What is the point of Wind Power...if there's never enough wind?

[Martin]

To win the military scenario all you need to do is produce 500 power plus all your guns etc
Sounds easy? Well.. it takes more than a day for it to complete. So that means you need to supply 500+ at night as well, during the day is easy.. build solar.. but at night.. diesel gens? Maybe.. if I make 1000 fuel.. powercell gens? Maybe.. probably takes about 500 years to make enough to last long enough..

What I need is for my carbon wind gens to actually produce 80 power.. not 8. Poewr..

More than a day.. at this rate it will finish in about 2 weeks..

Fuel Gens are a waste of time, they use 200 fuel every 2 days for 10 of them.

This is why powercells are so expensive, they last 20 days, but are so expensive to make and so time consuming..

[ubreitfeld]

Forget wind power. It's far too unreliable.

Just combine solar cells with batteries. That works fine.

[F91]

In reality... wind power is very weak

[Actual Malice]

I've been there, too, when the turbines are barely moving during a severe heatwave. And it's always good to find a lot of solar enthusiasts, because I like solar as well. But imho turbines are part of a balanced approach to energy management.

Tarring turbines for those occasions when they are underproducing is like dissing solar for not producing at night.

What about those occasions when a thunderstorm is ripping through your camp -- at night -- and the turbines are pumping out massive amounts of energy, while the solar panels sit there useless? Solar panels are more expensive to construct and repair, and they are rated at less than turbines re maximum energy production. Yeah, they don't produce that maximum amount all of the time, maybe even most of the time, but then neither do solar panels (see "at night" above).

[Handbanana]

Even at a minimum they do have some level of production. Solar panels turn off entirely at night so a few wind turbines helps. Honestly getting the carbon wind turbines as a tech is probably the best tech in the game. Even while idle they have a minimum output of 8 which is like half a basic solar panel.

Ultimately you should be using both and batteries to power the base. If you have a reliable source of gasoline you can run some generators as well. For example the material printer will produce 50 gasoline every 24h. This is enough to keep 5 generators running net neutral. I usually run 4 to make it net positive in case of down times.

Power cells I never understood. The amount of material and time required to make a power cell to put in a cell battery never made sense to me.

[Bjørn]

Originally posted by Handbanana:

Power cells I never understood. The amount of material and time required to make a power cell to put in a cell battery never made sense to me.

Interesting. I'm the opposite. I only use a power cell generator in the games I've played so far. The power cell lasts a long time, so I've never had to replace one yet. And I use solar panels only.

But I must admit I haven't played a game until 'the end' yet (max year 3 something), and only the crash scenario. Not had a game where I've researched the carbon turbines yet, so I'm looking forward to those when I start playing again.

[ZeroKarma]

I stopped using wind because at night if your batteries all crapped out, you will be stuck all night listening to the worst noise in a video game ever as they give 1 power then drain and the game makes a grinding thunk noise at you every couple of seconds to let you know there are unpowered devices. Because you know, people love grating horrible sounds every time they have an alert pop up on screen, especially when its spammed at you.

[mcluod]

The answer is "buid everything" (except for power cell generators, those are useless due to the scarcity of power cells). I had 20000 battery power, 15 improved solar panels, 2 graphene ones, 6 or seven wind generators and 6 diesel generators, attached to a low battery sensor (60%) so they wouldn't run nonstop.
Fuel isn't that much of a hassle if you have fuel fermentation since you'll get wave after wave of free bug meat. Also I found an oil tanker as a bonus and had improved long distance travel which made the trips worthwhile.

What would I do different ? I'd take bit more time to either stockpile materials like electronics, metal and silicone or build more solar panels to begin with since I started out way too optimistic with way too few of them and had to crash-build the diesel generators to sustain my batteries. Better preparation for the longdrawn power-up phase might have made it easier but I managed in the end :)