from my experience you definitely need more than one turbine or solar panel (but that is pretty realistic now, too, right?). I usually play with a family of six with that.

ravynwolvf

No, there is an off option for the thermostat. And when working right, it drains zero power. And off the grid means just that; you are not connected to the local power, gas and water grids. You create your own. Certainly one way to do that is to ignore electricity all together, and use wood burning stoves, heaters, etc. And that has been the norm for years. But with all the new ways to create electricity, like solar and wind, you can live off the grid with electrical power as well. But it better be a small home.
Which is my point. It shouldn't be that costly to heat a tiny home, power wise. If nothing else, the game could have a space heater. But it just as easily could have a reduction in power costs to heat if programmed correctly.

ravynwolvf

Heck, it's right there in the zone information for tiny homes; "Using less space means using less energy which means lower bills!" If we get lower bills because we don't use as much hooked to the grid, we shouldn't use as much when NOT hooked to the grid.

Calico45

The bills rework with power consumption and water consumption was done after TL, so they did do their consideration. They decided indoor temperature control was expensive in power consumption and this consumption is tied to the object itself rather than the tiles, like all the other objects. To do so otherwise would require reworking it. Personally, I find it rather realistic within the limited framework.

I am well aware that some people produce their own power for off the grid living, it is even a feature of Eco as discussed, but rarely do I think of a real family relying on a singular solar panel or turbine. It takes more, right?

Calico45

But if it is off and still consuming power it is odd. It might need that turn utility usage off option like on other objects.

ravynwolvf

Calico45 wrote: »

The bills rework with power consumption and water consumption was done after TL, so they did do their consideration. They decided indoor temperature control was expensive in power consumption and this consumption is tied to the object itself rather than the tiles, like all the other objects. To do so otherwise would require reworking it. Personally, I find it rather realistic within the limited framework.

I am well aware that some people produce their own power for off the grid living, it is even a feature of Eco as discussed, but rarely do I think of a real family relying on a singular solar panel or turbine. It takes more, right?

Actually, no it wouldn't require reworking it. Yes, for individual lot sizes, by number of tiles, that would be a nightmare. But when Tiny Lots already have traits and buffs roaming around in the background, it wouldn't be that difficult to use them to reduce power. I'm looking at the coding for thermostats right now; just haven't worked it all out yet. There's one in bills that says " <T>229435<!--zoneModifiers_TinyHome_Bill_Decrease--></T>" that cuts bills down if you're in a tiny home. That could likely be applied to the power consumption for the thermostat. They "did their consideration" like they usually do; with no consideration how everything plays together, and not how to make it work the way it could. If I'm sitting here in my living room and am close to working it out, they could too.

As for the power off on the thermostat, it looks wonky to me. Can't figure out how they did it (or why they did it that way).

ravynwolvf

...and I did it. Cut the power usage for the thermostat by half for my half sized house. Granted I took a shortcut, but it works.

Calico45

Good for you. You solved your own problem. Personally I do not consider it a problem, but I am glad you got it working how you wanted.

I thought you wanted the heating costs (power and currency) to be based on the number of tiles considering the experiments you outlined. That mistake was mine.

I will say, though, with the nature of the lot bluffs themselves, while they could do it like you I doubt they world. Retroactively changing previous packs is very rare if done at all. I created a thread to see if anyone remembered it happening, because I did not. The bills was for everything, so that is what they considered. They did not go back and fiddle with previous packs beyond the new base game feature. If they would do those things, it would be a lot better game.

ravynwolvf

Thanks. I gave it up again, though, lol. The thermostat is just too buggy, and continued to suck power even when spring came. And even when I sold it. Ended up having to rebuild the lot, move in and out, just to get rid of the energy drain. So I decided to go more your route with a fireplace. I like the look of the new one they added, anyway.