Solar panels for big ships

[Leo The Pard]

It is obviously!

[Es'carli]

No thanks

[M.Red]

first i had the same thoughts but after thinking about that - ship solar panels would not make sense because the ship would eat all produced solar energy in an instant

[The Big Brzezinski]

I can't imagine any governing rules for ship solar panels that would not drive players mad. If the rule is they work anything like BA solar panels, you'd have to worry about distance and angle to the star at all times. Without any rules, it's just free power. There's no interesting middle ground here.

[Leo The Pard]

As I remember - a few years ago I said exactly the same thing about putting drills on the fighter to make it more convenient to mine resources. And everyone was against it then, too. :)
And now they are set, and all of this is just better.
And solar panels on the ship will allow to leave it in orbit, and go down to the planet on the fighter. Especially since not everyone makes star destroyers. I have a fairly utilitarian ship.
I'm not playing a construction game, every resource counts, but I don't want to play like a cancer, flying between planets looking for promethium to drill it out and get to the next one. I just feel very sorry for the planet. And I don't feel myself like a good person.
You just need to make the panels fold up when the ship flies, and unfold when it stops or when the lever is activated. Such modules already exist, they are ramps. We just need to make them generate power and charge the batteries.
And who doesn't want them, don't put them in. That's all there is to it.

and in general it would be nice to add some green energy - so that the ship would charge at the base, and fly on batteries. Because there are cars like that now, but for some reason there are no ships in the future.

Originally posted by M.Red:

first i had the same thoughts but after thinking about that - ship solar panels would not make sense because the ship would eat all produced solar energy in an instant

These are just numbers as to how much they will produce.

[M.Red]

if eleon will make solar panels somewhat effiecent for ships or have some sort of powercharger battery then it coiuld be helpful for ships.
for now solarpower is nice to have the base operate at standart levels (lights on, oxygen a.s.o.) but the power requirement for ships is highly flexible and would drain the stored power too quickly

[Leo The Pard]

Originally posted by M.Red:

if eleon will make solar panels somewhat effiecent for ships or have some sort of powercharger battery then it coiuld be helpful for ships.
for now solarpower is nice to have the base operate at standart levels (lights on, oxygen a.s.o.) but the power requirement for ships is highly flexible and would drain the stored power too quickly

But this will make the game even more interesting. And that they only work in orbit, for example. And that they only work in orbit, for example. So that there would be an incentive to fly to the planet in a fighter jet, like in the movie "Aliens". Especially since nothing new and improving the immediate gameplay has been introduced for a very long time. And the gameplay mechanics of these panels is very simple: they charge the batteries, and the ship flies on them. You just have to copy the panels from the base, and that's it. Well, maybe make the battery a little more powerful, especially since the big ship doesn't fly anywhere most of the time, and performs the same base functions, just stands crooked. )

[The Big Brzezinski]

Okay, better idea. BA machine that sucks up a LOT of energy and makes power cells. These are worth 30 energy in a fuel tank, same as a promethium pack. So you could make a simple solar BA and trickle out fuel over time. Not enough for a proper CV, but good enough for short hops in small craft and fueling deployables. Fuel pulled from fuel tanks comes as power cells from now on instead of promethium packs (which was weird).

Or just setup an autominer at a promethium spot. You can do that right now.

[Leo The Pard]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

Okay, better idea. BA machine that sucks up a LOT of energy and makes power cells. These are worth 30 energy in a fuel tank, same as a promethium pack. So you could make a simple solar BA and trickle out fuel over time. Not enough for a proper CV, but good enough for short hops in small craft and fueling deployables. Fuel pulled from fuel tanks comes as power cells from now on instead of promethium packs (which was weird).

Or just setup an autominer at a promethium spot. You can do that right now.

Yes, indeed! Why didn't I think of that myself?
How do you say it?
I must:
1) complete 666 quests to grow my reputation so that the trading station will sell me something and I won't get shot.
2) build my first primitive spaceship
3) build a stadium-sized farm and kill a week of real life to hand harvest (in the 354th century), grow and sell 100500 Canned Vegetables
4) buy the one Auto Miner Core
5) Fly to a planet of lava, die there and then tear the game down again because of the retarded preservation system
6) reinstall game, repeat steps 1-5, smash a few enemy bases
7) dig there rare ores without getting rid of everything
8) go back to the planet
9) make an auto-miner
10) discover that the last intact deposit is only on some moon
11) stick it there
12) build that base, so you can minimize the game in the background, and in the meantime write reasonable suggestions here
13) collect promethium
14) HOORAY!!!

Or I could just put solar panels on CV and be happy. Can i do that right now?

And the most disgusting thing is when you get out of the mine and your ship has been destroyed and you're stuck on a lava planet forever!
Tell me, do you always build a supermarket yourself first in order to go shopping in it?

[The Big Brzezinski]

No, but I do have a very nice backyard garden. Tomatoes didn't do so good this year, but I did get 17 pints of soup canned. Gonna have a load of peppers in the freezer as well. Gardening, cooking, and canning are all work, but they're also useful and fun hobbies.

Back when I played Space Engineers, electrically powered flying miners were the order of the day. I would operate a miner from the control seat of a cargo truck. I'd recharge both of them from a very large solar array at my tower base. Neither the rover nor the drone had the surface area to make onboard solar power feasible, so this was the best option.

In Empyrion, this would be really quite easy to mimic with a power cell generating machine. It's just a box with high idle energy use that power cells grow inside of until you turn it off. It's the same principle behind O2 condensers, water generators, and autominers. Only difference is that it works off BA energy, which can be supplied by solar power. Only one new block and one new fuel item would need to be added. It wouldn't require the design or operational changes of any ships. You could probably even do it with a scenario.

Autominer cores are not expensive. Neither do you need more than neutral reputation to start trading. Sell sniper rifles on Omicron and buy a core from the trading station in orbit. If you're lucky, you can find a promethium deposit next to a body of water, plop down a autominer and water generators, and have a single stop for fuel cell materials.

If you want an option to turn off fuel requirements, just ask for that. No need to go through all this ceremony.



Oh and here's the math for keeping your ship from getting stuck on high gravity planets. Hope it helps you in the future.

T / (9.81 * G) = M
T = M (9.81 * G)
T / M = 9.81 * G
T / M / 9.81 = G

T= Thrust in meganewtons
G= Gravity compared to Earth's
M= Max load in kilotonnes

[Leo The Pard]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

If you want an option to turn off fuel requirements, just ask for that. No need to go through all this ceremony.

Thank you very much for your opinion, but if I wanted to, I would play in constructor mode, and have as many energy cells as I could fit into my inventory. But that's what I want to play, and not as a perpetual driller. I don't think solar panels for a big spaceship can worsen the balance, and no one will be forced to put them in. It's just that not all players are such strong fans of this game, I like it in concept and features, but I'm a regular player, and I want to play this game for fun, not work in it. But if you are principled that simple players like me have illogical additional difficulties with this game - I'm ready to accept this your opinion too. It's just the same thing I had a few years ago, when everyone argued vehemently to me that drills on fighters would destroy the balance. However, we can all see that this step towards the common players was made, and it did not bring any catastrophe. Solar panels for large ships are just another such step, and nothing more than that.
But once again, I want to remind you that no one will force you to put them on if you don't like it. You just have some kind of hatred for the common players.

[The Big Brzezinski]

A perfectly aligned full BA solar array in a stellar warp-in playfield will generate about 16k power units. This is ideal conditions. For a BA this is enough power to keep a shield, teleporter, or many constructors working indefinitely. Combined with a hefty capacitor bank, it will even operate a repair pad for a while.

On a CV, this is a very low level of power. It's just a little more output than a single large generator. Roughly enough to power a shielded frigate or small freighter. Remember that this is under ideal conditions. Get too far from the star, fly around the night side of a planet, or simply angle the ship wrong, and solar performance will crash.

So to avoid getting stuck, a CV with a solar array is also going to need a standard power plant of generators and fuel tanks capable of independently powering the ship in flight. The solar array becomes little more than a theoretically fuel saving feature at this point. You're carrying around the mass of 225 blocks worth of solar panels, plus capacitors, plus concessions in hull form. I'm not so sure you're saving much fuel at this point.

The only context in which solar panels work on ships these days is in RE, and those solar panels don't function as solar panels. They have nothing to do with the star or angle/distance to it. They instead just have negative energy consumption. They're free energy. Their purpose is to power small CVs and large CVs in low power states. I think they're largely meant to paper over the buggy and inconsistent simulation of power consumption in unloaded playfields, and its tendency to ruin food supplies.

Hence, the power cell idea. It's not an unreasonable though that solar energy could be used on mobile platforms. But you don't power an electric car with green energy by putting a wind turbine on the roof. You stick the turbines together in a farm somewhere useful, and recharge the car off their output. A block that indirectly uses the existing solar energy rules to directly make fuel items is a reasonable analog. You can even do this now with large solar powered fiber plant farms and biofuel production. It's not as rich a source of fuel as excavated or automined promethium, but it does work if you're inclined to do it.

[Leo The Pard]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

On a CV, this is a very low level of power. It's just a little more output than a single large generator. Roughly enough to power a shielded frigate or small freighter. Remember that this is under ideal conditions. Get too far from the star, fly around the night side of a planet, or simply angle the ship wrong, and solar performance will crash.

The power of a solar panel for the spacecraft and its weight are simply numbers that can be improved. The solar panels on the ISS have little in common in weight, design, and efficiency with those on solar power plants in China. That is a fact!
Besides, you don't understand what I am suggesting. Let me try to explain again. You leave the ship in orbit, turn it with its panels towards the Sun, turn off its engines, and fly to the planet in a small ship and go about your business there. Meanwhile, the big ship charges its batteries. And it flies on them. All the more it will be useful if you are brought with dry tanks to a planet which has no prometium, and have to fly away from it on firewood. You were talking about realism there. Doesn't that confuse you?
And the charging rate - which in orbit, of course, should be significantly higher than on the planet, especially if you turn them on the Sun - essentially doesn't play a role here, since the ship only consumes power from the bulbs. If anyone wants to - let him make a solar sail, and fly on it. And whoever wants to, let him design a pirate sailboat, and whoever doesn't want to, let him do it without panels. And again, I want to point out: I respect your opinion, but so far YOU haven't given a single reasonable opinion AGAINST solar panels, because you're talking about base panels, and trying to motivate the disadvantages of panels now that they aren't in the game. Then you don't have to have children either - in case they grow up to be criminals, drug addicts, or ugly people.
There you go.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Alrighty then.

This is no use case for this feature. Promethium is cheap and abundant. Any ship (or player, for that matter) capable of carrying a survival tool, ore scanner, and portable constructor can make fuel in the field. A single autominer can generate oodles of promethium ore. Promethium fuel can be purchased from most trade stations for the price of a few small arms. Any ship with better than laughable endurance can go hours before needing to top off its fuel tanks, probably from an even larger fuel reserve from the same box that stores extra oxygen and pentaxid. Said box is probably an ammo box, because 14k units of storage is plenty of supplies and ammo for most noncombat CVs.

You want CV solar panels to not only be a thing, but also for them to be better than BA solar panels. The ability to have free solar energy is the primary advantage of BAs. Why would someone ever use a BA again instead of stationary CVs in this scenario, when CVs can use almost all the same blocks, have far more CPU, and have far more free solar energy? How would this not make BAs functionally obsolete?

As mentioned, solar power has had major problems in unloaded playfields. You can leave a BA half charged and well in the black, and return to find it completely drained, all your plants dead, and all your perishables rotten. Now imagine this is your CV. The CV you specifically left in orbit to charge. I really hope you explored the entire sector before heading down to the planet, and know for a fact there isn't an OPV somewhere. Or drones or freighters, both of which will tattle on your position to that OPV you knew for sure wasn't there. Scan for red checkmarks constantly.

What exactly does one do with a ship with power limitations such that it can't maneuver rapidly for long, can't power a shield for long, doesn't land on planets to retrieve cargo, and has to constantly find safe areas to recharge? Trade pictures of it with Elon Musk?

And again;

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

to avoid getting stuck, a CV with a solar array is also going to need a standard power plant of generators and fuel tanks capable of independently powering the ship in flight. The solar array becomes little more than a theoretically fuel saving feature at this point. You're carrying around the mass of 225 blocks worth of solar panels, plus capacitors, plus concessions in hull form. I'm not so sure you're saving much fuel at this point.

[Leo The Pard]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

You want CV solar panels to not only be a thing, but also for them to be better than BA solar panels. The ability to have free solar energy is the primary advantage of BAs. Why would someone ever use a BA again instead of stationary CVs in this scenario, when CVs can use almost all the same blocks, have far more CPU, and have far more free solar energy? How would this not make BAs functionally obsolete?

There is a very big difference between us. I am discussing a new device that will bring additional variety to the gameplay, and you are discussing elements of game mechanics. So you will always be right for yourself, and I will always be right, but we are discussing different things. The same buying promethium from the factions for rifles. And if I'm not interested in doing a bunch of quests to be friends with all the factions, where will I go? What if I don't want to do a bunch of rifles? I don't want to waste time with a drill and run around laden from a hole in the ground to the recycler? This game is good "Empyrion", but bad "Maincraft". That's why I don't play it now, by the way. You'd better be so active in suggesting the introduction of a robot vacuum cleaner that will pick up the vegetables itself! Or have the retractable turrets automatically move out when the enemy approaches, and then move back in. In Space Engineers, by this time, as humans in "Emperion" usually reach a network of automatic drills, there are already drones that not only find resources themselves, but also take them to factories that automatically make starships out of them, but in "Empyrion" I keep running around with a shovel. I once made a ship in normal game mode, which requires 20,000 different ingots, (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2865744191) and you know... I don't want to do it anymore. With or without autonomous drills. It's easier to borrow a real excavator in real life, who likes digging in the ground, and also make money on it.
And do not forget about the "error of a survivor" (I recommend googling what it is): here write only those who like this game, and those who left it - will never write about their reasons for leaving. And a toxic and negative fan community is among those reasons. So, first of all, decide what you need: for the game to develop and please more and more people, or for you to be more comfortable playing in the rigid stereotypes to which you are accustomed?

[The Big Brzezinski]

So far, I think the main difference between our posts so far is that in mine, I'm walking though possible negative implications to the OP suggestion and theorycrafting about alternative solutions, and yours seem to flatly discount these negative outcomes ever happening based on a perception of my shopping habits, antipathy towards other players, parental anxieties, and toxic affinity for stereotypes.

Do you have anything reasonable to offer that allays any of the concerns I brought up?