What's best way to power my space platform?

[Mastro2k]

I'm currently using solar but I thought I saw someone say use steam turbines, but they don't seem to work. I have a nuclear plant up there but the only thing to use it with is the heat pumps which go to turbines that don't work. Is there some other more effective way to get a good amount of power for all my laser turrets?

[Liwet]

Solar is fine for the inner planets; you're probably messing something up if nuclear isn't working; turbines need steam to work. Accumulators help for laser turrets.

[Aestrea]

You can always go primitive and burn carbon for heating towers with solar doing the heavy lifting. You can stockpile heat by building more towers and essentially store power. Works well if you have a lot of asteroid productivity.

[POWER WITHIN USER]

burn carbon for heating towers

Heating towers don't work in space

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Mastro2k:

I have a nuclear plant up there but the only thing to use it with is the heat pumps which go to turbines that don't work.

I don't know what you mean by heat pumps. There are heat pipes and heat exchangers. You connect heat to heat exchangers, put in water and they will produce steam which you put into steam turbines.

[sbszine]

Solar plus quality, so you get really high performing panels.

[Serendipitous]

For the reference here is one of my ships using nuclear. Mind you it uses some rare quality parts, namely exchangers and turbines, so it produces more power than otherwise would. You will need to figure the amount of them yourself.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/46821318087831123/C1A8499F914BAB98B692701979464E85AC49A563/

[RampageCrumpet]

The inner three planets are best reached by using solar panels. Don't bother with accumulators on your ship, there's no nighttime to interrupt your generation. I'd avoid using laser turrets in space anywhere you can route ammo, machine gun turrets do significantly more damage to asteroids.

Try producing quality solar panels, save the decent quality ones for your ship and use the lower quality ones to help power your base. The extra power generation per panel makes a huge difference.

[Hurkyl]

The point of accumulators on the space platform is to buffer power. Crushers are power hungry, but don't run continuously, so if you store energy to cover peak demand, you need fewer panels.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by RampageCrumpet:

The inner three planets are best reached by using solar panels. Don't bother with accumulators on your ship, there's no nighttime to interrupt your generation. I'd avoid using laser turrets in space anywhere you can route ammo, machine gun turrets do significantly more damage to asteroids.

Try producing quality solar panels, save the decent quality ones for your ship and use the lower quality ones to help power your base. The extra power generation per panel makes a huge difference.

If he already has nuclear, it's better to use it imo. Panels do require more space. With nuclear you also can afford to use modules different from efficiency.

But if you rush to space right from researching blue tech, yeah, solar is fine.

[Nero]

Are you by chance covering the energy demand with solar?
Turbines only run when needed.
As said earlier, lasers are a bad option for space, its better to use normal turrets

[luponix]

aside from all this. if you are in the early game stage where you dont use nuclear power yet then you likely dont have enough laser weapon damage research to make lasers effective against asteroids.

the asteroids are much less resistant against gun turrets. crafting some ammo on the space platforms is the way to go

[Geomancer]

Silly question, but are you using the correct steam turbines?

There are two. One that is used with burners (called "Steam Engine" in game), and one that is used with Heat exchangers (called "Steam Turbine" in game). You need the latter.

In case you're not familiar with nuclear power these are the elements needed:
-Nuclear Plant (obviously)
-Uranium fuel cells to power the reactor
-The nuclear plant must get up to 500 degrees C before anything will happen. It will take some time, isn't instant
-You connect Heat exchangers to the nuclear plant with heat pipes. That transfer the heat from the nuclear plant to the heat exchangers
-Above 500 degrees C the heat exchangers will begin to boil water into steam
-Put that steam into Steam Turbines to generate electricity

[Malidictus]

Nuclear works in space, and is probably your best option due to its energy density. If yours isn't working, then there's an issue with your power plant design. People have already speculated about a few possibilities, but the one I'll offer is "are you sure you're supplying enough water to the Heat Exchangers"?

[GAMING_Alligator]

Originally posted by Mastro2k:

I'm currently using solar but I thought I saw someone say use steam turbines, but they don't seem to work. I have a nuclear plant up there but the only thing to use it with is the heat pumps which go to turbines that don't work. Is there some other more effective way to get a good amount of power for all my laser turrets?

Remember you need water for the steam generators. You get this from ice, which you get from crushing asteroids. Around Nauvis, ice asteroids aren't as frequent, so you may want to kickstart the reaction with some bottled water for the surface.

But you don't need nuclear for the inner planets, just use solar panels for those. It's only once you get beyond that, and solar power becomes less and less, that you need to move to nuclear.

[GAMING_Alligator]

Originally posted by Serendipitous:

Originally posted by RampageCrumpet:

The inner three planets are best reached by using solar panels. Don't bother with accumulators on your ship, there's no nighttime to interrupt your generation. I'd avoid using laser turrets in space anywhere you can route ammo, machine gun turrets do significantly more damage to asteroids.

Try producing quality solar panels, save the decent quality ones for your ship and use the lower quality ones to help power your base. The extra power generation per panel makes a huge difference.

If he already has nuclear, it's better to use it imo. Panels do require more space. With nuclear you also can afford to use modules different from efficiency.

But if you rush to space right from researching blue tech, yeah, solar is fine.

Yeah, but solar doesn't require you to replenish fuel cells. There's a lot of surface infrastructure necessary to get a reliable enough nuclear set up going that can power your factory as well as your platforms (and potentially other planets too). Get it wrong, and something goes black.