The Power System
The power system is the industrial backbone of AvalonEarth. It moves three resources — electricity, oil and fuel — through placed machines and conduits. The whole network is resolved once per second, and almost every power machine is gated behind Towny investigation.
The three resources
Electricity
Real-time, with optional storage. A consumer runs only while the generators (and Power Cells) connected to it can meet its demand this second. There is no inherent buffer unless you add Power Cells.
Oil
A pooled liquid, pumped from oil fields and held in Oil Storage.
Fuel
A pooled liquid, refined from oil (or fermented by a Biofuel Generator) and held in Fuel Storage.
Conduits (cables & pipes)
Conduits are placed blocks, not menu connections. Place one next to another and they auto-connect to adjacent conduits of the same type and to any machine they touch. Left-click a conduit to remove it.
- Electric Cable — carries electricity.
- Fluid Pipe — carries oil or fuel. A freshly placed pipe is unbound and locks to whichever network (oil or fuel) its run first touches.
Conduit tiers (I / II / III)
- Upgrade a run by surrounding 8 conduits of the previous tier with the tier's node block: Gold Block for tier II, Diamond Block for tier III.
- All tiers share one network per resource and interconnect freely.
- A grid's per-tick transfer cap follows its lowest-tier conduit, so upgrade the whole run to raise the cap.
| Conduit | Tier I | Tier II | Tier III |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric Cable | 512 | 1024 | 2048 |
| Fluid Pipe (oil/fuel) | 64 | 256 | 1024 |
Throughput caps are per-tick transfer per grid.
Generators (electricity)
| Generator | Output | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Solar Panel | 35 power/sec | Daytime only; drops to ~30% while storming. |
| Wind Turbine | 8 + up to 32 power/sec | Height bonus (best high up, Y 64–192). Only in configured worlds (Earth by default) — not on the Moon. |
| Coal Generator | 30 power/sec | Burns coal at ~8 s per coal; holds an internal coal buffer. |
| Combustion Generator | 250 power/sec | Burns fuel from a connected fuel pool at 1 fuel/sec. The strongest generator — needs the full oil → refinery → fuel chain feeding it. |
Power Cells (electricity storage)
Power Cells charge from surplus generation and discharge to cover demand before any coal or fuel is burned. They come in three tiers:
| Tier | Capacity | Transfer rate |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 3,600 power-seconds | 60 / sec |
| Tier 2 | 14,400 power-seconds | 150 / sec |
| Tier 3 | 57,600 power-seconds | 400 / sec |
One power-second is one unit of power held for one second. The transfer rate caps how much a single cell can charge or discharge each second.
The oil → fuel chain
Oil Pump
Pumps 1 oil every 5 seconds while electrically powered (~100 power/sec). Only works while standing inside an admin-defined oil field, and the cable must connect to the single block directly behind the pump.
Oil Storage
Holds up to 5,000 oil.
Oil Refinery
Turns oil into fuel: 4 oil → 1 fuel per cycle, one cycle every 5 seconds, drawing ~150 power/sec.
Fuel Storage
Holds up to 5,000 fuel. Fuel feeds combustion generators, rockets, command stations and tractor refuelling.
Pumps
Water Pump
An electric pump (~60 power/sec) placed next to a connected water body of at least a 3×3×3 (27-block) source. Run a Fluid Pipe from it to your Trade Servers and every connected server tops up its coolant automatically each tick — an overheated server even recovers on its own.
Fuel Pump
An electric refuelling station (~20 power/sec) that pipes fuel into nearby tractors (within ~6 blocks). It draws fuel from a connected Fuel Storage.
Power Meter
The Power Meter is an inline electricity ammeter — a diagnostic tool, not gated behind research. Place it between two cables: it bridges them, adds no load, and reads the grid's live throughput.
Electric Furnace
The Electric Furnace smelts items using electricity instead of fuel: about 60 power/sec while it has a valid input, smelting one item every ~2 seconds. It is a tier-2 research unlock.
The commodity market
Electricity and oil can be bought and sold server-wide through market machines:
Electric Market Distributor
Lists stored electricity for sale. The owner must be in an Electric company. Set a unit price in its GUI (0 disables the listing).
Oil Market Distributor
The same, for oil. Owner must be in an Oil company.
Market Buyer
Buys electricity and/or oil from the global market and unloads it into connected storage at about 100 units/sec.
Switching machines on & off
Every power machine — the Oil, Water and Fuel Pumps, the Oil Refinery, generators (solar, wind, coal, combustion), Power Cells, Oil/Fuel Storage, the Electric Furnace and the market machines — has a right-click status panel with an ON/OFF switch in the bottom-centre slot.
Flip it off and that machine leaves the grid entirely: it generates nothing, draws no power, and its stored oil/fuel/charge is isolated from the network until you switch it back on. Only the machine's owner (or staff) can toggle it, and the setting survives restarts.