How to generate electricity for Aquilo space platforms?

[Falesz]

Hey all,
I finally got around to designing a space platform to take me to Aquilo and eventually refined the design enough so I could get there.. but then the space platform just gets completely stranded because my Rare quality solar panels aren't generating enough electricity in orbit of Aquilo.

I considered using steam power to make use of all the ice in space, but neither boilers nor heating towers can be built in space.

I want to avoid Nuclear power because of the wasting of fuel. There was a thread about that somewhere here a few weeks ago. Wasting Uranium fuel cells isn't something I would ever care about on Nauvis, but in space where my space platforms can potentially spend LONG amounts of time waiting on the "All requests satisfied" conditions that could be a problem. So long story short: nuclear power is not renewable and therefore I would like to avoid it unless I absolutely have no other viable options.

Fusion power is.. not unlocked yet.

So what am I supposed to do here? Is there some other way to make Steam in space other than boilers? Or am I just supposed to spam as many high quality Solar panels as my factory can churn out until electricity demands are met? I suspect even that isn't a permanent solution because of the whole Shattered planet thingy in my far future, where as far as I can tell solar power becomes completely useless.

[Zhardoz]

Publicado originalmente por Zhardoz:

I use nuclear on my platform with no problem, they lasts 4ish hours with 200 barrels. as for the used barrel you can just dump them in space.

[Pani Bożena]

My Aquilo ship has 46 regular quality solar panels and does an _ok_ job in Aquilo orbit and on route. It produces enough rockets and ammo to be sustainable (though machines don't have 100% power). The key is using efficiency modules, especially where you want speed modules too.
I would advice against stacking accumulators - no amount will last you long enough if you don't have generate enough. A few are fine for energy spikes.

[FSK]

I like having a few accumulators. You can tell if you have an energy shortage if the accumulator is discharging. It also provides a buffer if you're using lasers.

[MoDon]

You do nuclear. You take care of the 'waste' by feeding it back into your hub when docked at Nauvis, and the Nauvis hub requests your spent fuel and reprocesses it same as it does for your planet-based nuclear fuel.

It is no big deal.

[RiO]

Publicado originalmente por SharkPlush:

Publicado originalmente por Chindraba:

As I understand the situation, and the game's workings, you have no other viable options at this point.

You can, however, use any number of methods to avoid wasting the fuel cells. There have been many variations discussed, even before the extra capabilities of 2.0 were introduced. They settle out into two camps basically. Use the full power from the fuel cells and store the excess as steam. Monitor the steam level and add more fuel when it gets low. Or, monitor the reactor's temperature and only add fuel when that gets low.

Personally, as you note for Nauvis, I've never worried about the regulation of fuel cell usage, so I don't have the systems for it in my head. Still, until you unlock fusion power, you really do have no other viable options.

I came up with a very simple solution: 1 combinator with reactor and steam storage inputs, output controls grabber. if steam is < %50 AND fuel cell = 0, activating the fuel cell grabber. The fuel cell 0 condition is because we never want to stack fuel cells in the reactor.

Waiting for the steam to deplete means the reactor has cooled off (or the heat exchangers would not have fallen behind), which is what we want; we want to make power during the time the reactor is just cooling down and there's no fuel in it. I don't know the math but fuel goes significantly farther this way.

Far too complicated. Factorio 2.0 gave nuclear reactors circuit network reads for core temperature and fuel (incl. in use).
You can hook up a decider combinator that sends out a signal when temperature T < 550 degrees and nuclear fuel cells = 0 and use that to have an inserter (fixed to hand size 1) shove in one new fuel cell.

[oyssoyss]

I use epic solar panel and that's enough if you only need transportation between Aquilo and inner planets.

after you complete Aquilo tech you will get fusion reactor which is very good for space platform. no need to go nuclear if you already able to reach Aquilo.

[End of history]

What's the problem with Nuclear? Most of my ships are nuclear now as it is more space efficient, and more or less a requirement for Aquillo.

If you want to avoid wasting fuel then this is quite with circuit conditions since they now allow you to read the temperature off the reactors. Before 2.0 we used steam storage as a metric to know when we were going to refuel (when the tanks went bellow some amount of steam insert more fuel).

Here is my suggestion.

* Build a nuclear power plant (without tanks).
* Have an inserter remove spent fuel cells whenever the temperature of the reactor goes below some amount (say 600 degrees). Set to read read the hand content with pulse so that one single tick will be sent whenever it picks up the spent fuel cell.
* Have onether insert hook to this one and insert a single fuel cell (set stack size to one) whenever spent fuel cell = 1, which will be for the single tick that the first inserter removes the spent fuel cell, which it will only do once the temperature is sufficiently low.

My ships use this and they stay in space for ages and occasionally go back to Nauvis to refuel. All of my Aquillo ships have business to Nauvis at some point or other (delivering science packs or something) but you can always set interrupts.

[End of history]

Publicado originalmente por RiO:

Publicado originalmente por SharkPlush:

I came up with a very simple solution: 1 combinator with reactor and steam storage inputs, output controls grabber. if steam is < %50 AND fuel cell = 0, activating the fuel cell grabber. The fuel cell 0 condition is because we never want to stack fuel cells in the reactor.

Waiting for the steam to deplete means the reactor has cooled off (or the heat exchangers would not have fallen behind), which is what we want; we want to make power during the time the reactor is just cooling down and there's no fuel in it. I don't know the math but fuel goes significantly farther this way.

Far too complicated. Factorio 2.0 gave nuclear reactors circuit network reads for core temperature and fuel (incl. in use).
You can hook up a decider combinator that sends out a signal when temperature T < 550 degrees and nuclear fuel cells = 0 and use that to have an inserter (fixed to hand size 1) shove in one new fuel cell.

This is actually simpler than my suggested solution. Carry on. Point stands though, nuclear in space is viable and you don't have to waste fuel cells or build steam buffer storage.

[argrond]

There are a lot of ways to reduce excessive cells' consuming, I'm using my old method for now - steam tank, red wire to inserter, inserter condition ON = steam quantity at 9/10 of tank(s), inserter stack manually set to 1. The whole trip Nauvis->Fulgora->Aquilo->Gleba->Vulcanus->Nauvis costs +/-10 cells for 10-15 minutes of flight, 2 epic nuclear reactors are working. I can produce 500+ during the time of 1 flight like this.
You can use 100500 panels, but then your craft will be flying extremely slow. I doubt you will like it like that. )

[GAMING_Alligator]

You're meant to use nuclear.