expansion station

[moswald14]

Great setup for rapid expansion late game. its a station that provides more energy than it uses, is able to defend itself through the night on accumulator power (if main power line happens to be cut off), expands robotics coverage and has a radar to boot!

Tell me what you think!

[Penrif]

I don't often have any real biter threat in the late game due to...aggressive foreign policy, so I don't have much experience with this kind of setup. I wonder though, since solar/accumulators aren't pollution producing, biters shouldn't target them, right? If you put them on the outside of the wall, allowing you to shrink the wall considerably, then use their layout to funnel attacks to specific points, you could just laser turret up those points and reduce both the cost and power draw of this setup considerably.

[pyrolytic_tungsten]

My understanding of biter behavior is that solar panels are not any different from walls. Namely that if they block a biter from getting to a target then they will attack it. Biters prioritize turrets but they won't come from a distance to attack them. This setup doesn't produce any pollution but there are still a couple ways that biters may come across that setup. They may be following pollution towards something else that pollutes or the biters may be sending a group to create a new base. Either way it would just happen that the station is in the way. For best use of walls there should be a single tile gap between your walls and your laser turrets since some biters can do damage with a tile in between them and their target.

My spreadsheet tells me that 28 accumulators will give 20 turrets firing 4 times a sec with a drain of 600kw for other stuff a firing time of 8.5 sec. In practice I've found those calculations to be somewhat conservative since there are often gaps in the turret firing. As long as you aren't kiting large masses of biters at it you should be fine.

[moswald14]

yeah, this setup was meant to be aggressive, for expanding right next to a biter spawn, the construction bots do a good job of keeping it up and completes its construction despite being attacked (but losing a robo port or two). as soon as the laser turrets come, the base is fine. now im considering a similar build, but with solar panels instead of walls where the laser turrets are behind them.

[pyrolytic_tungsten]

Walls have 350 HP each while solar panels have only 100 while being 3 times as wide so don't be surprised if you lose some. I suppose the best way to find if it's a good idea for you is to try it.