I'm loving the game so far after getting it yesterday and playing it a bit, and as I was playing and needed some additional electricity it occurred to me that during emergency situations the player probably doesn't want to micromanage the power consumption. I think a more detailed power management system would be a good way to address this.
One way to do this would be if it were possible to set particular items to have a power usage priority your power grid could selectively shut off non-essential systems when power is low. Instead of setting an item be 'on' or 'off' the player could set it to 'high priority', 'low priority', and 'off', or something like that. When electricity is low the lower priority items would turn off automatically to preserve power for the higher priority items.
Alternatively, rather than having this be done for individual items this could be done by item type by a menu where you would set a power management policy. You could have multiple policies as well - for instance you could have one policy that is in place for day to day operations that prioritizes lighting, luxuries, etc. but has turrets set to low priority or outright turned off, and a different policy for when you're under attack where you put the defenses on high priority, but have sun lamps and doors turned off. In this system I'd also want to have the ability to have particular items capable of overriding the policy and be always on if power is available.
This system could be a research item as well so it isn't initially available, and could require the user to build a computer that does this management.
One way to do this would be if it were possible to set particular items to have a power usage priority your power grid could selectively shut off non-essential systems when power is low. Instead of setting an item be 'on' or 'off' the player could set it to 'high priority', 'low priority', and 'off', or something like that. When electricity is low the lower priority items would turn off automatically to preserve power for the higher priority items.
Alternatively, rather than having this be done for individual items this could be done by item type by a menu where you would set a power management policy. You could have multiple policies as well - for instance you could have one policy that is in place for day to day operations that prioritizes lighting, luxuries, etc. but has turrets set to low priority or outright turned off, and a different policy for when you're under attack where you put the defenses on high priority, but have sun lamps and doors turned off. In this system I'd also want to have the ability to have particular items capable of overriding the policy and be always on if power is available.
This system could be a research item as well so it isn't initially available, and could require the user to build a computer that does this management.