Why isn't this design producing power?

[bandusdr]

I haven't played in awhile so it is possible I am missing something obvious. I designed a mining station but for some reason it isn't generating power despite having fuel. Can anyone tel me what I'm missing please? Thanks!

[RemoteLeg]

According to your stats, your reactor is generating 60 units of power.
With only one fuel cell and a static energy use of 20 it won't be long before your fuel tank runs dry. Do you mean that your station keeps running out of fuel?

To generate energy you need energy collectors. They won't produce fuel, but they will prevent you burning fuel.
Of course, judging by the level of technology I doubt you've researched energy collectors yet so you need to do that first.

[bandusdr]

Thanks for the reply! Definitely at the start of a new game tech wise.

No, I do not mean it is running out of fuel (although it burns fuel quickly as expected). I understand the fuel capacity is small for sure, however, if you look in the bottom left you'll see that the station has fuel, yet the energy is at 0/105. Since excess energy output is 40 and static energy usage is 20, that means I should have 20 units of excess power to fill that 105 capacity. That isn't happening though and I'm not sure why.

[Bingeling]

I never paid attention to that stuff, but it could be that it only burns fuel when out of energy, to keep running. So when burning fuel, you will see fuel god down, and the energy at zero.

[Aeson]

I never paid attention to that stuff, but it could be that it only burns fuel when out of energy, to keep running. So when burning fuel, you will see fuel god down, and the energy at zero.

I don't think I've ever seen an idle ship or station stay at zero energy while it still has fuel; normally, they run the reactor at maximum output until energy storage fills up and then lower reactor output to match static requirements. Maybe there's an edge case where a ship or station with very little fuel remaining will avoid filling its energy storage so as to conserve fuel, but since that doesn't actually save any fuel and wouldn't keep a station powered any longer than the first method would I'd be a bit surprised if something like that had been implemented in the game.

[RogerBacon]

If your station's cargo bays are full it won't use its mining engines, which means it won't be using any power. Check the station after a cargo ship arrives and takes the cargo. Maybe the engines will kick in then and you will see energy usage. I also note that you don't have any shields, so there is no energy usage there either. Add a shield and you will see energy creation and fuel usage.

[RemoteLeg]

Well this is a weird one.
I built 3 mining stations to Bandus' specifications just to see what they would do.

- if they have no fuel or energy they happily mine away with no ill effects, but we knew that would happen so no surprise there
- if a freighter delivers some fuel they burn the fuel, but do not create excess energy so their energy bar stays empty

Now for the weird stuff: [&:]
On odd occasions, they will suddenly get more fuel even though no freighter has docked. It just spontaneously appears in the fuel tank - increasing the fuel level by 20-50%. I have no idea why this happens.
Finally, the station will sometimes fill its energy bar (I assume by burning a few units of fuel). I've seen this happen shortly after the "spontaneous fuel event" described above. The fuel tank does not have to be full for this to happen.

Oh yes, I was using new stations so the cargo bays are certainly not full.

Does anybody have any ideas? I don't understand why this should be happening.

[Sabranan]

This could be because there is nothing in the design that requires stored energy, no weapons, shields or engines. Maybe if the only energy use is static it just doesn't store any?