Solar Power ratios?

[Omnifarious]

Has anybody done the calculation to figure out how long the collection times for large solar panels are (the day cycle), and the non-collecting times (the night cycle) are in game seconds?

Given that, the effective wattage of a solar panel over a whole day can be known, and then you can easily calculate how much battery storage you need to provide that many watts at night for the entire night.

I'd like to avoid building any more batteries than I have to.

Of course, without any switching logic, there is no way to intelligently balance battery over-usage to make sure fuel consuming power sources are used at a minimum level.

[Stellar Remnant]

for large solar panels and batteries, you want a ratio of 3.5 large to 1 large battery. it's technically 3.44 to 1 but 3.5 to 1 is easier. Or 7 to 2.

825s solar day, 975s solar night
foundry days are 30 minutes long. 75s per ingame hour.

[TargetLost]

Originally posted by Omnifarious:

I'd like to avoid building any more batteries than I have to.

Why? If you reconstruct things you will be glad if you have some extra capacity in your batteries. Also compared to the solar panel the batteries are cheap.

I use 1:1 ratio. If you have build your base factory this batteries really shouldn't matter from a metrial point of view. The only thing that might be valid for limiting is space. But then there is enough space if you look around.

Anyway if you go with that calculatet ratio you should at least round the ratio down and not up. If you round up it means you have a tiny bit too less capacity to survive.
You need a surplus.

[Omnifarious]

I have a tendency to desire parsimony. In DSP and Factorio, I actually use several different color belts so that I don't use faster belts unless I have to. The output for a line of factories starts with slow belts, then works up to faster ones as the output needs require. And for lines feeding in, they start fast and then move to slower belts.

I avoid covering up landscape if I can. I won't use 32x32 rail blocks in Factorio because they're less efficient. It's just how I like to play these kinds of games.

I've been less parsimonious with Foundry. There's something about the game that makes doing that a lot more painful. But, I would like to be judicious in my use of solar panels and batteries.

[kremlin]

Originally posted by TargetLost:

Originally posted by Omnifarious:

I'd like to avoid building any more batteries than I have to.

Why? If you reconstruct things you will be glad if you have some extra capacity in your batteries. Also compared to the solar panel the batteries are cheap.

I use 1:1 ratio. If you have build your base factory this batteries really shouldn't matter from a metrial point of view. The only thing that might be valid for limiting is space. But then there is enough space if you look around.

Anyway if you go with that calculatet ratio you should at least round the ratio down and not up. If you round up it means you have a tiny bit too less capacity to survive.
You need a surplus.

Biggest issue with a 1:1 ratio is that you have way more storage than you can actually charge. The 3.5:1 ratio is about being able to fully charge your battery bank with your solar panels to run through the night. That's almost 3/4s of your batteries never actually being able to charge, if you're running near your solar capacity.

[TargetLost]

If you change nothing... but I am building all the time. Forexample when I build the Blast furnance and powered them up they run on my batterie for 1 or 2 days till I could catch up with the solar plant expansion. I see the batteries as a meaning to run of them for a time if required.

[Omnifarious]

I tested empirically, and the person who's answer I flagged as the right one is correct. Additional information, you effectively get about 298 watts per large solar panel, averaged out over the whole day. So if your load exceeds that, you will run out of battery power. And, sadly, your non-battery power is going to have to handle your entire factory until your solar panels come back online.

The precise ratio is 6400 solar panels for every 1859 batteries, which is not a very round ratio at all.