Accumulators are too cheap

[Tev]

I feel (and have seen many share that) that solar/accu for power generation and lasers for defence are way too easy.

But both laser turrets and solar panels are fairly expensive and have major drawbacks (huge spikes in power consumption / working only in day). Both are more or less fixed by accumulators, which cost 5 copper, 9 iron and 15 petroleum (without modules!), which is fairly cheap considering their usefulness and little drawbacks (with steam power you have plenty of space for accu farms).

So what do you think about, say, doubling or tripling accu costs?

Btw even in real life biggest problem with solar energy is very expensive energy storage, having cheaper storage than solar power generation just feels wrong.

[bobucles]

Problem with accumulators has little to do with cost. It has everything to do with the fact that solar power works all day every day, without fail. There is no randomness to solar power like there is in real life, so once it is set up it works forever.

[Tev]

Problem with accumulators has little to do with cost. It has everything to do with the fact that solar power works all day every day, without fail. There is no randomness to solar power like there is in real life, so once it is set up it works forever.

There are many more issues with energy storage in real life than with solar power.* In factorio you still have issues with solar panels (no power at night), but none with accumulators, which can be used universally in many setups (backup power, smoothing off spikes in power usage ...)

Solar panel: 27copper, 40iron
accumulator: 5 copper, 9 iron and 15 petroleum

And you need slightly less accumulators than solar panels. Even if you value petroleum three times more than iron, accumulators are still cheaper, more universal, and don't require any fixing with something else.


*it is kind of offtopic, so I wouldn't argue about it here. Just note the lifespan of standard accumulators (like car batteries) vs lifespan of solar panels. And how there are no large scale (except this) storages of electricity.

[bobucles]

There are many more issues with energy storage in real life than with solar power.*

Why is energy storage such a big problem with solar power? It's because solar power fluctuates. Not just with the spinning of the earth. Cloudy and stormy days also reduce yield, along with the rare solar eclipse. Energy storage matters because one bad day can cause everything to shut down.

Despite solar power working about 75% of the time (avg about 45kW from 60kW peak), players still spend a ton of resources on accumulators to cover that extra 25%. Now imagine what happens when a single day goes by without solar. Instead of accumulators covering a deficit for 25% of a day, you need accumulators to cover 25% of a day and 100% of a whole extra day. That increases your need for accumulator storage by FIVE times. Now imagine when two bad days happen in a row...

See? The problem has nothing to do with accumulator costs. It has everything to do with the reliability of solar. If solar can't be 100% trusted for power, than no reasonable number of accumulators will save you.

[reddutton]

The problem has nothing to do with accumulator costs. It has everything to do with the reliability of solar. If solar can't be 100% trusted for power, than no reasonable number of accumulators will save you.

that would be ok with me as with thew 13.# update we may have power switches that we can use to toggle a backup reserve of steam power although a bit offtopic that top can be a bit overpowered to as the lakes curently dont drain

[Tev]

snip

I think you're missing the point. It's a game, real life stuff is simplified. If you would apply your arguments to accumulators they would be ten times as expensive and require a lot more research. Because we don't have cheap scalable power storage.

I'm suggesting a simple recipe modification that would (hopefully) balance one overpowered and universal structure. I'm using real world examples just as a inspiration/motivation for balancing it. If you want random elements that would increase difficulty ad absurdum, feel free to suggest it in your own thread.

[bobucles]

Because we don't have cheap scalable power storage.

Yes. You do. It's called steam power. A filled hot water tank stores 150MJ of energy. They are easily linked together and used with an engine array to generate huge power in a pinch.

Extracted coal is super dense and easily turned into energy.

Processed solid fuel is even more dense, is virtually unlimited in supply, and is easily turned into energy.

There is no issue with imperfect solar. If anything, perfect solar is a problem. Biter advancement and aggression has a major basis in pollution, and energy production is a huge factor of that. Solar energy cuts energy pollution out of the equation entirely. It directly reduces game difficulty in the same way that efficiency modules do, by making biters easier to manage.

[Tev]

missing the point AGAIN

I was talking about real world analogy. We don't have IRL cheap power storage. Seriously, neither of your posts has adressed original idea and arguments for it at all.

If I formulated it really so badly here it is again, totally stripped:

Accumulators should be more expensive.

Why?
1) they're universally usable
2) they contribute to balance problems with solar
3) in RL we have problems making such cheap and useful thing

[lancar]

Actually, I agree. Accus are pretty much dirt cheap for what they do (enables completely free & clean energy all day in conjunction with solars). I wouldn't mind at all if their cost doubled.
Might make Steam Power useful for longer.

[bobucles]

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.

[oLaudix]

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.

[StoneLegion]

What about some sort of liquid battery solution that is required refilling overtime or they lose their effectiveness?

[Smarty]

What about some sort of liquid battery solution that is required refilling overtime or they lose their effectiveness?

That could be a option but what if you have thousands of accus
That is going to give a lot of annoying jobs to keep the base running

[Rockstar04]

I would love to see some kind of lossy early game energy storage like flywheels take the current accumulators place, and then have the current accumulator moved up the tech tree and made significantly more expensive to make.

[bobucles]

Oh sure. First leverage the IRL angle, then argue the IRL angle isn't appropriate when it doesn't work out!

What about some sort of liquid battery solution that is required refilling overtime or they lose their effectiveness?

That could get pretty expensive for longer lasting bases.

You can already store energy as a liquid by boiling up some hot water. Setting up the system is a bit of a trick, as the switch and power sensors aren't in the game yet. They will be a big kick in the teeth to the utility of accumulators once they arrive.

[bobingabout]

I think the "Cost" should be in the charging...

I was researching batteries (Again) recently, this time nothing to do with factorio. Did you know it costs 150% of the energy to charge a NiMH battery than it actually stores? For example, if it can store 3000Ahs, it takes 4500Ahs to charge it.


Perhaps instead of saying we need to increase their costs, or make them more difficult to research, a better solution would be that we need a charging cost multiplier tag adding to the game's accumulator entity (so it is modable) with the default set something like 1.5, so it takes 50% more energy to charge them than it stores.


Here I am quoting NiMH values, the battery in factorio is closer to a Lead-Acid battery. It's a bit harder finding information for those, but I imagine they're more lossy to charge, but less lossy to leakage.

What do you think, is this a better solution?

[Rockstar04]

I think the "Cost" should be in the charging...

I was researching batteries (Again) recently, this time nothing to do with factorio. Did you know it costs 150% of the energy to charge a NiMH battery than it actually stores? For example, if it can store 3000Ahs, it takes 4500Ahs to charge it.


Perhaps instead of saying we need to increase their costs, or make them more difficult to research, a better solution would be that we need a charging cost multiplier tag adding to the game's accumulator entity (so it is modable) with the default set something like 1.5, so it takes 50% more energy to charge them than it stores.


Here I am quoting NiMH values, the battery in factorio is closer to a Lead-Acid battery. It's a bit harder finding information for those, but I imagine they're more lossy to charge, but less lossy to leakage.

What do you think, is this a better solution?

Yup, I would love a lossy energy storage option, My suggestion above went about it differently, but in the end if its moddable anything is possible

[oLaudix]

Except lossy charging would change nothing except solar panels to accumulators ratio ... which is nothing but increasing the resource usage. You could as well double or triple the resources needed for accumulator and the result would be the same.

[Nasabot]

I agree with the statement, that not accumulators are the problem, but the solar panels.

Personally I dont like the design of the solar panals, because it trivializes the game mechanic "energy" and trivilization is never healthy for any game.

What I would like to see is "energy progression" integrated into science like:

-limited number of solar panels you can build but
-research allows you to improve number and output of solar panels. Maybe even allow infinite research, which becomes more and more expansive, similar like the robot number research
-also allow research and improved efficiency of steam energy

For me its a pity, that all those flameable items, espacally coal, is pretty worthless because of its abundance, even if you produce tons of explosives and plastics.

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

[ssilk]

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.

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