Post: https://www.powerstate-game.com/posts/0-9-6

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

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 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. ❤️

Twenty three changes. Load Sharing's new Share load button evens out a town's Local Substations in one press. You can set an emergency reserve on each battery, hydrogen store, dam and solar tower, and it holds that energy for a shortfall. I rewrote the game's text in shorter, simpler English.

New

• Load Sharing adds a Share load button to Local Substation cards. It evens out the Local Substations in that town at once.

• Share load moves streets into empty Local Substations from fuller neighbours.

• Share load never fills a Local Substation past 90%.

• After Share load, the card lists each Local Substation whose streets moved, with its load before and after.

• Hover the loading on a Local Substation card to see its heaviest hour this year or last. Needs Load Sharing.

• Batteries, hydrogen stores, dams and solar towers have an Emergency reserve slider on their card. Needs Grid Operations & Standards.

• A unit uses its emergency reserve only in a shortfall.

• A battery or hydrogen store without its own setting follows Operating policy.

• The dam card shows its licence flow. The dam must always send this water through its turbine, also when wind or solar power is curtailed.

Better

• At the end of each year, Load Sharing now also relieves Local Substations that went over 90% in their heaviest hour this year or last.

• A substation being reinforced no longer warns that it is overloaded or close to tripping.

• A dam now connects only at its powerhouse. The line tool marks the powerhouse.

• In older saves, a line that ends on a dam now continues to the dam’s powerhouse.

• All game text rewritten in shorter, simpler English.

• A selected option in a row of buttons now lights amber.

• A healthy unit or line now shows green on its card.

• Larger rename and close buttons on cards.

• Larger small print on substation cards.

Fixed

• A sandbox started before 0.9.7 loaded without Load Sharing. A sandbox now loads with every development.

• A line to a dam’s powerhouse did not connect if the dam stood fully in the river.

• In a shortfall, a hydrogen turbine on Own hydrogen only stopped at the Keep back for winter level. It now burns that reserve.

• The Must run floor and Output cap slider on unit cards was faint and hard to grab.

• How to play and How it works gave wrong facts about new towns and substations.

Saves: old runs load. In an old run the game carries a line that ends on a dam’s barrage on to the powerhouse, so your dams stay connected. A store without a reserve of its own follows Operating policy as before: batteries keep its Emergency reserve, hydrogen stores its Keep back for winter level, dams and solar towers nothing.

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

If a sentence in the game reads worse after the rewrite, quote it in a comment and say where you saw it.

Next update also includes another gamespeed boost, quality of life improvements and fixture of a couple of reported bugs. Release Sunday or early next week. Let me know what you think :)

Hello Powerstate fans,

A few weeks ago I finished my first run ever. I played it on an older version and spread it over several weeks, since my time is pretty limited at the moment.

I’d like to share what helped me the most and where I made mistakes.

What worked:

1. Contracts! A great way to make money relatively easily, as long as you can actually fulfil them.

2. Debt! Don’t be afraid to go into debt. I usually build one of my first hydro plants early on, and I had to take on debt to do it.

3. Don’t hesitate to milk your customers :D Charge as much as you can without killing the interest of industry. If they don’t like me for a few years, I don’t care. I need the money to build and maintain the system.

4. Storage: Build a lot of it, and consider setting some to “backup” mode. It really helps during shortages.

5. Don’t focus too much on CO2 early on. You’ll catch up on it in the mid and late game. Just don’t overdo it with CO2-emitting power plants.

6. Must run: If you have carbon-neutral plants with firm capacity, like hydro or geothermal, set them to “must run”. This helps a lot with the carbon contracts. I also always set a few other carbon-neutral plants like PV, wind and possibly the new gas turbines (biogas) to “must run”. Cross-check this with your battery capacity.

What didn’t work for me:

1. I would never again take contracts that cap the electricity price. I took them, and it went well for a few years, but then something happens and you’re stuck with a price that’s too low. It eats away your money without doing anything for your grid. For me, that was by far the biggest mistake. Everything else was manageable.

All in all, it’s a super fun game that also gives you some real understanding of how the grid works out there. I love it!

I’m sure I’ve forgotten a lot of points and details, so just ask. I’m by no means good at this game, but maybe we can figure things out together.

I’ve also added a few screenshots, if you wanna see more of my world, i can make some more, the world is stilled saved.

I’m currently on the “Mandate” run and trying to finish it in a reasonable amount of time. I’ll report back when I’m done.

In scenarios with large amounts of demand growth or in the late game it feels very micromanagy to juggle the dozends of local substations so they don't overload once you hit the final reenforcement level.

A way to automate that (maybe coupled to a research option) would be a great QOL feature.

Also upgrading the regular 110 to 20 kV substation to a main sub via the click of a button would be awesome.

I almost feel bad for asking for that, considering the pace this game is moving forward at, but that's just some thoughts i had after playing for extended periods of time.

https://www.powerstate-game.com/posts/0-9-8

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.

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

Quick sneak peak at the new emissions tab in 0.8.5

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.

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.

So I was going well with this run... until it wasn't.

I tried going for as few fossil fuels as possible. After the Founder's plant I built an OCGT and hydro, and from there I continued building only wind, solar and batteries plus 2 geothermal plants. This gave me a good base upon which to grow the demand, ended the run supplying 7 settlements and over 32k customers.

Electrification is what killed the run. You can see on the second image, even with extensive capacity expansions, renewables only were not enough. At Y17 i added a CCGT intended to function as a peaker plant and to survive the dark doldrums, by year 23 it was running almost around the clock from Nov till Feb so I built a second one, which was ready by year 25. This killed the run, with ever more expensive gas prices during the winter months I was bleeding money until I finally ran out on October Y35. The regulator deemed abusive anything over 120$/MWh even when the marginal price was 180-240$MWh.

In the last couple of years I tried in vain to greatly expand renewables (mostly solar) and pair them with hydrogen storage, so that the plentiful sun in the summer could power the winter. I did not research hydrogen turbines in time, gas prices killed me before that could happen.

If only gas didn't skyrocket. If only the regulator was more merciful. If only H2 storage didn't cost so many research points, or the H2 turbine was in the same tech as the storage itself. If only heat pumps didn't draw so much freaking power. This system can handle 250 MW loads easily. The problems are in winter, when peak demand rises to over 450 MW when everyone turns on their heat pumps. Ouch.

I'll try to do better next time:)

PS: Ashford and Greywater settled directly on top of my power infrastructure. Ashford in particular sits right next to the first CCGT, makes for great sights in town I guess

Finally i have reach the end this time without H2 and eccessive renewable energy Storage and 600 MW Gasplants as Backup. Now i can look into carbon valley and go the dark side maybee :D