Batteries

[[HARK] Skrubs*]

so I put 4 batteries down in my base, but I noticed that they all 4 drain together at night. Is there any reason to have more than 1 battery?

[SirProsik]

2 Batteries per solar panel seems to be the ratio. Depends on how much power you are consuming.

[Zak]

How many batteries you need depends on your grid total power usage. Assuming all your solar panels and batteries are connected properly, when you interact with any solar panel or battery it will tell you the grid power usage. The rule of a thumb is to have two solar panels and one battery per every 50kP of grid usage.

Originally posted by SirProsik:

2 Batteries per solar panel seems to be the ratio. Depends on how much power you are consuming.

It's the other way around: two solar panels and one battery. You need two panels so they will run your base and charge the battery at the same time.

[Other]

Batteries have a limit to the amount of power they can store. So if your base will completely drain one full battery in less than the 15 minutes that night lasts, you need more batteries if you want your base to have power at the end of the night. My general rule of thumb is one battery and two solar cells per 50 kps of power the base needs. Or you can just add batteries and solar cells every time your base runs out of power and shuts down, and eventually you will have enough.

[[HARK] Skrubs*]

I guess I'm confused. I'm not running out of power. I have 4 batteries each cap at 45k power. when night comes all 4 drain together instead of say 1 at a time, does having more batteries reduce the speed at which they drain? is that what is happening?

[Zak]

Originally posted by HARK Skrubs*:

I guess I'm confused. I'm not running out of power. I have 4 batteries each cap at 45k power. when night comes all 4 drain together instead of say 1 at a time, does having more batteries reduce the speed at which they drain? is that what is happening?

Yes, they drain all together, as one unit. So no, having more batteries does not change the drain speed. The drain speed is always the same, all that matters is their total capacity.

[dreamrider]

Depends entirely on how much peak and continuous power draw you will place on the power grid at night.
And it isn't about whether they drain together, but rather about how fast does a bank of 1x battery drain, vs how fast a bank of 4x batteries drains, while supporting the same load. A single battery rig is not going to get you through the night if you start adding items requiring power to the grid. It might carry a single teleporter through the night, but probably nothing more.

(When I put in bare bones bases w/ teleporters (usually near Curious Deposits or other remote mines requiring occasional tending), just a platform, a roof and the teleporter, I always install 2x "solar sets", that is 2x batteries + 4x Solar panels.)

Far and away your biggest power draw will be if you are running a hotspot mine/farm of several exractors...without an electromagnetic hotpot Set up to provide the power. But that is entirely doable with a bunch of sets of 2x Solar + 1x Battery, dedicated to the hotspot mine.
(Tip: You can entirely enclose, or even bury, a Solar power "set", or a group of them. just leave a power lead poking out of the cave, hole, or sealed building. They will all continue to work just fine.)

After that, your biggest single draw will Probably be your base teleporter. Although an array of all 10 storage units, or a dozen hydroponics trays, or a bunch of prefab structures with built in power busses, like bio-domes, will exceed the draw of a single teleporter.

Other things that will draw power: Local transporter sets, some lighting units, mostly the brighter ones (you can actually light all your interiors with the sorts and models of light fixtures that do not draw power, if you pay attention when selecting the parts), the Galactic Trade Terminal (I think), large power doors (they default open if unpowered), holo doors. I'm sure there is a bunch of stuff I am leaving out.

Some surprising things DO NOT require a power grid connection. The food processor, most notably, and the technicians work stations.

[Zak]

When you place a part it tells you how much power it uses. Base teleporter draws 20kPs, for example, Storage Container 5kPs, etc. The biggest power hogs are the mineral extractors at 50kPs so you will need two solar panels and one battery for each extractor.

A bare bones base (one teleporter and some lights) will use much less than 50kPs, therefore you can run it off of two panels and one battery only.