Large Solar Panel not worth the upgrade Power Sucks in General.

[Astral]

TLDR: All power needs to be completely overhauled.

Why do developers do things like this? I makes no sense and smacks of a total lack of due diligence. Why make the "upgrade" worst than everything else?

The Large Solar Panel not only needs advanced materials to build, but it give less power per surface area than the small or medium sized Solar Panels. What part of "Surface Area Matters" with solar energy is not understood? Here in REAL life I could make a better solar panel than the garbage in this game.

Here is another problem. The large solar panel are dual axial/gimbal and says it is rated at 300 kWh. There are three things wrong with this.

#1. Solar panels don't have kWh (kilowatt hours)! They can have kW (kilowatts), but not the h part because that is for batteries as it denotes the amount of TIME the rated current will last. Solar Panel are producting power as long as light is hitting it and does not have a limit like batteries do.
#2. They never get to 300 kW. In the peak of the day the most I see is around 240 kW. What gives? By the time the sun is above the horizon solar panels should be well past 50% power production.
#3. The "Power Curve" for the panels are too much like Stationary solar panels that don't track the sun. Why waste the time and energy to create complicated Animations for the solar panels when they are not actually Tracking the sun? Sure, even tracking panels will have a falloff for the beginning and end of the day. But once the sun is up and there are no shadows hitting the panels... they should be AT FULL RATED POWER! and remain that way at least 70% of the time they are facing the sun.

Now... on Batteries... who told you they CHARGE 5 times faster than they discharge? If a battery can charge at 250 "kWh" then it can ALSO discharge at 250 "kWh". Charge Controllers for batteries will typically limit Charge/Discharge to prevent damage to batteries but they sure as Ay Chee Double Hockey Sticks don't have a 5 to 1 disparity between them!

Now... the modules need to have at least a "stand-by" power and "active" power rating. The idea that a smelter is consuming 10 kWh of energy but processing nothing is about as clown town as it gets. Which brings another problem. Physics is not fair. Energy required to process materials never changes! If it takes 500 Joules to heat 1 metal bar to process it then when you speed up your factory in upgrades by 25% then your module WILL need to also consume 25% more power because Physics still says... it STILL take 500 per bar so if your machine was doing 100 per day that would bee 50,000 Joules per day so when you go 25% fast that would mean 125 per day which means... 62,500 Joules will be required.

Look, you don't need to any "fancy" math but OMG these things are not uncommon knowledge either.

[jcsco21]

If you want them to truly follow current solar panel guidelines a 300W panel really only peak produces on average 21-23% of 300W or 63-69W an hour....but this is a game and they are taking creative license.

[Othobrithol]

The savings from upgrading your solar is not just power but in CPU and repair time. These savings are also naturally compounding, as additional CPU costs additional power, and additional repair drones cost additional CPU.

[Rhekis]

couldn't the efficiency be greater on the moon where the conditions are different? plus ... its clearly the future?

[Xort]

I saw KW/h as the output and cringed a little inside.
Maybe I'm dumb but I can't find a readout of how much power I have left vs the time remaining to the next sun rise. Or to put it another way will I run out of power.

[Astral]

Originally posted by jcsco21:

If you want them to truly follow current solar panel guidelines a 300W panel really only peak produces on average 21-23% of 300W or 63-69W an hour....but this is a game and they are taking creative license.

It's not about "current" guidelines and sure creative license is fine. But even in the future none of these things will apply. The things I mention are basic and fundamental "physics". And like I said... I am all about creative license... but this goes beyond that.

Originally posted by Rhekis:

couldn't the efficiency be greater on the moon where the conditions are different? plus ... its clearly the future?

Technically yes, but not in a way that is immediately clear. Solar Panels in space tend to have a lower efficiency, but due to there no longer being an atmosphere between the sun and the panels a lot more power will hit the panels resulting in greater energy production overall. And I am not even "asking" for those kinds of physics to be applied. It's 1/2 a century into the future... we should have more efficient Solar Tech by then.

Originally posted by Almasty:

A future where all units are complete junk. The cost to keep repaired the cheaply built high tech devices, is all the hair on your head. When 46+ units break at same time every 1/2 hour. And biggest take most costly devices to repair.
I noticed that the big solar panels do not follow the sun, they face away from it most of time.
The solar panels should produce more power. There is no atmosphere running interference with the sun And the moon has a slower rotation than ole planet earth.

Yep... a future full of junk sadly. The amount of break down in this game is too much. My big solar panels did follow the sun so I guess there is a bug in them that is different for everyone. The are clearly FAR less capable of production compared to 9 Medium Solar Panels. The only advantage is the lowered CPU requirement but it would be better to just make a Large CPU cluster... it's technically "cheaper" to just Add CPU and Use only Mediums. The logic in this game is too freaking fruity! Large Solar Panels should at least be 600 per! not 300. And even worse... they don't even ever get to 300.

[SpaceCowboy7]

For power output they are not worth it. However the CPU reduction makes them slightly more attractive. The winning factor is the amount of repair's. As someone posted above in regard to this.

If You don't have a problem with CPU which is easy to build and don't need repair, and You have plenty of drones, its a decision You have to make, more repairs or less.
Personally i prefer hearing less then 5 broken bottles per second. For me that's the deciding factor to choose large panels.

Note: i've stopped laying the game due to the constant repairs, and yes i have researched welding. This is covered more in the relevant thread.

[Mr Pink]

Any comment on videogame talking about "In real life this is like this or that" should be instantly deleted.

[MessengerOfRage]

Originally posted by Mr Pink:

Any comment on videogame talking about "In real life this is like this or that" should be instantly deleted.

wait, nooo!
you are cruel!
why delete a perfect pice of internet entertainment?
here, take a seat and watch ;)
(hands Pink the popcorn)

[resonance]

Modules already have a 'stand-by mode' as you call it. Production modules that cannot produce for any reason (no available input, storage full...) will stop using power. If you click on the building it will show 0/X (X being however much power it uses normally) for its power usage.

Well unless this has been changed in the while since I played it.

Also, the main draw for the large solar over medium is the huge CPU savings. Repair cost is better too but by then, those resources aren't that hard to get. Repairing only one item as opposed to nine of the same physical size, or even four for the same output is a consideration as well.

[Astral]

Originally posted by resonance:

Modules already have a 'stand-by mode' as you call it. Production modules that cannot produce for any reason (no available input, storage full...) will stop using power. If you click on the building it will show 0/X (X being however much power it uses normally) for its power usage.

Well unless this has been changed in the while since I played it.

Also, the main draw for the large solar over medium is the huge CPU savings. Repair cost is better too but by then, those resources aren't that hard to get. Repairing only one item as opposed to nine of the same physical size, or even four for the same output is a consideration as well.

Yes, you are right I was noticing that modules not producing anything are not drawing power.

The "CPU" for Solar Panels is a bit crazy. Solar Panels should not require any CPU at all. None of the ones that exist today even have them. If you want to say a CPU is involved it would be "charge controllers" but a single controller can handle multiple panels. This game has "stupid" logic on power systems. Humans have been generating energy before computers or integrated circuits even existed.

The logic is nothing but "pure gimmick" and that kind of "nonsense" is just flat out annoying. It would make more sense if Solar panels were only 1 kind and research was about improving efficiency. The other problem is that the panels are in space and turn to face the sun. The moment the sun is past low horizon they should be at 100% output not freaking 25%. The moon does not have an atmosphere like earth and the production curve is exactly like stationary panels. It's like they didn't even WANT to do any basic research about it.

[Dragontail]

Dude, this developer thinks the sun sets on the moon every 12 hours like on Earth. All I had to see to delete this dumpster fire. Even the asteroid impact and blowing wind is utter bullcrap. Developer is an idiot.

[Queezy_Peezy]

upgrading from medium is well worth it because of the cpu usage. they get a little over 3x the power and you save 4 cpu power which saves on cpu which saves on batteries. never really have a problem with power currently at 2500 demand and i just add more when i need too.

[jcsco21]

When you start making everything CPU usage is a moot point because you can make 10 of them in 3-4 minutes. My power usage got to ~3500

[Annonymous]

While I agree with OP on most points, the tone is a bit confrontational - reads as a harsh criticism instead of a suggestion for an in-development game.

The dev team is already aware of the issue with the Large Solar Panel footprint, and are looking into it - meaning, it'll take a while to decide how to address it, and how to fit those changes into and around the other coding.

Some of the other points don't really matter. Sure, there's no atmosphere on the Moon to contribute to a 'shock-wave' effect from an enormous explosion. This could be be a simple fix, as a large enough impact/explosion would certainly cause seismic shock waves, which DO rebound through and between core-mantle-crust.
But, again - doesn't really impact game play. While it was something that caught MY attention, I doubt many of the mainstream players would ever notice it.

Personally, I'd love to see the solar arrays be a little modified to more fit the current visuals. Such a huge base could store a small-ish energy storage area (battery)

[Jack McKeen]

I can't agree with the points of the OP in all cases, nor with the decisions of the devs on all points either.
My takes:
- a smelter that isn't producing, but turned on, will use it's full power demand, because it has to stay heated up to be instantaneously ready to melt ore. Want to save power? Turn it off. Devs +1
- Attenuation of solar power at beginning and end of day can only be due to 2 things: fixed panels that don't swivel toward the sun, OR the EARTH'S atmosphere. Sunrise is RED because of this attenuation. But on the MOON, there would only be some mild haze at most due to meteor and human activity kicking dust up high enough to block a tiny bit of sunlight, but I bet this would be VERY LOW attenuation affects.
Devs -1.
- The only other attenuation is over time, like 20-25 years of material decay, or due to micro-meteorite damage over time on the moon.

In games, there is a desirable amount of abstraction and simplification. So having to periodically go supply some material to a solar array can be thought of an abstraction of eventually having to recycle the panels and install new panels on the array, and also replace/rebuild all the sun-tracking and stowing motors, encoders, etc. It's easier than an array showing up as dead and having to be bulldozed, and then rebuilt.

- future batteries may utilize carbon-single-molecule-layer-sheets, allowing faster charging, discharging, and capacity, but this game doesn't recognize that, using silicon in the batteries, instead, which is bizarre. But the performance of the batteries can still be at futuristic sci-fi levels, if they choose. While charging and discharging can be set at some arbitrary level due to supposed limits of not having all sorts of materials and production capabilities on the moon. The other issue is that generally, batteries aren't designed for a high discharge rate since that requires higher current-carrying capacity throughout the distribution system, when many systems wouldn't need that, so undesired waste of materials. There tends to be a best-practice target for these things, with large high-power lines for a higher-level distribution, and then lower capacity power-lines at the level of factory machines and human habitation. This game abstracts some of that away, but not all games do. They might give you hi-power distribution in exchange for gaining power efficiencies.

That said, making sense of the power-distribution faults in this game is a big negative to the devs.

Why some things are power limited when both the distribution and stored battery power is all green is crazy after all this time.

Why drones can't make use of any given charger is a big bug.
Drones will run out of charge and get stuck, even though they are right next to a drone charger.