Accumulators are too cheap

[Nasabot]

You didn't say how you want to limit the solar panels, but I think it is the important question. I point to this, cause I don't think, that there should be ever any limit on any item or entity to craft or to built with the reason like "you are not able to built/produce more than X solar panels". The only limitations could be only "natural", like there are not enough resources (rare ores needed for example). That's not only for solar panels, anything should have no limit. Cause once you go and limit the game in a way, which has no game-physical reason, you might want to limit other stuff. That's the begin of the end; cause in the end the game will be not logical anymore, it's just a set of rules. Like so many other games.

I keep also at my opinion, that a simple change like including the angle of rotation around the sun, solar eclipses, a rotation around a gas gigant etc. brings in so much variety in solar power income, that the right way to produce energy will be only a healthy mix of all types of power generation

Yes, that sounds reasonable, I agree to a big degree. Just limiting solar panels is not a good idea, but I still think that energy productions must not be trivilialized by free energy.

What if solar panels degenerate depending on produced energy? I think this is also a possibility. My point is, that the player should be encouraged to think about resource consumption and if solar panels degernate(which then are reproduced and delivered by drones) the player has the choice between FUEL and ORE.
Also this might make the consideration over MODULES more interesting, because then energy is also a "limited" resource.

That's what's needed: every type of energy has its usage case for the right time.

I think it would do the game well to provide the player with time-independent choice for his playstyle.

If you play your save file 50h you will probably end up with 5h played with steam energy and 45+h with solar+batteries. Unfortunatly mechanics like the solar panels make a game shallow, because they provide a "perfect solution" to a certain problem.


I know, many player dont think about things like these and they just start a game with maxed resources, but I am more the "survivalist" player and for this playstyle I need scarcity and unobvious choices

After the next bigger patch I will probably start a new game without solar panels, but I prefer CONSTRAINS given by the game, because its the game you want to beat as a player
The current situation is like an ARPG without a hardcore mode, where you have to delete your character after the first death in the softcore mode...

It strikes me as weird, that so many people do not understand the "concept of competition versus the game"(in general in all game forums) but rather completly rely on the "sandbox aspect" where every step is pretty much purposeless and you just build and build without serious limitations.

For me a game is most fun if you have different viable playstyles and you have to figure out which playstyle is best for a certain situation. But for this idea you NEED real CHOICE and also the possibility to lose a game

PS.: The more I thought about the solar module degeneration, the more I like it^^ I also did some math and I think its reasonable if each solar module provides ~600-1200 MJ before it breaks. (which is over 2,5-5h of functionality)

This would solve the "issue" with the unlimited energy. (at least for me its an issue)

But thinking ahead, my proposed solar module change would actually nerf accumulators, because the lame strategy of 100% solar-accu might not be the best solution anymore, as accumulators have 50% efficiency. Actually this is nice, because then the player has 2 playstyles:

-100% solar and 100% accumulor which is clean, but not resource efficient (You lose energy by the 50% accu efficiency and will have a lot of degenerated solar panels you have to reproduce)

-You may use solar panels to save coal and pollution but instead of accumulators, you use a 100% steam backup(or mixed with accus). This is a more resource efficient solution because you wont waste energy because of the 50% accu efficiency therefore saving resources reproducing solar panels, but as a downside you produce more pollution.


I TOTALL like my idea of degenerating solar panels
Its a nice balancing between 2 different playstyles.

Any suggestions why my proposal could be bad?

[Tev]

Personally I like more challange and encouragement of having an eye on energy production instead of just placing more and more solar panels, which is just lame. Also for me resource scarcity is a big part of this game. The player should be encouraged to exploit even the smallest resource deposites and expand his train network in order to satisfy his greed for more resources

Your posts, and especially this part feels like you're playing on very easy biter setting. Try RSO with very poor resources, or even vanilla with max biters and you'll have the challenge you want.

Solars seem more and more fine to me. Their size and cost and need for overnight energy storage makes them quite balanced. Maybe I play it suboptimally, but on max biters in vanilla I just don't have that much free space to plaster the world with solar panels. If you'd just tweak them a little, say reduce their energy production in half, they might actually become bad when compared with coal based steam generators.

Accumulators on the other hand are smaller, cheaper and more universal. And nobody has addressed that*. It's not balance problem that you play on too easy setting with too much space (RSO with standard biters) or with too many resources (vanilla with less than max biters).

*besides their possible obsolence in 0.13 for steam power networks, but you'll need accus anyway to cover peaks from laser defence.

EDIT: lossy energy storage actually might work out well for solars, because required size of solar fields will become unfeasible, but for other uses it doesn't do much. Building additional line of 10 steam engines will cover difference for A LOT of accus.

[cartmen180]

Accumulators should be more expensive.

I have already explained why your own suggestion doesn't even address your own concerns. Accumulators are "OP" because solar power is strong, efficient, and 100% reliable. Accumulators rely entirely on perfect solar power to achieve the "OP" status you proclaim. Making accumulators more expensive doesn't fix that. It pushes the exact same problem down the line.

Guess what? The huge problem with storing renewable energy IRL is the fact that renewable energy is UNRELIABLE. If we had guaranteed sun and tides and winds every single day of the year we would have battery farms to hold the night, every night, just like in Factorio.

Getting a household a few hours of night time energy, when everything powers down anyway is no big deal. A $2000 lead acid battery can do that. A full DAY of peak activity, gridless storage is BRUTAL.

This is not real life, this is game. I can't imagine factory suddenly slowing down or turning off at night, especially during attack, just because some stupid RNG decided to slap me in the face. Solar energy works fine as it is and the only problem is accumulators being stupidly cheap resource wise.

That is exactly what would make the game more interesting and solar panels/accumulators less cheaty. Relying just on renewable energy is plain stupid and you deserve to be slapped in the face when you do. Unfortunately doing that now is instant win instead of a risky strategy. Making accumulators more expensive is only a viable solution if they cost more (energy and pollution) than it would placing down a new steam boiler (if you would make them more expensive resource wise there would be no point in crafting accumulators anymore!).
RNG is an excellent alternative and very simple solution to this problem. +1

Loss on charging is also an interesting idea but doesn't solve the issue. You just place down more solar panels to compensate.

[cartmen180]

Solars seem more and more fine to me. Their size and cost and need for overnight energy storage makes them quite balanced. Maybe I play it suboptimally, but on max biters in vanilla I just don't have that much free space to plaster the world with solar panels. If you'd just tweak them a little, say reduce their energy production in half, they might actually become bad when compared with coal based steam generators.

Vanilla with minimum biters gives me plenty of space though. So they are incredibly op now. Playing with resource settings on max the increase in cost doesn't really seem a problem anymore.
My point is that game balancing should be discussed for standard settings (aka the settings most people use). From there everyone can make their game easier or harder.

[Tev]

Solars seem more and more fine to me. Their size and cost and need for overnight energy storage makes them quite balanced. Maybe I play it suboptimally, but on max biters in vanilla I just don't have that much free space to plaster the world with solar panels. If you'd just tweak them a little, say reduce their energy production in half, they might actually become bad when compared with coal based steam generators.

Vanilla with minimum biters gives me plenty of space though. So they are incredibly op now. Playing with resource settings on max the increase in cost doesn't really seem a problem anymore.
My point is that game balancing should be discussed for standard settings (aka the settings most people use). From there everyone can make their game easier or harder.

For game as complex as factorio it makes sense to make standard settings "easier", so newbs aren't slaughtered all the time. So once you're advanced enough to notice optimal patterns, try increasing difficulty.

Vanilla with minimum biters is really loleasy for anyone who played more than 25hours. I struggled (successfully, though) at max biters and solars frankly aren't that great*. Useful, but in a way that is kind of necessary.

*in RSO they are kind of overpowered though. And RSO is played by a lot of people . . . however in RSO you spend much more time with managing your logistics, so little more "automation" for energy production at extra cost doesn't distort difficulty too much.



And that all is still actually offtopic, as none of your points address the superiority of accumulators.

EDIT: sorry, missed this:

Making accumulators more expensive is only a viable solution if they cost more (energy and pollution) than it would placing down a new steam boiler (if you would make them more expensive resource wise there would be no point in crafting accumulators anymore!).
RNG is an excellent alternative and very simple solution to this problem. +1

RNG is just pointless difficulty increase which might make them useless on actually increased difficulty setting. Don't push for difficulty increase in the game when you yourself play on very easy.

Making accumulators cost more will offset their usefulness and make "fully automated" energy production more expensive. And I don't see why would people stop making them. Whole factorio is about designing system that will make you "win" once you finish it and tweak it well, challenge is in getting to that stage. And increasing cost (or maybe that lossy storage, which is imo inferior) will increase that challenge. Especially as it prolongs the polluting phase of your development (first steam engines), so pollution-free advantage of solar/accus will be a bit diminished. And it will also make not so easy to play with just coal+lasers.

And since solars are useless on their own, you can't really say stuff like "you just plop down more solars" or "you just mine more resources", since this rebalancing might affect a lot more things (think how many times you ran out of iron or something when expanding production and what you had to do to handle that . . .).

[cartmen180]

Solars seem more and more fine to me. Their size and cost and need for overnight energy storage makes them quite balanced. Maybe I play it suboptimally, but on max biters in vanilla I just don't have that much free space to plaster the world with solar panels. If you'd just tweak them a little, say reduce their energy production in half, they might actually become bad when compared with coal based steam generators.

Vanilla with minimum biters gives me plenty of space though. So they are incredibly op now. Playing with resource settings on max the increase in cost doesn't really seem a problem anymore.
My point is that game balancing should be discussed for standard settings (aka the settings most people use). From there everyone can make their game easier or harder.

For game as complex as factorio it makes sense to make standard settings "easier", so newbs aren't slaughtered all the time. So once you're advanced enough to notice optimal patterns, try increasing difficulty.

Vanilla with minimum biters is really loleasy for anyone who played more than 25hours. I struggled (successfully, though) at max biters and solars frankly aren't that great*. Useful, but in a way that is kind of necessary.

*in RSO they are kind of overpowered though. And RSO is played by a lot of people . . . however in RSO you spend much more time with managing your logistics, so little more "automation" for energy production at extra cost doesn't distort difficulty too much.



And that all is still actually offtopic, as none of your points address the superiority of accumulators.

I especially mentioned the point I am trying to make in my second post. I will go into more detail now then.
To balance a game you need a difficulty setting where you can say, now this is balanced. With all the options for amount, size and density of resources and biters it is impossible to make the game balanced for every possible option.
The standard settings are perfect for that, b/c standard should be the most balanced as that is the point where everyone starts. From there you can make the game easier or harder (aka unbalancing the game).
You cannot complain the game is too easy when you put resources on max and biters on min, or too hard when you do it the other way around. Your argument that solar panels are balanced on max biters is therefor false. You created an unbalance that resulted in the argument you are trying to make now.

Don't push for difficulty increase in the game when you yourself play on very easy.

I don't play on very easy. I used it as an example to make my point.

Now your point that accumulators are to cheap may be true, but not necessarily resource wise. You should also consider the environmental impact (longer crafting time for instance). To keep up with your factory's power demand you would need to allocate additional space and resources to accumulator production, which directly results in more pollution.

The thing is, and this is the point you continually dismiss as off topic, that the accumulator problem is directly tied in with the solar panels. Bobucles makes some excellent points about this. In short:

Accumulators rely entirely on perfect solar power to achieve the "OP" status you proclaim. Making accumulators more expensive doesn't fix that. It pushes the exact same problem down the line.

As you pointed out in big bold letters that nobody has addressed accumulators being smaller, cheaper and more universal, is b/c accumulators are not the issue.
Solar panels however are. They are cheap, don't consume resources like steam boilers, don't break down and produce reliable, unlimited, clean energy.
Solar power needs a fundamental change and only then can we start looking at accumulators and see if they are indeed "OP".

[Ohlmann]

Guess what? The huge problem with storing renewable energy IRL is the fact that renewable energy is UNRELIABLE. If we had guaranteed sun and tides and winds every single day of the year we would have battery farms to hold the night, every night, just like in Factorio.

Getting a household a few hours of night time energy, when everything powers down anyway is no big deal. A $2000 lead acid battery can do that. A full DAY of peak activity, gridless storage is BRUTAL.

Uh, you're badly wrong. Current technology can store enough electricity for a city in exactly one way : a gigantic hydraulic barrage where you pump. And that's insanely expensive, dangerous (if the dam break), and difficult to do. A 2000 lead acid battery isn't anywhere near to do that, and even less scalable enough for an entire city.

I am not even sure the electrical consumption is lower at night. People heat and light more things at night, so I would not be surprised that day electrical needs are in fact lower than night one.

Now, I agree that renewable energies are unreliable right now.

[cartmen180]

I would not be surprised that day electrical needs are in fact lower than night one.

We use about 30% more electricity during the day than at night.

[Tev]

Your argument that solar panels are balanced on max biters is therefor false. You created an unbalance that resulted in the argument you are trying to make now.

Well, that's true. But I also said that "normal" difficulty is basically for learning the game, because factorio is complex enough (and has little enough lategame) that you kind of need to increase the difficulty to get a challenge. Basing balance on "learning difficulty" seems flawed to me.

Now your point that accumulators are to cheap may be true, but not necessarily resource wise. You should also consider the environmental impact (longer crafting time for instance). To keep up with your factory's power demand you would need to allocate additional space and resources to accumulator production, which directly results in more pollution.

... same can be said about solar panels. So are you arguing against solar panels and accus being OP?

The thing is, and this is the point you continually dismiss as off topic, that the accumulator problem is directly tied in with the solar panels.

I've said numerous times why accumulators are at least as much of a problem as solar panels are. You can't say that accus are OP because solar are OP and at the same time ignore arguments pointing out superiority of accus to solar panels.

Accumulators rely entirely on perfect solar power to achieve the "OP" status you proclaim.

I barely ever have "perfect solar". I quite often have none solar panels. Yet accumulators seem OP to me, for reasons I listed.

As you pointed out in big bold letters that nobody has addressed accumulators being smaller, cheaper and more universal, is b/c accumulators are not the issue.
Solar panels however are. They are cheap, don't consume resources like steam boilers, don't break down and produce reliable, unlimited, clean energy.

That's ridiculous, you just repeat mantra "solar panels OP OP OP" and support it with arguments that can be used to accus as well. Seriously:

Solar panels however are. They are cheap...

As I said you would have to value oil insanely more than iron/copper to make accus more expensive.

...don't consume resources like steam boilers...

... accumulators do?

...don't break down...

My accus actually do!
--- when I run my tank into them.

produce reliable (...) energy.

Not without accumulators.

Not to mention accumulators are reliable, clean and with unlimited charge/discharge cycles.

You can start popping accumulators as soon as you research them, because they always will have some use (in worst case as a buffer against your mistakes), solars on the other hand need accumulators (unless you want to save coal in really expensive way, and efficiency modules are better for that). You can't claim accu/solar combo is overpowered and at the same time claim accus are ok. Soalr panels would have to be demonstrably cheaper and smaller and more versatile for that, but it's the other way around.

EDIT: this thread has actually convinced me even more of accumulators' superiority, because no one can apparently deny it with actual facts. Best arguments against "accumulators are OP" apply to solar as well, so root of the problem of solar panels' perceived brokenness is apparently in accumulators.

[cartmen180]

EDIT: this thread has actually convinced me even more of accumulators' superiority, because no one can apparently deny it with actual facts. Best arguments against "accumulators are OP" apply to solar as well, so root of the problem of solar panels' perceived brokenness is apparently in accumulators.

And there is your problem. The arguments you make in favour of "accumulators are OP" apply to solar as well!!

[bobucles]

You can start popping accumulators as soon as you research them, because they always will have some use (in worst case as a buffer against your mistakes)

That's not really true. Accumulators take batteries, which take lots of processed gas, which means you need oil cracking. There's no way to get a good supply of accumulators until blue tier, when advanced oil is finished.

To be fair, it takes the same amount of gas to build one accumulator as it takes for one efficiency module. The former will go a lot further to keeping your base energized than the latter can do to save power.

[Tev]

EDIT: this thread has actually convinced me even more of accumulators' superiority, because no one can apparently deny it with actual facts. Best arguments against "accumulators are OP" apply to solar as well, so root of the problem of solar panels' perceived brokenness is apparently in accumulators.

And there is your problem. The arguments you make in favour of "accumulators are OP" apply to solar as well!!

Well but solar can't be used w/o accumulators (or some steam backup, which is inferior in many ways). Accumulators can be used with almost any factory. Therefore they need fixing more than solar panels.

bobucles: well if blue tier is a problem for you . . . and oil is generally overvalued because of habits in RSO maps (where it is problematic). In my current (vanilla) base I have 5 times more oil than ore/copper stored . . . and I could easily expand oil production more if I wanted to.

[cartmen180]

EDIT: this thread has actually convinced me even more of accumulators' superiority, because no one can apparently deny it with actual facts. Best arguments against "accumulators are OP" apply to solar as well, so root of the problem of solar panels' perceived brokenness is apparently in accumulators.

And there is your problem. The arguments you make in favour of "accumulators are OP" apply to solar as well!!

Well but solar can't be used w/o accumulators (or some steam backup, which is inferior in many ways). Accumulators can be used with almost any factory. Therefore they need fixing more than solar panels.

Accumulators need that same steam backup if you don't have solars...
Again, argument works both ways.

[Tev]

Accumulators ARE backup, what are you talking about?

Seriously why couldn't you use accus in steam-powered factory? "Argument works both ways" sounds ridiculous when it apparently isn't true.

[bobingabout]

when you're using steam and lasers, you need accumulators so that lasers don't kill your factory.

[JimiQ]

when you're using steam and lasers, you need accumulators so that lasers don't kill your factory.

you can use hot water tanks as accumulators
boilers - steam engines - water tank - steam engines

When the load is low, you "charge" the water tank, when the load rises, you have double capacity for power generation

[SirRichie]

when you're using steam and lasers, you need accumulators so that lasers don't kill your factory.

you can use hot water tanks as accumulators
boilers - steam engines - water tank - steam engines

When the load is low, you "charge" the water tank, when the load rises, you have double capacity for power generation

That doesn't help with laser turrets. Even if you have hot water stored, your steam engines operate at a maximum capacity and > 20 shooting laser turrets drain that production within a split second. With accumulators, you can satisfy these demand spikes.

[Allekatrase]

Guess what? The huge problem with storing renewable energy IRL is the fact that renewable energy is UNRELIABLE. If we had guaranteed sun and tides and winds every single day of the year we would have battery farms to hold the night, every night, just like in Factorio.

Getting a household a few hours of night time energy, when everything powers down anyway is no big deal. A $2000 lead acid battery can do that. A full DAY of peak activity, gridless storage is BRUTAL.

Uh, you're badly wrong. Current technology can store enough electricity for a city in exactly one way : a gigantic hydraulic barrage where you pump. And that's insanely expensive, dangerous (if the dam break), and difficult to do. A 2000 lead acid battery isn't anywhere near to do that, and even less scalable enough for an entire city.

I am not even sure the electrical consumption is lower at night. People heat and light more things at night, so I would not be surprised that day electrical needs are in fact lower than night one.

Now, I agree that renewable energies are unreliable right now.

Thank you! I was hoping someone would point this out.

As for energy consumption, while domestic use may continue at night I'd be surprised if there wasn't some decrease, but the big factor is commercial use which almost certainly has a very sharp decrease during night time hours. Not that that's particularly relevant in a game about 24/7 automated factories.

More on topic there's a lot that's broken about solar and accumulators. To begin with, the space requirements are waaaay smaller than they should be. The power output per unit area of solar panels is ridiculous. I would agree with the op that the cost of accumulators is too low for the amount of storage they have. Going by realism they should be nerfed into the ground. I like the lossy storage ideas, particularly the idea about them using more energy to charge than can be recovered from them.

I would really like to see accumulators effectiveness reduced, but I would also like to see the addition of pumped hydroelectric as an alternative form of energy storage. Not a huge disadvantage, but at least you'd have to have water nearby to use them. I would also like to see loss introduced into the system for both accumulators and any new form of energy storage.

[bobingabout]

Another thing I think I've mentioned, but will again... Part of balancing could be to make an accumulator cost more to charge than is stored. Say 150MJ required to charge a 100MJ Accumulator. This would likely be some sort of efficiency tag or something, so it can be set differently for different accumulator. Okay we only have one so far, but It could be implemented in portable equipment too on the batteries, and there are 2 of those that could have different efficiencies.

[Rwn]

Another thing I think I've mentioned, but will again... Part of balancing could be to make an accumulator cost more to charge than is stored. Say 150MJ required to charge a 100MJ Accumulator. This would likely be some sort of efficiency tag or something, so it can be set differently for different accumulator. Okay we only have one so far, but It could be implemented in portable equipment too on the batteries, and there are 2 of those that could have different efficiencies.

For potential inspiration IRL you have 3 main efficiency factors: charg efficiency (how much outside energy is transformed into inside energy), discharge efficiency (how much inside energy is restored in outside energy) and conservation efficiency (how much energy is lost per unit of time just to keep the energy in - the accumulator may need cooling or controlling devices that eat up some energy). Add the charge/discharge speed and the capacity and there's a lot of factors you can play with to achieve very different accumulators for different purposes.