Factorio Forums

Did you ever think the power generating items for power armour were a bit strange? I mean, solar panels take up a huge area... and if you can build a portable fusion reactor, why not power your base with similar technology?

If we had wireless power transmission we could do away with the portable solar panels and portable fusion reactor by connecting your power armour to your main base power generators/solar array. Of course you could also use wireless power transmission for resource bases.

What I'm imagining is one type of building, a transmission tower, connects to a single network that covers the entire map. Each transmission tower will send or receive power as required by their local networks, and they each have a maximum throughput, like accumulators. For balance, each tower could have a fixed power draw while in operation.

What game-value will this suggestion bring, despite from "game is now a bit more realistic"?

ssilk wrote:What game-value will this suggestion bring, despite from "game is now a bit more realistic"?

Not much. It's a small suggestion that would not require a lot of development time.

It would make resource bases easier, removing the need to lay poles & wire.

Maybe it's not something the devs have thought of in terms of how the power armour should be powered.

What if you could simply transmit power through the rail lines?
Or even simpler, just build power poles AS you're laying down the train tracks?

Maybe when we will have space port, we could build and launch orbital microwave power transmitter, and build some structures on the ground to send and receive power.

OP's idea has merit.

I also like the whole transmit power through rails, which would work with electric trains.

One thing of important note is the Nicoli Tesla developed a way to send power wirelessly a LONG ass time ago in real life, so it's valid for any game.
To my knowledge the wireless transmission method uses the earths magnetic field, allowing electricity to be transmitted anywhere within that area.

Wireless power transmission is neither efficient nor large scale.

It would be suitable for recharging a player's suit battery or adding more autonomy to drones. But you'd sooner boil a river than transmit enough energy to power a factory.

How efficient would energy transmission by laser be compared to transmission by magnetic field?

CreeperDaReeper wrote:How efficient would energy transmission by laser be compared to transmission by magnetic field?

If it was in any way efficient, it would had been done quite a bit ago IRL.

kiba wrote:

CreeperDaReeper wrote:How efficient would energy transmission by laser be compared to transmission by magnetic field?

If it was in any way efficient, it would had been done quite a bit ago IRL.

You are wrong.
You see, they couldn't find any way to charge people money for it; that's why it was burried.

That method of transmission is VERY efficient; I think it's a lower, one digit percentile loss.

wwdragon wrote:

kiba wrote:

CreeperDaReeper wrote:How efficient would energy transmission by laser be compared to transmission by magnetic field?

If it was in any way efficient, it would had been done quite a bit ago IRL.

You are wrong.
You see, they couldn't find any way to charge people money for it; that's why it was burried.

That method of transmission is VERY efficient; I think it's a lower, one digit percentile loss.

got proof? or is this a conspiracy rant?

Wikipedia has a nice article covering most practical current forms of wireless power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power

They also specifically call out the work the Tesla did in regards to this.

Long story short, the only methods considered effective for long ranges (> 100 feet) are laser and microwave.