Does anyone use geothermal power?

[luntacarsus]

It seems kinda... not good.

[Capt. W. Schwartz]

I find no point to it.
It comes far too late in the research tree to be of any benefit to my playstyle.

[Maehlice]

Only because it exists. By the time you unlock them, their power offering is a pittance ... and that was even true before the nerf.

EDIT: They should make them part of Tier 4 along with Power Storage.

[Suzaku]

The pro is that it's literally free energy; no resource management required. Set it and forget it.

The con is that it's not that impactful.

[Capt. W. Schwartz]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

EDIT: They should make them part of Tier 4 along with Power Storage.

That would be far better then their current placement.

[EntreNous]

No. Not worth the time and effort.

[lpnlizard27]

This is what all the geothermal sites look like on an isolated grid.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2469860707

It gives a constant 4100 mw and peaks at about 4700.

It's still a decent amount of juice so i wouldn't dismiss it outright.

What i ended up doing was powering all miners, water extractors, and any other processes that contribute to my turbo fuel plant. That way if my main grid goes down it's really simple to get it back up because all the support equipment is on a separate grid.

[Zorlond]

So, evidence that 'free energy' isn't as disastrous to game balance as some people think?Who'da thunk it? : /

I mainly don't use it because the locations are generally so inconveniently located, I'd rather just use other sources.

[godofradio]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

EDIT: They should make them part of Tier 4 along with Power Storage.

This would be ingenious. Good suggestion!

[Tenzek]

There is no reason not to build on them as you come across them when spreading out your base. It's a lot of power for almost zero effort.

[Grandaddypurple]

Originally posted by lpnlizard27:

What i ended up doing was powering all miners, water extractors, and any other processes that contribute to my turbo fuel plant. That way if my main grid goes down it's really simple to get it back up because all the support equipment is on a separate grid.

This is actually the best use for geothermal I can think of (except of course just adding it to your main grid)
I've had to do "maintenance work" twice on my turbofuel power plant that led me to temporarily reduce my power capacity by 95%, and restarting the setup turned out to be more complicated than I anticipated.
though one can argue that power batteries could have the same use

[GI Ged]

i use all 18 off them plus 10 fuel generators, thats all i needed to finish this stage of the game.

[⎛⎝Duckers McQuack⎠⎞]

The hammering one you put down? I plopped down every single one in the game as a "backup" in case my nuclear dies lol.

[Tankfriend]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

So, evidence that 'free energy' isn't as disastrous to game balance as some people think?Who'da thunk it? : /

To be fair, geothermal comes so late in the game and is so limited in its usefulness right now that it shouldn't really be taken as an example for the possible impact renewables would have if they were to come earlier in the game with less restrictions.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

So, evidence that 'free energy' isn't as disastrous to game balance as some people think?Who'da thunk it? : /

I mainly don't use it because the locations are generally so inconveniently located, I'd rather just use other sources.

Man, you really are desperate. Your willingness to ignore the context of the situation to make it suit your agenda is very impressive. Are you a politician in real life?

Geothermal is late-game, by which point, people may have set up power grids that dwarf the capacity of Geothermal. That's the only reason some people may not bother.

[Zorlond]

Originally posted by Evilsod:

Originally posted by Zorlond:

So, evidence that 'free energy' isn't as disastrous to game balance as some people think?Who'da thunk it? : /

I mainly don't use it because the locations are generally so inconveniently located, I'd rather just use other sources.

Man, you really are desperate. Your willingness to ignore the context of the situation to make it suit your agenda is very impressive. Are you a politician in real life?

Geothermal is late-game, by which point, people may have set up power grids that dwarf the capacity of Geothermal. That's the only reason some people may not bother.

Check a map sometime. Even if it was early-game, people would still skip geothermal most of the time. The geysers just aren't that useful in terms of locations. They are all Northern Forest and Swamp, other than two barely in the Rocky Desert and two others in the Southern Forest. Even if you had geothermal early, why the hell would you even bother tapping them if you aren't working in those locations? How's that for context?

Hell, this thread is telling you why people don't bother, that's specifically the question it is asking.