Advice for setting up Solar

[SteelBlood]

I am playing RE, and trying to set up a small pure solar base in space. I am trying to figure out how many Solar Capacitors I need. They have a 1.5kW power output, but since the solar panels also generate power, do I need to pay attention to that?

Here is a examples of what I mean: If my capacitors generate 18kW, my panels generate 25kW, and I consume 24kW, will my base stay powered? I know that if I go over what my panels generate, I will use up my stored power and eventually run out.

Also, after finding a nice planet near a sun and spending a few hours making the system safe, I found out the hard way that if a system has multiple suns, facing solar panels towards the extra suns does NOT work, you can only use the sun you warped to for solar. So that sucked.

[Midas]

The capacitors shouldn't generate power on their own, unless something has changed. The panels generate the power, the capacitor stores the power. The capacitor has a limited output that can overload, but that's just how quickly it can supply power, not actual power being generated by it.

[SteelBlood]

Originally posted by Midas:

The capacitor has a limited output that can overload, but that's just how quickly it can supply power, not actual power being generated by it.

Thanks for the response, I don't quite understand what you mean by this part though. I tested consuming more power than the capacitors supplied, but nothing seemed to happen, no overloads.

[Midas]

Originally posted by SteelBlood:

Originally posted by Midas:

The capacitor has a limited output that can overload, but that's just how quickly it can supply power, not actual power being generated by it.

Thanks for the response, I don't quite understand what you mean by this part though. I tested consuming more power than the capacitors supplied, but nothing seemed to happen, no overloads.

I've never tried over-taxing a solar capacitor, but normally when you overload a generator, it starts taking damage. It's usually something you'll notice in vessels when performing complex maneuvers while using a lot of systems when you only have barely enough generator power to handle it all, in which case you'd hear a klaxon and a warning pops up on the top of the screen telling you you're overloaded. You can also see power consumption in the UI while piloting a vessel. It's the top-most bar in the row on the bottom right, with the triangular symbol.

Since you don't pilot a base and it doesn't have thrusters firing in all kinds of directions, I don't think I can recall ever actually overloading a solar-powered base. Usually you run out of power long before you would overload anything.

edit: As for ensuring it's always on, basically have as many panels as you can, and you probably want more than one capacitor for power storage, but theoretically as long as the constant draw of power does not exceed the constant production of power from the panels, it will never run out of power.

[SteelBlood]

Yea I'm familiar with overloading generators, but on my capacitor testing I was consuming 28kW, and generating 24kW for about a minute with no overloading, which made me curious if I actually needed to pay attention to how much output capacitors have.

It seemed odd to me, like they should have been overloading (I was not in creative either). Because if that was the case, I should only need 1 capacitor, as long as I stay under my panels output.

[ravien_ff]

A way of thinking about it is like this:

Solar panels feed your capacitor.
Your capacitor feeds your base.
If you do not have enough capacitors to output the power your base needs, you're going to run into trouble. I don't think solar capacitors can actually overload, but if you have any normal generators they can.

Likewise if you don't have enough output from your solar panels to keep up with your power needs, your capacitor will run empty and your base will be running out of power.

[Midas]

Originally posted by SteelBlood:

Yea I'm familiar with overloading generators, but on my capacitor testing I was consuming 28kW, and generating 24kW for about a minute with no overloading, which made me curious if I actually needed to pay attention to how much output capacitors have.

It seemed odd to me, like they should have been overloading (I was not in creative either). Because if that was the case, I should only need 1 capacitor, as long as I stay under my panels output.

Yeah, at that point I think your biggest worry is making sure the panels are supplying enough.

On a planet, multiple capacitors can be useful because the power generation goes up and down, so if you have enough generation during the day to fill more than one capacitor, you ideally want to store as much juice as possible.

in space, the power generation is constant, so as long as your input exceeds your output, the capacitors will fill up. Soon as the output exceeds the input, it will start going down. More capacitors in this case would let you store more power, so you can run high-demand systems for longer.

[mystikmind2005]

Originally posted by SteelBlood:

Originally posted by Midas:

The capacitor has a limited output that can overload, but that's just how quickly it can supply power, not actual power being generated by it.

Thanks for the response, I don't quite understand what you mean by this part though. I tested consuming more power than the capacitors supplied, but nothing seemed to happen, no overloads.

Think of a water tap, it has its maximum flow of water that does not change based on how many people are standing in front of it with empty buckets.

Even the overloading that can occur with generators is not logical at all.... you would have to go out of your way to design and build a generator that could be overloaded and explode for that to work..... but for some funny reason most generators (in real life) are designed so they cannot explode.... I wonder why that is?? Because its 'logical'.

Capacitors exist in the game because of the day/night cycle.... but you don't have that in space, so, they should not be necessary 'theoretically' .... but still good to have a reserve of power should you need it when your base has peaks of activity, and build up again when your away and things are quiet.

[SteelBlood]

Ok thank you all, so I will only need 1 capacitor for this base since it is in space, and will remain below the panels output.

[Midas]

Originally posted by SteelBlood:

Ok thank you all, so I will only need 1 capacitor for this base since it is in space, and will remain below the panels output.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[mystikmind2005]

Originally posted by SteelBlood:

Ok thank you all, so I will only need 1 capacitor for this base since it is in space, and will remain below the panels output.

I would probably build 3.... Because, you can never have enough advanced constructors when you want stuff done NOW before you disappear among the stars again for another couple of hours to let the base recharge and be ready when you come back.

Although admittedly you could have 1 constructor do everything while you are gone and it will probably have finished by the time you get back... so yes, 1 capacitor will work just fine.

[I am Goot]

I tend to max out on solar panels and eventually upgrade them to advanced when I have the resources to do so.

My Starbase has 20 capacitors, I feel that gives me plenty of running power for all devices but it may be too many.

Also Note, that you don't need to worry about CPU on a Solar run base, your capacitors don't explode if your over CPU limits. They can drain really fast if you have too many things running at once, but thats not CPU related.

If you are in a system that gets drones (or anything bigger) though, your CPU limits do effect how quickly your turrets engage and continuously fire I have found.

[SteelBlood]

I didn't know that I didn't have to worry about CPU in this situation, that's awesome thank you. Do things not craft slower if you are over CPU? I took out all enemies before putting down the base, so it should be fairly safe.

[mystikmind2005]

Originally posted by SteelBlood:

I didn't know that I didn't have to worry about CPU in this situation, that's awesome thank you. Do things not craft slower if you are over CPU? I took out all enemies before putting down the base, so it should be fairly safe.

I have had some bases with very bad cpu without realizing it (vanilla) and did not notice constructors being any slower, and having good CPU does not seem to improve the usual constructor stalls.... but i did wonder what effect CPU has on base equipment??

And, how did you take out all the enemies? It is RE right??
As far as my experience goes with RE so far, the only enemy i can kill are interceptors which are ridiculously easy to kill, but anything not an interceptor is ridiculously impossible to kill.

[SteelBlood]

Yes it's RE, was also a low difficulty area. It was a lot of interceptors, and 2 corvettes, 1 of which didn't even have a shield, that my own corvette could handle. If it's an enemy CV that I think will be difficult to kill, I lure it to a POI of a faction they are enemies with and let that kill it. Just stay within like 3k and it should keep chasing you.

[mystikmind2005]

Originally posted by SteelBlood:

Yes it's RE, was also a low difficulty area. It was a lot of interceptors, and 2 corvettes, 1 of which didn't even have a shield, that my own corvette could handle. If it's an enemy CV that I think will be difficult to kill, I lure it to a POI of a faction they are enemies with and let that kill it. Just stay within like 3k and it should keep chasing you.

Well, throughout the game i had brief glimpses of how powerful enemy ships were right before reloading (naturally) and they simply destroy POI's when i tried the luring trick.

Only just today i decided i had enough resources to mount a real challenge (after reloading) to a particular vessel that rudely destroyed my ship while i was inside a colonist trading station (which also got exposed to space). Also i discovered a UHC ship with a distress signal that i wanted to investigate, but not with this thing chasing me, so it had to go.

The enemy vessel was a 'hunter'

I put on the front of my ship 4 laser turrets, 6 cannons (that i control), 4 mimigun turrets and one ice mining turret that seems to shoot at enemies.
an advanced shield, an advanced generator, 3 shield charge boosters, and 3 shield strength boosters.

My repeated attacks just bounced off it like i was shooting an admin core.
I could not put a dent in it at all.... kinda had me questioning if i will even bother continuing in RE?