Factorio Forums

Hi, First time poster, and am totally hooked on this game. version 0.13.9

I am midway thru first serious play and am trying to get the power armor + exoskeleton to work.

Have right clicked power armor and dropped in exoskeleton and 3 Mk1 batteries but the power bar shows no electricity and the battery indicator in the HUD is empty.

What am I doing wrong ?

Biters are getting big ! Please help

u need to place in the solar panels or fusion reactor to power the suit

kingarthur wrote:u need to place in the solar panels or fusion reactor to power the suit

This.

On a side note: 0.13.9 is an old version, latest stable release is 0.12.35-0, you can update to that and continue with your current save (most likely). There is also the 0.13 builds which are experimental still.

Frightning wrote:On a side note: 0.13.9 is an old version, latest stable release is 0.12.35-0, you can update to that and continue with your current save (most likely). There is also the 0.13 builds which are experimental still.

0.12.35 is older than 0.13.9 and has some feature missing, it's not possible to update to it and continue with the save. Instead you should update to 0.13.15 as it's more stable and has a lot of bugs fixed since 0.13.9.

daniel34 wrote:

Frightning wrote:On a side note: 0.13.9 is an old version, latest stable release is 0.12.35-0, you can update to that and continue with your current save (most likely). There is also the 0.13 builds which are experimental still.

0.12.35 is older than 0.13.9 and has some feature missing, it's not possible to update to it and continue with the save. Instead you should update to 0.13.15 as it's more stable and has a lot of bugs fixed since 0.13.9.

For some reason I thought I saw 0.12.9, lol, nvm

The batteries do not power the armor by themselves. You have to first charge the batteries using the solar panels or the fusion reactor. If you place empty batteries in there nothing will happen. Hope this helps!

Two ways to do it:

1. Portable Fusion Reactor. You can have several of them, and you'll probably need several.
2. Solar Panels + Batteries. In 0.13 the batteries have been made a lot better, especially the batteries mk 2. It's possible to have a really useful power armor without the fusion reactor if you have enough solar panels and a couple of batteries

Hi guys, this is my first time posting and currently I have version 0.16.51 and have some logical questions about the modular armor. In the real world, don't solar panels charge near ANY source of light? Shouldn't I be able to charge my batteries if I am near a bright source of light in my base? and besides, aren't the accumulator buildings the same as batteries? Doesn't it make sense to be able to charge your batteries on the armor at either a bright light source or at one of those accumulator stations or maybe even at a roboport? They only charge at the accumulator stations at the roboports so why can't we? If this is a Mod, I sure would like to know. If it isn't, Can't we get someone to incorporate these ideas into the next version sometime soon rather than making yet another Mod that should have been built into the game to begin with?

JackBlack1024 wrote:Hi guys, this is my first time posting and currently I have version 0.16.51 and have some logical questions about the modular armor. In the real world, don't solar panels charge near ANY source of light? Shouldn't I be able to charge my batteries if I am near a bright source of light in my base? and besides, aren't the accumulator buildings the same as batteries? Doesn't it make sense to be able to charge your batteries on the armor at either a bright light source or at one of those accumulator stations or maybe even at a roboport? They only charge at the accumulator stations at the roboports so why can't we? If this is a Mod, I sure would like to know. If it isn't, Can't we get someone to incorporate these ideas into the next version sometime soon rather than making yet another Mod that should have been built into the game to begin with?

Nope, that's not in the game currently, and I doubt it ever will. First, yes, bright lights technically can charge solar panels, but they're far less efficient than sunlight, it would probably have balance issues, etc. There is no way to transfer power between your base's power grid and your suit (although that has been suggested in various ways ranging from a module in your armor to take from the grid to rechargeable batteries, and that's slightly more likely to be added).

Jap2.0 wrote:

JackBlack1024 wrote:Hi guys, this is my first time posting and currently I have version 0.16.51 and have some logical questions about the modular armor. In the real world, don't solar panels charge near ANY source of light? Shouldn't I be able to charge my batteries if I am near a bright source of light in my base? and besides, aren't the accumulator buildings the same as batteries? Doesn't it make sense to be able to charge your batteries on the armor at either a bright light source or at one of those accumulator stations or maybe even at a roboport? They only charge at the accumulator stations at the roboports so why can't we? If this is a Mod, I sure would like to know. If it isn't, Can't we get someone to incorporate these ideas into the next version sometime soon rather than making yet another Mod that should have been built into the game to begin with?

Nope, that's not in the game currently, and I doubt it ever will. First, yes, bright lights technically can charge solar panels, but they're far less efficient than sunlight, it would probably have balance issues, etc. There is no way to transfer power between your base's power grid and your suit (although that has been suggested in various ways ranging from a module in your armor to take from the grid to rechargeable batteries, and that's slightly more likely to be added).

I know it is super inefficient to charge using lights but you could always use a percentage of the power used by each light to balance it out. It would require assigning a permanent 100% value on sun at high noon which lights up the whole map zoomed completely out. The efficiency of the light might be half (if even that) so half of the light's energy is wasted in the air while the other half is a fraction of the other half multiplied by the wattage of the light which probably be along the lines of what you were thinking. That value would be assigned to the square right next to the light and drop of dramatically the further away you are until it reaches 0 at the end of the light's edge with a large percentage of that globe of light being practically nothing but not exactly nothing. They could stack like Beacons but you would have to be in the center of an entire array the distance of your flashlight to only get maybe half of the power of the sun at high noon. Either charging with your own roboport module or maybe adding a new module to the suit that would connect only at the base of each electric pole and not in the blue square areas but it would charge much in the same way as the bots have to charge next to the accumulators . Any accumulator would do as well whether it is by itself or on a roboport but it would always be more efficient than trying to use light because it is more direct power to the chargers much like a car battery charger. Light could still give bonuses to charging though. Just brainstorming ideas hoping one of the devs might read it, pick up an idea or two, and run with it.

https://sciencing.com/can-solar-batteri ... -7189.html
Knowing the Factorio planet's sun has been calculated to output a LOT more power than our sun, you'd need geological scale times to recharge your batteries with an artificial light powered portable solar panel.
See viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9182

Normal indoor lighting is about 2-500 lux. On a sunny day the it is about 100.000 lux outside. So yes solar panels "work" from electrical lights irl, but only give 0.05% power output.

Actually, lux can't by themselves determine the energy received by a surface. One should watch the Watt per square meter.

Koub wrote:Actually, lux can't by themselves determine the energy received by a surface. One should watch the Watt per square meter.

True. Sunlight is ~1kw/m2. And indoor lights are <1w/m2 so the result is about the same. Three orders of magnitude less energy.