Solar Collectors

[BjornTurok]

How do they work? Sorry for the noob question, but I'm super confused.

[Raszagal]

once you launch them into orbit they will boost all tiles yield with 1 energy in their range (the blue line shows the outer edge of the area when launching). Should a city tile be in it's range that city will get a 20% boost in energy production on top of that while it is in orbit. The effect fades when it deorbits (60 turns after launch on standard speed)

[BjornTurok]

So, you have to be working the tile to benefit from it I assume? Why the heck is it's range beyond one's city/base/settlement?

[Raszagal]

yes, but the range is one less then the range of workable tiles from cities, though it probably should be downgraded in range to 7 hexes to make it more flexible

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by Evil Vyse:

Orbital range applies to all satellites, not just the collector.

Including a whole host of tactical ones, like the Hub, the 2 killsats, miasma condensor and repulsor, ....

[GamerWolfOps]

They give you extra energy in each city. They work great judging how when you build roads you lose energy per road build and i think that idea was a mistake as a decision :/

[Raszagal]

@GamerWolfOps
Actually once you reach supremacy 3 you will no longer have to pay upkeep for roads and magrails as those are reduced to 0 then by the affinity perk.

[Assassin]

Roads have always had an upkeep cost as far as I know. Civ 5 had em. Also this may well be the first civ where roads can end up not costing you anything XD (with the exception of the Inca in Civ 5).

Honestly you should grab affinity 3 in all the affinities.

[Raszagal]

well, civ 4 did not have road costs to begin with.

[Bodhsativa]

I am wondering if antbody could answer this please;
I have solar collectors up, but some cost more energy than they produce, why is this the case?

[CoreGoon]

Originally posted by kenzedd:

I am wondering if antbody could answer this please;
I have solar collectors up, but some cost more energy than they produce, why is this the case?

Some what? This question doesn't make much sense. :-\

[Assassin]

The question makes sense because he has a lot of units on the board. I'm going to assume he has his territory covered in them. Solar collectors, like any unit, technically consume energy, though they also produce it (as far as I know.) This means if you are putting solar collectors all over the place (really they only give you +7 energy/turn per solar collector unless a city is in range.

Solar collectors are generally only really worth it right around your city.

[zgrssd]

Solar Collectors do count as units. Every unit costs one energy/turn. If you got more units then supply, you also get a production penalty.

If you do not actually work the tiles the SC is targetting, of course they bring you nothing.
I used to place them right over hte city (so the center sat hex is the city). But that does not always work. Now I try to cover the city hex and some resources with them (as resources are usually worked).
Consider also setting the city to actually maximise energy production. That way it will be more likely to work affected tiles and you get more base value to apply the bonus too.

Civ: BE is a game with few cities, small populations, small percentile bonuses. A large fraction of income comes directly from your buildings rather then population and bonuses. As such the SC only really works if you got a good population to being with or many building sources.