Solar Power

[Aristacah]

I was one of the first eagerly looking forward to the concept of this alternative form of energy. I am probably not alone in being disappointed in the reality of it.

1) It's too big. 2) It's not worth the effort or time it takes to construct one versus the energy return 3) For PVP it's REALLY not acceptable and 4) When you're building an underground base on a snowy planet, it really stinks. Those big patrol CV's just love them, though.

Solution: Put generators and fuel tanks back into the survival constructor and make solar power what we all wanted: An alternative form of energy.

Thanks.

[Christianholmes]

wait, they toook fuel tanks and generators out? That's stupid.

And I'd like to know who all the people were (according to them) saying solar was overpowered so they reduced it 50%.

[mock]

unfortunately they made solar power too realistic it's basically as worthless as it is in the real world. 20 Solar panels (the max) on my Akua supply base and on a sunny day I have to turn everything off to build up any charge in the capacitor.

[Helio]

I agree that solar panels are extremely weak, they really need a higher output.

[Diarrhea Cactus]

Originally posted by ☬ Crow ☬:

Originally posted by mock:

unfortunately they made solar power too realistic it's basically as worthless as it is in the real world. 20 Solar panels (the max) on my Akua supply base and on a sunny day I have to turn everything off to build up any charge in the capacitor.

You really are an idiot. I have solar panels on my house and the energy company pays me money instead of the other way around.. Just think of all the modern tech classes you could take by saving all that utility money.

That being said, I agree with the OP. Solar needs tweaked to be more relevant IMO. Maybe the devs have a vision for it that's hard to see at the moment, but I don't find the progression to be very natural feeling anymore.

The problem with your statement is it applies to your house, a building that consumes Kilowatts not Megawatts. I used to be in the solar industry and it doesn't work well when applied to an industrial setting. The amount of resources needed to produce the panels in the size and quantity needed to power even a basic industry in the real world is massively expensive without any real returns in a reasonable timeframe. The company won't see any real benefit for almost 15 years and that is assuming they plastered their entire infrastructure with solar panels.

I wouldn't be so quick as to call someone an idiot when you don't understand what goes into making these things work. In fact, insulting someone proves you know little to nothing other than what you see from your small perspective and invalidates your statements causing you to be ignored. Bottom line, solar in this game doesn't work the way it should, it needs to provide a more unrealistic gain in order to be worth putting up around the base. Any decent base is going to pull Megawatts in power and Solar can't build up enough charge in the timeframe of the day on a planet to assist.

The most it does is reduce promethium consumption by about 5-10%. It needs tweaked to provide more than that or equipment needs tweaked to consume less. Either way, as an alternative source, it doesn't cut it. Here are some basic, unbiased, and easy to read articles on solar.

http://www.aei.org/publication/inconvenient-energy-fact-it-takes-79-solar-workers-to-produce-same-amount-of-electric-power-as-one-coal-worker/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/20/solar-power-in-crisis-panels-generate-power-government-subsidy (This one is a bit extreme, they don't have enough panels for their homes to produce enoug hto be self sufficient)

[L37]

It is around ~600KW from 20 panels in space, which is enough to power base with everything needed including multiple ventilators and still have some spare power to run constructor from time to time. Not enough to run constructor(s) constantly though, which IMO is how it should be.

But on planet, especially in the beginning when building (and defending) 20 panels is not viable, it is another thing. Average output is at least halved by night time, and there is also weather...
It would still be very nice way to save some power, if only it worked correctly with regular generator/fuel.

Making solar panels too powerfull will be a bad thing IMO, because it will be free unlimited power without any effort...

[Toonarmy]

Solar would be great but the mp game im playing they dont work, the battery just drains even through the daytime. Ive got them sloped e/w so the sun always shines on at least one . Theres no green lights no yellow lights, they just do nothing.

[rphillips1986]

Originally posted by nosrepatsuj:

the laughable part is it had double the out put orriginaly but the "reailstic" crowd cried for a nerf so now it has half the output while lights still draw a kilowat of power.

Yeah that was kind of my beef with making the pannels have realistic output. Lights and some other things draw very unrealistic amounts of power. Realistic is great but it needs to be realistic in the context of the game, not real life. 20 pannels should be able to power lights, ventilators, a constructor, maybe 2 if not running full time, fridge, food proccessor, and a few of the power using deco items. My feeling was they should produce 500kw per pannel, in space. 20 would produce 10 mw.

[JohnDoe44]

This game has tech to produce teleporters, warp drives and hand held beam weapons for general consumption. What, no hyper efficient solar panels?????

[rphillips1986]

Originally posted by JohnDoe44:

This game has tech to produce teleporters, warp drives and hand held beam weapons for general consumption. What, no hyper efficient solar panels?????

Right! A lot of the calculations that were discussed for how much power a pannel should produce assumed they were only capable of absorbing about 50% of the energy potential from the sun, as they do in real life today. But this game is set into the fueture and its perfectly reasonable to assume that solar pannels would be able to collect 100% of the potential energy from the sun. And they also assume potential energy from our sun. But there do exist much more intense suns which could produce a much higher potential energy than what ours produces.

Personally, trying to make them function in game exactly as they do in real life today on this planet and in the orbit of our sun, isn't very realistic.

[Hummel-o-War]

Solar Panels are the entry point of the upcoming, further to-be-developed energy-tech progression, not super-high-performing generator alternatives.

If you cannot use them in PvP or when hiding underground - you might need to use Generators instead (@OP Did you really complain Solar panels cannot be used underground??? :D :D

There will be more efficiency-grades, but Solar will not solve your problems with a fully build up base...


... and please refrain from personal attacks. Just saying.

[Hummel-o-War]

Please stay on topic. Flaming, OT and personal discussion will be removed to keep the focus on the feedback. Thx.

[VulcanTourist]

Perhaps the solution is not INCREASING the solar panel output but rather DECREASING the ridiculous power demands of some equipment? While good arguments can be made for Constructors and Repair Bays and Fridges consuming noticable power, it's RIDICULOUS that desks and tables and beds and other trivial equipment each consume one KiloWatt each, and lights and sensors also consume exaggerated amounts of power. Certainly Grow Lights and Spot Lights on ships could be justified to consume more than standard lights, the baseline for lighting is set far too high. The power consumption of lighting and such should be measured in Watts, nor KILOWatts.

Don't increase the output of the Panels. DECREASE the demands of all the trivial equipment. Can that be modded in the new config.ecf? Gonna go look right now....

Addendum: Nope, can't effectively be modded right now because a whole integer seems to be the minimum value that can be specified.

Currently, for example:
EnergyIn: 1, type: int, display: true, formatter: Watt

Tried both:
EnergyIn: 0.1, type: int, display: true, formatter: Watt

and:
EnergyIn: 0.1, type: float, display: true, formatter: Watt

Both attempts resulted in an error just starting the game, bot loading a game instance. This new modding system is still to limited, because there are too many hard-coded resumptions, limits, and restrictions in place. (As another example, I tried tweaking the Stacksize values to test the limits, and found that setting all of them to 9999 doesn't work because the game still has hidden validation checking that truncates to 999, apparently.)

Addendum 3:
Jeez, there are quite a few energy-sucking "deco" blocks whose energy usage is apparently still hard-coded and not exposed in config.ecf. WHY?

[chabero]

I have test the Solarpanes in Kreative

is a litle to low output for this size

I have create a small level 3 Starterbase with Konstruktor, Vent, Fridge, Foodprozzi, Oxigenstation 1 light and 4 boxes 2 doors...
5 solarpanels on my Building (after strethching) it and the Base ar switching on/off and destroing my Oxigen... on to low solarpower.. (was fogy), produce only 20-40KW

first as i put a biofuel to the fueltanks the base rund stable (Foodprozzi + Konstruktor and light off)
consumes 63KW... complete online 66KW

On full Sun the solar produce 224KW maximum on best conditions, but Batterie not filled enouth for the night.

Think a little more Output or smaler Solarpanells (for placing more on the same Room) needed

[rphillips1986]

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

Perhaps the solution is not INCREASING the solar panel output but rather DECREASING the ridiculous power demands of some equipment? While good arguments can be made for Constructors and Repair Bays and Fridges consuming noticable power, it's RIDICULOUS that desks and tables and beds and other trivial equipment each consume one KiloWatt each, and lights and sensors also consume exaggerated amounts of power. Certainly Grow Lights and Spot Lights on ships could be justified to consume more than standard lights, the baseline for lighting is set far too high. The power consumption of lighting and such should be measured in Watts, nor KILOWatts.

Don't increase the output of the Panels. DECREASE the demands of all the trivial equipment. Can that be modded in the new config.ecf? Gonna go look right now....

Addendum:
Nope, can't effectively be modded right now because a whole integer seems to be the minimum value that can be specified.

Currently, for example:
EnergyIn: 1, type: int, display: true, formatter: Watt

Tried both:
EnergyIn: 0.1, type: int, display: true, formatter: Watt

and:
EnergyIn: 0.1, type: float, display: true, formatter: Watt

Both attempts resulted in an error just starting the game, not loading a game instance. This new modding system is still too limited, because there are too many hard-coded resumptions, limits, and restrictions in place. (As another example, I tried tweaking the Stacksize values to test the limits, and found that setting all of them to 9999 doesn't work because the game still has hidden validation checking that truncates to 999, apparently.)

Addendum 2:
I was able to simply remove the EnergyIn: lines for items entirely, at least, resulting in them having no energy consumption at all. This is also more extreme than I would like in reverse, but I'm going with that for now and also reducing the EnergyIn for a few other specific items.

As Hummel said, there are some reworks for power comming soon, so hopefully we will see with that a change in power consumption of devices. Maybe they will introduce watts instead of KW as the minimum power consumption.

I was just recalling working at a football stadium and replacing the lights for the feild one year. We used (as do most stadiums) metal halide lights which consume 1000 watts (or 1 KW) each. So based on that we've been using stadium lighting to illuminate the small rooms of our bases. We should be blind! And dead of heat exposure, those suckers are hot! Lol!

[DeadMechGaming]

Originally posted by rphillips1986:

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

Perhaps the solution is not INCREASING the solar panel output but rather DECREASING the ridiculous power demands of some equipment? While good arguments can be made for Constructors and Repair Bays and Fridges consuming noticable power, it's RIDICULOUS that desks and tables and beds and other trivial equipment each consume one KiloWatt each, and lights and sensors also consume exaggerated amounts of power. Certainly Grow Lights and Spot Lights on ships could be justified to consume more than standard lights, the baseline for lighting is set far too high. The power consumption of lighting and such should be measured in Watts, nor KILOWatts.

Don't increase the output of the Panels. DECREASE the demands of all the trivial equipment. Can that be modded in the new config.ecf? Gonna go look right now....

Addendum:
Nope, can't effectively be modded right now because a whole integer seems to be the minimum value that can be specified.

Currently, for example:
EnergyIn: 1, type: int, display: true, formatter: Watt

Tried both:
EnergyIn: 0.1, type: int, display: true, formatter: Watt

and:
EnergyIn: 0.1, type: float, display: true, formatter: Watt

Both attempts resulted in an error just starting the game, not loading a game instance. This new modding system is still too limited, because there are too many hard-coded resumptions, limits, and restrictions in place. (As another example, I tried tweaking the Stacksize values to test the limits, and found that setting all of them to 9999 doesn't work because the game still has hidden validation checking that truncates to 999, apparently.)

Addendum 2:
I was able to simply remove the EnergyIn: lines for items entirely, at least, resulting in them having no energy consumption at all. This is also more extreme than I would like in reverse, but I'm going with that for now and also reducing the EnergyIn for a few other specific items.

As Hummel said, there are some reworks for power comming soon, so hopefully we will see with that a change in power consumption of devices. Maybe they will introduce watts instead of KW as the minimum power consumption.

I was just recalling working at a football stadium and replacing the lights for the feild one year. We used (as do most stadiums) metal halide lights which consume 1000 watts (or 1 KW) each. So based on that we've been using stadium lighting to illuminate the small rooms of our bases. We should be blind! And dead of heat exposure, those suckers are hot! Lol!

Should be even less if we are using LED's (I've seen some as low as 27-watt), which is probable considering this is a game set in the future, and LED's seem to be the way we are going IRL.