[Discussion] How should lightning attractors be modeled?

[DaleStan]

How are they arranged?

The arrangement of lightning attractors affects how much energy they can capture. Lightning attractors with overlapping collection areas will collect less energy than the same number of attractors spread further apart, but completely separating the attractors will make it difficult to keep your factory safe.

Lone attractors: Maximum energy collection and easily justifiable, but not a likely in-game arrangement.

The distance between protected areas must be at least 20 tiles in this arrangement. If not, the capture areas (which are larger than the protected areas) start overlapping, and the attractors will lose productivity.

Square: Likely the most realistic simple model; collects ~64% as much energy as lone attractors.

The distance between attractors is $\left\lfloor\frac{2\times range+20}{\sqrt{2}}\right\rfloor = \left\lfloor\sqrt2\times(range+10)\right\rfloor$

Hexagonal/triangular: Maybe less realistic? Collects ~83% as much energy as lone attractors.

The nominal horizontal distance is $(range+10)\times\sqrt{3}$, and the nominal vertical distance is $(range+10)\times\frac{3}{2}$. Trying to snap the attractors to the grid makes the math complicated, and I'm currently inclined to ignore that if we take this option.

Something else?

How do you arrange your lightning attractors?

This should be a relatively simple adjustment. If there's significant disagreement, I imagine I can make it configurable.

What attractor-to-accumulator efficiency should we target?

Lightning attractors have a 150 MW passive drain. Any factory that cannot absorb 12 GW (for normal rods) to 60 GW (for legendary collectors) will lose energy due to this drain. In realistic scenarios, the drain will consume anywhere from 75% to 95% of the theoretical capacity.

Some values from the current model:

Unless otherwise noted, the quality of the attractor and accumulator match.

Attractor/Quality	Accumulators	MW (theoretical)	MW (effective)	Lost to drain
Rod, normal	163*	11.5	2.88	75%
Rod, normal	102 rare*	11.5	2.88	75%
Rod, normal	54*	11.5	1.15	90%
Rod, normal	25*	11.5	0.58	95%
Rod, rare	64*	34.1	6.81	80%
Rod, rare	29†	34.1	3.41	90%
Collector, normal	114†	45.1	4.51	90%
Collector, normal	57†	45.1	2.26	95%
Collector, rare	240†	147.3	29.46	80%
Collector, rare	120†	147.3	14.73	90%
Collector, legendary	3981 normal†	483.8	161.28	67%
Collector, legendary	664†	483.8	161.28	67%
Collector, legendary	196†	483.8	48.38	90%

* These counts are dictated by charging current, and tend to be underestimates.
† These counts are dictated by storage capacity, and tend to be overestimates.

The overestimates sometimes reach as much as 15%. I haven't yet taken the time to remove the offending simplifying assumption from my model.

If there are differing opinions, it may be possible to make this configurable. Configuring this will be more complicated than the arrangement, so I may let someone else take care of that.