Help with suggestions for above sea level solar panel farm

[llanita]

My base is close to starting pod,so I'm not too far down, however the lights are a lot dimmer since I added another large room on top of the one I had.
Do the solar panels have to be attached to the buildings? Or do they just have to be very close to them

[sgrey]

You can place solar panels far away and run the power with the power transmitter. But what you want to do is place all solar panels at once, or it your power won't work right. That's in all cases for solar panels, because the power sources in Saubnautica are used in the order you placed them.

[penner3]

Yes, they need to be attached to something that is considered part of your base. The base pieces don't need to be physically connected as long as they're on the same grid. But I don't believe you can build a solar panel on natural terrain; it'll need to go on a foundation or base room. Also, build a lot of them.

[llanita]

Well I got so fed up with the frustration that I removed all the solar panels I had, and used 2 thermal thingys by a thermal pool and connected those to my base. I can't believe I thought the solar panels would be easier. Thank you all very much

[sgrey]

Originally posted by llanita:

Well I got so fed up with the frustration that I removed all the solar panels I had, and used 2 thermal thingys by a thermal pool and connected those to my base. I can't believe I thought the solar panels would be easier. Thank you all very much

You gotta remember that solar panels only gonna work during the day, so they require a backup generator regardless. But they are useful for prolonging energy resource consumption for bio reactors or even nuclear. Thermal generators are great, but each one doesn't provide that much power compared to other sources and if you base is large enough, they can easily run out when you, for example, charge your cyclops power cells all at once.

[Steelfleece]

I'm partial to building a vertical tower from something like, say, a bulb zone base to the surface. There, there'll be a cross room with an I room in each direction with solar panels atop, a few more sections of vertical tube, and then another cross room with windows at each end to serve as a lighthouse of sorts. Can see the tower from the surface day and night that way. The solar panels don't just produce power, but each stores some; I'm pretty sure they get drained down before the thermal reactors, so if I'm doing some crazy recharging and production even at night I shouldn't run out of juice.

[llanita]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

I'm partial to building a vertical tower from something like, say, a bulb zone base to the surface. There, there'll be a cross room with an I room in each direction with solar panels atop, a few more sections of vertical tube, and then another cross room with windows at each end to serve as a lighthouse of sorts. Can see the tower from the surface day and night that way. The solar panels don't just produce power, but each stores some; I'm pretty sure they get drained down before the thermal reactors, so if I'm doing some crazy recharging and production even at night I shouldn't run out of juice.

That's a good idea. I tried to build the vertical tube with the idea of adding a foundation to the top, and of course it didn't work

[sgrey]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

I'm partial to building a vertical tower from something like, say, a bulb zone base to the surface. There, there'll be a cross room with an I room in each direction with solar panels atop, a few more sections of vertical tube, and then another cross room with windows at each end to serve as a lighthouse of sorts. Can see the tower from the surface day and night that way. The solar panels don't just produce power, but each stores some; I'm pretty sure they get drained down before the thermal reactors, so if I'm doing some crazy recharging and production even at night I shouldn't run out of juice.

It depends strictly on how many panels you have vs how much power you use. Solar panels do not store that much power, it's actually shown to you. And it's not that they store it, but even during night they gain a little (about 15 units per minute during night, enough to keep the lights on). It's not just charging that drains power. ACU, water filtration, fabricator, medical fabricator. All of them use power. Then there is the moonpool or maybe even 2. And depending on what you do, you might have multiple ACUs and water filtration machines. I't not really that hard to use more than a 1000 units of energy, especially if you just came back from an expedition for resources and need to recharge a ton of stuff, fabricate some things, etc. Each power cell contains 200 units of energy, so if you simply charge an empty cyclops, that's by itself consumes more than 1000 units.

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by sgrey:

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

I'm partial to building a vertical tower from something like, say, a bulb zone base to the surface. There, there'll be a cross room with an I room in each direction with solar panels atop, a few more sections of vertical tube, and then another cross room with windows at each end to serve as a lighthouse of sorts. Can see the tower from the surface day and night that way. The solar panels don't just produce power, but each stores some; I'm pretty sure they get drained down before the thermal reactors, so if I'm doing some crazy recharging and production even at night I shouldn't run out of juice.

It depends strictly on how many panels you have vs how much power you use. Solar panels do not store that much power, it's actually shown to you. And it's not that they store it, but even during night they gain a little (about 15 units per minute during night, enough to keep the lights on). It's not just charging that drains power. ACU, water filtration, fabricator, medical fabricator. All of them use power. Then there is the moonpool or maybe even 2. And depending on what you do, you might have multiple ACUs and water filtration machines. I't not really that hard to use more than a 1000 units of energy, especially if you just came back from an expedition for resources and need to recharge a ton of stuff, fabricate some things, etc. Each power cell contains 200 units of energy, so if you simply charge an empty cyclops, that's by itself consumes more than 1000 units.

If you go to the trouble of building a 20+ story tower from the depths to put solar panels atop, you ain't just putting one on each I room. I usually go for 12 panels minimum, more if I have all the materials available. 75 power or so each, and combined with a few thermal reactors that'll last all night unless you want to build a lot more water filtration than you really need.

As for the Cyclops, I tend to go easy on power consumption with it until I can build a thermal reactor. Then I just park her over a vent while working on the base or whatever. That, and having 6 ion cells ASAP helps.

Fun side note, you can turn the Seamoth into a solar power cell charger once you aren't using it anymore.

[sgrey]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

If you go to the trouble of building a 20+ story tower from the depths to put solar panels atop, you ain't just putting one on each I room. I usually go for 12 panels minimum, more if I have all the materials available. 75 power or so each, and combined with a few thermal reactors that'll last all night unless you want to build a lot more water filtration than you really need.

As for the Cyclops, I tend to go easy on power consumption with it until I can build a thermal reactor. Then I just park her over a vent while working on the base or whatever. That, and having 6 ion cells ASAP helps.

Fun side note, you can turn the Seamoth into a solar power cell charger once you aren't using it anymore.

That's what I was saying from the start. You need a backup for solar cells, like thermal or bioreactor because solar is not constant power source and has pretty low efficiency, considering you need 4 just to power 1 water filtration machine and their capacity drops at night. Also solar power per minute fluctuates depending on the time of day. It's something new players wouldn't know and plump maybe 1 or 2 solar panels.
Plus if you don't realize that in Subnautica power sources are used in the order they were build, you might build a ton of solar panels and they will end up being unused because you build another reactor first.

[admiral1018]

Your base does have a backup battery of sorts based on the collective storage for all the power units. Enough solar powers should be able to power almost any base through night, although you will notice a steady drain in total power once the sun sets. However, so long as the power never hits zero, you won't experience a blackout and don't really need extra power sources.

[sweng]

Originally posted by penner3:

Yes, they need to be attached to something that is considered part of your base. The base pieces don't need to be physically connected as long as they're on the same grid. But I don't believe you can build a solar panel on natural terrain; it'll need to go on a foundation or base room. Also, build a lot of them.

Solar panel can build on natural terrain. I once make solar panels flower on the highest point of the mushroom forest and use power transmitter connect to base below 200m