Small, Medium, or Large Power Collectors?

[HobbyCathartic]

I keep playing around with different sizes and the biggest factor is maintenance. Sure you pay more up front, but you use less spare parts because there are just fewer turbines and solar collectors.

What size collectors do you normally use?

[Sticks]

Well considering you don't have to maintain them the largest size is the best. The only time I use smaller ones is if its in a tight spot where the largest ones won't fit.

Edit: I just now get that you meant power collectors as in turbines and solar panels not the batteries, I still make the biggest ones I can most of the time except for a few smalls at the start since you have to ration out your starting resources.

[HobbyCathartic]

You don't have to maintain them? You mean the patent versions right?

[Xaw]

I would say, no matter what building... always build biggest possible. Only time I don't do that is in beginning where I have to build 1 smaller dorm and maybe 1 smaller sickbay. All other I build, always go for big. Less parts needed, less walking distance etc... it all pays back.

[Loues.S.Cat]

You need to maintain all of the power systems, but the large ones will obvously have the highest output relative to their maintanace cost. 5 massive solars is a lot easier on your spare parts and engineers than 7 large ones putting out the same power.

[Zordah]

Surely if you were thinking in realistic terms smaller machines generally have less moving parts and are simpler than large machines so should use less spare parts accordingly.

I'm sure a small generator (like a diesel backup generator) would use FAR less parts and require much less maintenance than a big generator that can power half a city block?

[Loues.S.Cat]

You have to accept a level of tokanism in games :p
In reality you likely wouldn't be using identical parts to maintain both solar and wind based energy convertors, or maybe you would...
Could be all the spare parts are is a few bits of wire and duck tape!
Duck Tape fixes everything!

[SgtScooter]

You don't need spare parts for the power storage. They use no resources whatsoever. I immediately build the largest one available (4 metal).

[arekasama]

Desert planet: go big from minute 0. Unless at some point for space reasons you can only fit something smaller or you must buy extra panels/turbines but cannot afford the bigger ones. Altough for the later, I'd suggest keeping an eye on your power usage and plan accordingly so you can always stick to big ones.

Ice planet or moon: start small. Not much of a choice actually as you start with less resources and less colonists. My personal experience is many small ones as needed early on and once you grow enough, try going for bigger.

If you setup your mine(s) + biodome(s) + metal/bioplastic production + spares production well enough, you should be fine no matter what you actually use. As long as you don't expand too fast as to outpace your production (keeping in mind also stuff like bots, guns...) it'd be ok but in the end you want as big as possible.

As for power storage, much like the power collectors.

[SgtScooter]

Originally posted by arekasama:

Ice planet or moon: start small. Not much of a choice actually as you start with less resources and less colonists. My personal experience is many small ones as needed early on and once you grow enough, try going for bigger.

When you start small on power, how do you deal with spare part consumption? My biggest hurdle on the ice planet is generating enough power early before I get a good spare part supply chain going.

[FreedomFighter]

Originally posted by SgtScooter:

Originally posted by arekasama:

Ice planet or moon: start small. Not much of a choice actually as you start with less resources and less colonists. My personal experience is many small ones as needed early on and once you grow enough, try going for bigger.

When you start small on power, how do you deal with spare part consumption? My biggest hurdle on the ice planet is generating enough power early before I get a good spare part supply chain going.

Recycle and rebuild it again, no spare part need. You will lose 1 metal everytime you do this since the game not refund the connection line that is connected to structure you recycling.

[lotw_1]

If you do the math it doesnt add up using larger ones. I said math, but that isn't the whole picture, because there is a maintenance cost too. Once you add that into the math, then bigger is better. If you have 6 small ones and 3 large ones they will produce the same power, but 6 small ones will require 6 spares, where the 3 large will only need 3 spares. So the extra material and time to make those could hurt the colony in the long run, especially as things go bad all at the same time.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Wu Ziheng:

I keep playing around with different sizes and the biggest factor is maintenance. Sure you pay more up front, but you use less spare parts because there are just fewer turbines and solar collectors.

What size collectors do you normally use?

Always the biggest I can make. As you mentioned, spare parts are a huge factor, as is real estate. Building a lot of small ones not only puts massive stress on your ability to produce spare parts, but also hampers your long-term expansion potential.

[Saphirro]

The biggest possible both power generators as solar or wind and collectors. Later you will need to maintain huge ammount of them and is better to maintain 1 big turbine than 3 small.

[Xenai]

Yeah, make everything big when it comes to power generation and storage. Maintenance (and spare parts) becomes such a huge deal later on. Building multiple small things might look better at first glance but then you get a nasty sandstorm and suddenly you're spending nine spare parts in a couple minutes instead of four.

[Mansen]

Because of maintenance and cost of spare parts - Always the largest you can afford.