Accumulators are too cheap

[ssilk]

Also first 50% can be loaded in 50 seconds, but the second 50% take 5 minutes (loading curves). If discharged too fast it may brake (or the capacity sinks) without cooling.

Hundreds of possibilities.

[bobucles]

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.

Steam engines peak at 600kW. Accumulators peak at 300kW. All that matters is having enough spare capacity to run your lasers.

Granted, people do not consider building huge lines of steam engines "just in case" they need the extra kick. It is far more intuitive to run a steady power load off your steam power, then use accumulators to absorb the peaks and valleys.

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.

Yep. That changes nothing. Tweaking efficiency is no different than tweaking raw cost. If you need more power to charge, you spend more resources to have that power at all times. Easy. The only difference is a different ratio of power inputs to power storage.

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.

The needs of a home residence are FAR different from the energy needs of industry. A gigantic dam is probably more efficient in terms of in:out and $$:storage compared to piles and piles of batteries. So it's more reasonable to build a billion dollar dam instead of a 50 billion dollar battery farm. That's not important here. What is important is that the grid answers its most important energy problems by using the power it HAS. For a MW consuming industry this is addressed financially. Energy is cheaper when the power company has more energy, and expensive when they have less energy. That encourages the demand to match the supply.

Once again. It is not unusual to solve an energy crisis IRL by turning things on and off. This is not important with coal or gas or nuclear power, as they run any time you want them to. This IS required with renewable power, because it is only available when nature says so.

Also first 50% can be loaded in 50 seconds, but the second 50% take 5 minutes (loading curves). If discharged too fast it may brake (or the capacity sinks) without cooling.

This is pretty neato. I'm not sure it'll change much on the player end though. Overall if the player had enough stuff, then they have enough stuff. There's no real need to adjust any play style for it.

[Koub]

In any case, there's no situation where the answer can't be "we need moar", until the overall cumulative cost of the solar/Accu solution will just become too much, and people will just be like "Meh why bother with solar, while steam is so simple", and you'll just have traded one imbalance for another.

Don't forget that steam has a invaluable advantage : you can't loose your base if your power production becomes unexpectedly insufficent. Your factory will slow down, but your turrets will still be operational.
If you run on solar + accus, if you don't pay attention (and that happened many times to me), at the middle of one night, black out. all accus are empty, you better had some gun turrets, or the first biter wave could tear your defenses apart.

[MeduSalem]

Wah... Another thread about the Solar Panel/Accumulator problem? How many are there?

Well... Anything including "Make it more expensive", "Make power storing less efficient", "Make solar panels less efficient" and that sort of stuff won't really work. It would either delay the inevitable and/or force people to do make the Solar Farms even bigger, but ultimatively failing to address the problem.



In my opinion a solution that might actually have a chance to work is when the players have to deal with puzzle-solving and and coming up with interesting layouts and other contrapations like an upkeep mechanic that requires the player to create an entire infrastructure to keep the Solar Panels/Accumulators running, similar to how the Steam Engines require Oil Industry/Solid Fuel production lines to be self-sustaining instead of burning through Coal like there is no tomorrow.

The only other solution would be to make Solar Power itself unreliable (like weather conditions, pollution dependence, etc) like some people suggested already, but nothing else in the game is that unreliable and I would somehow hate it if we start to roll the dice just because we can't come up with a better solution to alleviate the problem.



By the way speaking about "unreliable"... I would have a funny idea on how to make BOTH Steam Power and Solar Power less reliable on their own so you HAVE to use them both in tandem for maximum efficiency:

Dry Seasons alternating with Monsoon Seasons.

• In Dry Seasons the lakes would start to shrink and pumps give less water than usual (but not completely dry up so it always works to some degree), but Solar Power becomes a lot more efficient.
• In Monsoon Seasons the Lakes are bursting (Also giving reason to store water for later!) and Steam Power becomes the most efficient but Solar Power becomes only reliable for a few hours a day, if at all.

But it would severely hamper the player at the beginning when he has no Solar Power yet. That could be changed if there would be Wind Power available shortly after the beginning as well as an intermediate step to Solar Power, because then in between Dry and Monsoon Seasons there could be Windy/Cloudy seasons where Wind Power is the dominant one. Like 4 months Monsoon, 2 months Windy, 4 months Dry, 2 months Windy, rinse and repeat. There could be a little bit of semi-randomness from day to day where for example Windy and Dry days alternate back and forth until finally one season settles in for the next few months, etc. It would work much like a Rock-Paper-Scissors system. The further the player progresses through the Tech Tree the better one can exploit each of the Seasons. On top of that I would make Solar Power more efficient in Desert Biomes than elsewhere, and Wind Power more efficient in hill-like biomes, Steam Engines would be limited to the lakesides anyways. It would add a completely new touch to the game of actually having a seasonal weather system and making exploration of biomes become more important.

To become more indepdendent from the seasons/weather conditions as well as biomes there would be Nuclear Power in endgame, coming with its own problems.

It could even be tied into the background story of the game itself. Maybe we crashed on the planet because we were exploring the planet with our spaceship for possible resource exploitation and then got caught from a storm front of the approachinng monsoon season. That's why the player always starts off shortly before the monsoon season (to have Steam Power become the most efficient soon after the start). Would also add a lot to the dark mood of the game at the beginning, being all rainy and you have almost nothing to salvage from your spaceship except dead bodies of your former mining industry colleagues.

The weather system could also have an effect on which lifeforms/creatures are lurking out there in the wilderness. I really like the thought of horrible and unspeakible creatures like in the Riddick movies. Which in turn means that priority and effectiveness of various Turret Types would also alternate alongside with the seasons, meaning you have to use all turret types or otherwise you might get steamrolled in the next season. That means the weather system influencing the types of enemies could provide some sort of balancing between Gun Turrets vs Laser Turrets vs Whatever else the devs implement.



Anyways I think that both, Solar Panels and Accumulators, might have to be reworked together when compared to Steam Power. In my opinion it is a problem that is analog and strongly related to the Laser Turrets vs Gun Turrets problem because of how Laser Turrets basically suffer from the same "plop & forget"-gameplay which is also only balanced around "Initial Setup costs". One-Time investments are not reasonable balancing measurements, especially in a sandbox game offering infinite resources that is about endless expansion and puzzle-solving and automatation.

Therefore the Solar Power gameplay should be changed from a "setup cost"/"efficiency"-bound problem to a more "layout"/"throughput"-bound problem, where scaling the system becomes more difficult the bigger the power plant, which is similar to how Steam Power works. The same goes for Laser Turrets. It would only be in the spirit of Factorio to do so.

I wonder if I should create another thread at the Ideas/Suggestion Board that tries to combine the "best ideas" that have been suggested in various threads so far into one huge thread trying to come up with a general solution for the entire problem once and for all.

[bobucles]

I'm just spitballing here, but what if an energy system had more moving parts? I don't mean like the solid fuel line where you pump and chump and it's all good. Perhaps something more like:
- take an empty energy thing,
- Stick it in a device
- charge it up
- pull out a fully charged thing,
- stick it in a generator,
- pull the canister out
- repeat

More moving parts == more cool. Amirite? An energy system with external bits means you need to keep parts constantly moving to generate energy. Will you use belts or bots? Train networks or centralized? Solid fuel kinda already does this with crude barrels. I dunno.

[MeduSalem]

I'm just spitballing here, but what if an energy system had more moving parts? I don't mean like the solid fuel line where you pump and chump and it's all good. Perhaps something more like:
- take an empty energy thing,
- Stick it in a device
- charge it up
- pull out a fully charged thing,
- stick it in a generator,
- pull the canister out
- repeat

More moving parts == more cool. Amirite? An energy system with external bits means you need to keep parts constantly moving to generate energy. Will you use belts or bots? Train networks or centralized? Solid fuel kinda already does this with crude barrels. I dunno.

The Phoenixian and I both suggested exactly that in the thread over here at some point: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=18613

1. The Phoenixian suggested that the current Photovoltaic solar panels should be changed into Solar-Thermal solar panels instead.
   
   That means a Fluid (Oil or something like that, it could be Heavy Oil for example) would be required to be heated by flowing through the Solar Panels. Using pumps the heated oil would then have to be put through Heat Exchangers which transfers the Heat from the Heating Oil to Water which then finally gets used by Steam Engines. The chilled heating oil would then have to be pumped back to the Solar Panels for another turn, creating a cycle. The process could be lossless but it would be more interesting that a fraction of the heating oil gets lost in each turn, requiring you to produce more of it. It would make extensive use of pipe mechanics to create layout and throughput problems.
2. I suggested that the batteries inside the accumulators (or any item that uses batteries) could deteriorate due to constant charge/discharge.
   
   That means that you have to swap the batteries inside of accumulators with fresh ones every now and then. You would move the deteriorated battery back into the factory, where it is emptied creating an empty battery shell (the shells are one-time investments that can be re-used infinitely), and then reprocessed by filling it with new Sulfuric Acid for example. It would be similar to the barreling/unbarreling mechanic of Crude Oil. In the emptying-process there could also be created a new type of fluid, "deteriorated sulfuric acid" or whatever you want to call it, which might have to be reprocessed by chemical plants and could be re-integrated into the process (to decrease the use of new sulfuric acid) or could be used for something else. Then the refreshed battery would get moved back to the Power plant and inserted into one of the accumulators again.
   
   My approach could also be able to deal with the problem that Laser turrets don't require any ammunition (just power, which is pretty much infinite after initial setup). Because one could basically apply the same mechanic to Laser Turrets as well then... Constantly firing, charging/discharging the batteries inside the Laser Turrets would eventually deteriorate them as well, so you would have to swap them every now and then too. It deals with the Turret creeping problem as well to some degree, because that wouldn't work as efficiently anymore. That actually leaves you with the choice... Do you go for Gun Turret upkeep or Laser Turret upkeep? Or Both?
   
   Finally my approach could also be used to deal with the problem of Robots being ridiculously overpowered compared to Belts and Trains. If Robots would require to swap their batteries at Repair/Maintenance Ports as well every now and then that would give them an additional disadvantage that might be considered a reason to try solving a problem with belts instead before moving on to try it with robots the cheap and easy way.
   
   The empty battery shells could even be used for hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells later on to power rockets, or even Boilers (eventually replacing Solid Fuel in endgame) or whatever, etc. It would make use of the same deterioration and filling/emptying mechanic like described above.
   
   It's an elegant solution to deal with multiple problems currently present in the game at once, while increasing the puzzle-solving feeling using almost only existing or at least familiar items. All it matters on is the right balancing of how many recharge cycles batteries can take before finally becoming too deteriorated for recharge.

Both The Phoenixan's and my suggestions could even work together. It would be very interesting to make the "Deteriorated Sulfuric Acid" from the deteriorated batteries of my idea the actual "Heating Oil" which is used in the Solar-Thermal panels by The Phoenixan's idea. Or the heating oil could be "Deteriorated Sulfuric Acid" mixed with Heavy Oil which in turn creates a new fluid that has even better thermal properties than both of them alone have. It would create another cycle where nothing is wasted. And it would be a natural step towards nuclear power, because the cycle for that will probably also be using heating oil and heat exchangers to power steam engines/turbines.

The important part is that both ideas reduce the Solar Power problem to an actual "layout"/"throughput"-bound problem that makes use of puzzle-solving and which in return is a far more satisfying experience, just like I wrote in my previous post.

Maybe I will find some time this week to make some diagrams and sketches of the cycles described above for better understanding and to determine if it could even work out that way.

[Koub]

I personnally think Steam and solar accus should remain the same as long as there are no alternative options to produce energy. If you wand to add unreliability, then we need many various unreliable ways to produce energy, in order to be able to smooth the production and adapt it to our needs. I alse truly love the satellite solar mod, and hope that kind of content will eventually make it into the game (along with ion cannons, radar satellite, and other satellite based useful things, but that's off topic).
The more variety with kind of advantages, and kind of disadvantages, the more difficult it will be to get a ranking amongst the solutions. It's a lot easier to rank Solar+Accus vs steam than it would be to rank :
Solar+accus
steam+boilers
wind power+accus
fusion (with hydrogen extracted from water)
fission+steam
microwave solar + receivers
energy obtained through composting of dead biters bodies + wood
geothermic
...
from best to worst if they have all their kind of disadvantages and unreliable aspects

[MeduSalem]

I personnally think Steam and solar accus should remain the same as long as there are no alternative options to produce energy. If you wand to add unreliability, then we need many various unreliable ways to produce energy, in order to be able to smooth the production and adapt it to our needs. I alse truly love the satellite solar mod, and hope that kind of content will eventually make it into the game (along with ion cannons, radar satellite, and other satellite based useful things, but that's off topic).
The more variety with kind of advantages, and kind of disadvantages, the more difficult it will be to get a ranking amongst the solutions. It's a lot easier to rank Solar+Accus vs steam than it would be to rank :
Solar+accus
steam+boilers
wind power+accus
fusion (with hydrogen extracted from water)
fission+steam
microwave solar + receivers
energy obtained through composting of dead biters bodies + wood
geothermic
...
from best to worst if they have all their kind of disadvantages and unreliable aspects

You may be right about that it would become a bit more difficult to rank the individual options, but I can't get rid of the thought that anything balanced ONLY around "initial setup costs" will automatically outrank all other solutions that depend on more than just how much they cost the player.

The fundemental problem is that convenience beats the puzzle-solving experience and that's when people come on the forum and write threads like "Solar Power is less than a no brainer" and the sad fact is that they are fully right about it because it is a no brainer if it is only arranging 2 items in the best pattern possible without any further upkeep management or anything else to think about, etc.

Boilers + Steam Power might not be Pollution Efficient and puts a huge drain on your Oil reserves but it at least keeps one busy for a while figuring out the layouts, throughput and fluid priority problems, etc.

So we need at least some system ontop of some of the available options to cover that problem. If it is...

• A Seasonal Weather System rendering some ways to produce energy depend on the weather, with each method having varying efficiency throughout the planet's year
• Efficiency of the Power Output dependending on Biomes (like Wind turbines more efficient in hilly biomes, Solar in deserts, etc)
• Implementing sophisticated puzzle-solving with upkeep management elements into every option to produce energy, so nothing is just plop & forget
• Whatever else people come up with
• All of the above together

... doesn't really matter, but at least something should be there. Otherwise the complaints/suggestions won't stop anytime soon. The amount of threads and replies to each individual thread should already indicate that there is a problem and that's something even the most "conservative hardcore Factorio player not wanting to change anything" eventually has to acknowledge.

In my opinion judging from the above the "unreliability"-factor of a seasonal weather system would probably be the easiest to implement for the start because it doesn't require any new items or production cycles for now. If at least the seasonal weather system would be a thing then Solar Power even could stay the way it is for now, because it would automatically be in disadvantage during cloudy/stormy seasons, requiring you to think about alternatives (currently Steam Power).

The other options that depend on more puzzle solving have their downside already... they require upkeep and thought processes.

So every way to produce energy could be classified as either:

• Initial Setup Costs + No Upkeep: Dependend on seasons and their weather conditions. (Solar Power, Wind Power, etc)
• Initial Setup Costs + Upkeep: Dependend on puzzle-solving and management. (Fission Power, Geothermic, etc)

The ones with Upkeep optionally could depend on the weather for the sake of realism or just because it is fun, but the ones without Upkeep SHOULD ALWAYS depend on the weather, otherwise we create another "no brainer" problem.

[Allekatrase]

...

You keep talking about how decreasing efficiency is the same thing as increasing cost and is not an effective solution and saying the problem is the reliability of solar power. However, if you made solar power random and unreliable it would have the exact same effect. It would be random, but someone would work out the statistics of exactly what percentage of time you expected to have power and then you'd have the average power output calculated and you'd change your ratio of solar panels to accumulators and life would continue. The only thing that would change is the cost and numbers required.

I agree with MeduSalem that the real problem with solar/accus is that they require no moving parts. Once you have the production of panels and accus automated you just drop as many blueprints of it as you need and your done, no supply chain required. Anything that functions like that is going to always be the best option in a game about mass production.

[Koub]

You do realize that Steam is almost as easy to expand, right ? one blueprint, and you're done. Your only additional problem is to continue growing your coal (or solid fuel) supply, which is probably easy if you're into trains and stuff.

[MeduSalem]

You do realize that Steam is almost as easy to expand, right ? one blueprint, and you're done. Your only additional problem is to continue growing your coal (or solid fuel) supply, which is probably easy if you're into trains and stuff.

In my opinion and experience Steam Power is not anywhere as easy to expand as Solar Power.

When you setup/expand Solar Power you have to do following:

1. Create a supply chain for Solar Panels, Accumulators, Power Poles and Roboports.
2. Create a pattern of Solar Panels, Accumulators, Power Poles and Roboport(s).
3. Make a blueprint of it and stamp it all over the landscape.

When you setup/expand Steam Power using Coal you have to do following:

1. Create a supply chain for Splitters, Belts, Boilers, Pipes, Steam Engines, Electric Poles and Roboports (and a ton of other items)
2. Create a pattern of Splitters, Belts, Boilers, Pipes, Steam Engines, Electric Poles.
3. Make a blueprint of it and stamp it down.
4. Create a train station for the power plant if you don't use a centralized one for the entire base.
5. Craft and setup trains to move between the train stations.
6. Consider how much Coal is used to sustain the power plant and how much Coal is used to keep your factory producing items.
7. Based on the Coal requirements create a priority system for Coal so the power plant will get Coal no matter what to avoid a possible death spiral.
8. Create a seperate power network to make the Steam Power plant (Boiler Inserters, Electrical Miners, Trainstations, Outpost equipment etc) self-sustaining to avoid a possible death spiral.
9. Even after the initial setup you have to move out to new Coal Patches and create new outposts (including defense and maintenance for them) every once in a while due to depletion. Some if it may be stamped of course.
10. Depleted Outposts can be left as they are but you might like to tear them down to salvage the items and to reuse them in another outpost.

When you setup/expand Steam Power using Solid Fuel you have to do following:

1. Create a supply chain for Splitters, Belts, Boilers, Pipes, Steam Engines, Electric Poles and Roboports (and a ton of other items)
2. Create a pattern of Splitters, Belts, Boilers, Pipes, Steam Engines, Electric Poles.
3. Make a blueprint of it and stamp it down.
4. Create a train station for the power plant if you don't use a centralized one for the entire base.
5. Create a supply chain for Barrels
6. Create an barreling/unbarreling system for Crude Oil.
7. Craft and setup trains to move between the train stations.
8. Alternatively if you don't use Barrels then lay out pipes for the Crude Oil to the Outposts.
9. Consider how much Oil is used to sustain the power plant and how much Oil is used to keep your factory producing items.
10. Based on the Oil requirements create a priority system for the various Oil products so the power plant will get Solid Fuel no matter what to avoid a possible death spiral.
11. Deal with the deadlock of Refineries to prevent them from getting stuck with a certain fluid.
12. Deal with the fact that Light Oil Solid Fuel is more efficient than Petroleum Gas Solid Fuel, but that you have to get rid of Petroleum Gas to be able to keep on producing Light Oil, etc.
13. Create a seperate power network to make the Steam Power plant (Boiler Inserters, Oil Pumps, Refineries, Oil Cracking, Trainstations with Barreling/Unbarreling, Outpost equipment etc) self-sustaining to avoid a possible death spiral.
14. Even after the initial setup you have to move out to new Oil Fields and create new outposts (including defense and maintenance for them) every once in a while and expand on the Oil Refining and multiple other parts of the factory to deal with the increasing throughput.
15. Depending on if you use centralized oil refining or decentralized oil refining some of the stuff might be blueprinted, but in general you will still have to do a lot of the expansion by hand.

And that is probably not even covering all the problems you have to face with Coal/Solid Fuel power plants, but just the most important ones that come into my mind right away. Also you will want to upgrade Coal to Solid Fuel eventually because of throughput bottlenecks due to Coal giving only 1/3 of the Energy compared to Solid Fuel. You might even want to have both Coal additionally to Solid Fuel as a backup when you start suffering problems with Solid Fuel, which requires a combination of both Coal AND Solid Fuel stuff.

So you see the 3 methods are not even remotely close to one another in how much work goes into setting them up and eventually expanding them.

• Solar Power only requires you to do stuff once and profit forever from 1 blueprint afterwards.
• Steam Power no matter if you are using Coal or Solid Fuel requires you to do tons of other stuff besides that, most of which can't be dealt with a single blueprint.

Steam Power requires a lot of maintenance and moving around the base and to outposts, all of which requires resources, time and careful planning = more gameplay = more fun. Can't say the same of Solar Power no matter how much I would like to. Solar Power is boring due to completely bypassing the spirits of the game.

[Lallante]

I would balance accumulators AND solar panels as follows:

Accumulators would move much later in the tech tree (late tier 3 or early tier 4) - its a tech that doesnt even work reliably in real life - and become more expensive. In addition there would be a 50% efficiency loss when using the accumulator (100 in, 50 out).

Solar panels would be affected negatively by pollution and a new random weather system (ideally seasons too).

All liquids would require a pump to move around (pumpjacks will count as a weak pump but all other pipes will need pumps included in them)

Pumped generation and storage would be introduced as an early game alternative to accumulators using the existing pipes and tanks plus a new "raised tank" and "hydro generator". Pump liquid uphill during the day, pipe it down through the hydro generator at night for electricity.

[bobucles]

My approach could also be able to deal with the problem that Laser turrets don't require any ammunition (just power, which is pretty much infinite after initial setup). Because one could basically apply the same mechanic to Laser Turrets as well then... Constantly firing, charging/discharging the batteries inside the Laser Turrets would eventually deteriorate them as well, so you would have to swap them every now and then too. It deals with the Turret creeping problem as well to some degree, because that wouldn't work as efficiently anymore. That actually leaves you with the choice... Do you go for Gun Turret upkeep or Laser Turret upkeep? Or Both?

Hmm. What if the problem isn't with solar power at all? The biggest reason accumulators and solar work so well is because laser turrets only need energy to function. What if the laser turrets were changed?

Code: Select all

- craft laser turret "power cells"
- Lasers use them to attack
- pull out used cells
- recharge them at station
- return cells to laser

If you do this, the entire purpose of accumulators becomes nearly invalidated. Accus basically exist to handle the surge demands of laser turrets- every other energy consumer is fairly consistent and easy to plan around. But if you get rid of that "on demand" energy spike, and replace it with a charging station's consistent burn, then the player doesn't "Need" accumulators anymore. You could even remove them entirely from the game at that point.

[MeduSalem]

Hmm. What if the problem isn't with solar power at all? The biggest reason accumulators and solar work so well is because laser turrets only need energy to function. What if the laser turrets were changed?

Code: Select all

- craft laser turret "power cells"
- Lasers use them to attack
- pull out used cells
- recharge them at station
- return cells to laser

If you do this, the entire purpose of accumulators becomes nearly invalidated. Accus basically exist to handle the surge demands of laser turrets- every other energy consumer is fairly consistent and easy to plan around. But if you get rid of that "on demand" energy spike, and replace it with a charging station's consistent burn, then the player doesn't "Need" accumulators anymore. You could even remove them entirely from the game at that point.

Yeah the power cells are basically a similar take on to the upkeep management I proposed earlier.

Removing the Accumulators would definitely cause problems... because how would you keep the factory running through the night when you are using solar power? Force Steam Engines on the player? Or wait till the morning again to start producing items?

But even if the accus weren't the issue... plopping down endless fields of Solar Panels for free energy is still boring compared to the things you have to do for Steam Power for example.

So something should still be in place for solar panels to make it a more thoughtful experience.

I may be radical on the matter but I have the opinion that everything should have an upkeep some sort, both solar panels and accumulators as well as Laser Turrets and Robots. All of these things are topic of multiple balance issue discussions because of how they all end up being shallow experiences...

• Solar Panels... Plop & forget
• Accumulators... Plop & forget
• Laser Turrets... Plop & forget
• Robots... Setup network and kill the puzzle-solving aspect for the rest of the game

It's funny how above problems could all (except solar panels) be dealt with just having deteriorating batteries as an upkeep to them. Then scaling your usage of Accumulators, Laser Turrets and Robots would actually be quite tough and strains your factory considerably as you would have to reprocess/recycle the growing amounts of deteriorated batteries. It would be at least difficult enough to balance out the alternative choices: Solid Fuel+Steam Power vs Solar+Accumulators+Batteries, Magazines+Gun Turrets vs Laser Turrets+Batteries, using Belt-mazes vs Bots+Batteries.

[bobucles]

Removing the Accumulators would definitely cause problems... because how would you keep the factory running through the night when you are using solar power? Force Steam Engines on the player? Or wait till the morning again to start producing items?

Ya don't? It's not that big a deal. Overnight energy is easily provided through coal or depleted oil. The player may choose to partially shut down his base, for example keeping the mines open while shutting assemblers down. The way day/night works you can still get over 70% of your energy from solar. It's a kick in the teeth but it's not insurmountable, and if laser ammo gets prepackaged then you don't have to worry about a lethal brownout anymore.

I'm not in favor of deteriorating solar panels. All that does is place a MJ value on iron and copper.

[MeduSalem]

Ya don't? It's not that big a deal. Overnight energy is easily provided through coal or depleted oil. The player may choose to partially shut down his base, for example keeping the mines open while shutting assemblers down. The way day/night works you can still get over 70% of your energy from solar. It's a kick in the teeth but it's not insurmountable, and if laser ammo gets prepackaged then you don't have to worry about a lethal brownout anymore.

Well that's exactly the problem, many people favor their near-to-pollution-free factories. Forcing them to use Fuel+Steam Engines over night by removing Accumulators would obviously upset a lot of people.

I am not one of them... I honestly don't give a damn about how much pollution I cause... the more the better, gives me at least a reason to have a strong defense and watch Biters getting annihilated by Turrets. But it is obviously not something everyone favors.


I mean one could get it to work by having Electric Boilers instead of Accumulators:

If the Electric Boilers require more electricity to power them than a Fuel Boiler could produce with Solid Fuel you can't use them with Solid Fuel alone to produce more free energy because you would never make up for the loss in the process. So you would need to provide Energy from Solar Panels to power the Electric Boilers, which in return create Hot Water that can be stored in Storage Tanks. And during the nights you would start to drain the storage tanks with Steam Engines.

The fun part about that would be that it would also create puzzle solving elements and that the size of your Hot Water Storage would eventually force you to put more thought into how to overcome the limitations introduced by Pipe Mechanics.

I'm not in favor of deteriorating solar panels. All that does is place a MJ value on iron and copper.

Well as far as I know most people who argue about the Solar Panel/Accumulator problem agree that it wouldn't be a nice experience to use Repair Packs (Iron/Copper) to keep solar panels in shape. I wouldn't like it either. If Infinite Resource patches (like Oil patches with decreasing yield) would be in game it would be somewhat different... though I still think that something more sophisticated than Repair Packs should be in place.

That said, there could still be an upkeep element to Solar Panels and some people liked at least some of the discussed variants, like for example:

• Turn Solar Panels from Photo-Voltaic to Solar-Thermal, meaning you need to run heating oil through the panels and then use heat exchangers to exchange the heat from the oil to water which then can be used to power Steam Engines and finally produce electricity.
• Make Solar Panels become dirty over time due to dust from sand in deserts etc, and obviously pollution. It would require you to wash the panels periodically to keep efficiency up... also requiring some piping etc. and more logistics around the Solar plant because how do you get the Water from your lakes out into the desert? (Would give a reason to transport Water by train in tank wagons)

Both would require some additional infrastructure and puzzle solving to deal with the presented problems without making Solar Panels too unfair. And the difficulty would obviously scale with the size of your Solar Farm, just like it becomes increasingly more difficult to maintain a thousand Steam Engines powered by Solid Fuel.

[bobucles]

Well that's exactly the problem, many people favor their near-to-pollution-free factories. Forcing them to use Fuel+Steam Engines over night by removing Accumulators would obviously upset a lot of people.

What is being forced, exactly? The player simply has a less efficient base if they choose to not run during the night. That's a small price to pay for a pollution free base. This is also assuming that laser power becomes self sufficient so they can function without energy.

Make Solar Panels become dirty over time due to dust from sand in deserts etc, and obviously pollution. It would require you to wash the panels periodically to keep efficiency up..

I'm not opposed to making water more functional outside of recipes. It certainly has an abundance of uses IRL. However any major water requirements break the "spawn zone water only" map settings. There needs to be another water source first, whether it's deep drilling or weather or puddle related.

It would be pretty cool to see drones flying about frantically scrubbing the factory clean of pollution. But that's a story for another thread.

[MeduSalem]

What is being forced, exactly? The player simply has a less efficient base if they choose to not run during the night. That's a small price to pay for a pollution free base. This is also assuming that laser power becomes self sufficient so they can function without energy.

Shutting off the factory over night? No one would want to sit through 1-2 minutes where the factory just does nothing and that every 6-7 minutes or however long the game days actually last. It is like playing a shooter and then every 5 minutes someone comes in and takes your mouse and keyboard or controller away for 2 tedious minutes...

I'm not opposed to making water more functional outside of recipes. It certainly has an abundance of uses IRL. However any major water requirements break the "spawn zone water only" map settings. There needs to be another water source first, whether it's deep drilling or weather or puddle related.

Well I never play with the "spawn zone water only" setting because I honestly think maps without water are the most boring landscapes to look at, but I get that it might be interesting for some.

I would actually have weather/season effect the water sources... Lakes have greater yield of water during monsoon seasons and less yield in dry seasons (but never fully vanishing). During the monsoon season it obviously rains a lot and solar power would be less viable, but you could use the time to stock up on water and to run your Steam Engines at full efficiency. On the other hand in dry seasons Steam engines would be less viable because of the reduced yield of lakes, but Solar Power would be excelling because cloudless skies all the time.

In between monsoon and dry seasons I would put windy/cloudy transitions in which Wind power could be the most efficient as a third way to produce power, and Solar/Steam power would slowly succeeed each other in performance efficiency during these windy transitions. In dry seasons Wind power almost doesn't work because there's not enough wind going on, in monsoon season they have to be secured for most of the time or otherwise the propellers might break off in the ongoing storms (and yeah that does happen in reallife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbCs7ZQDKoM).

The power efficiencies over the seasons could be just like so:

Seasons.png (25.14 KiB) Viewed 6626 times

It would be pretty cool to see drones flying about frantically scrubbing the factory clean of pollution. But that's a story for another thread.

Well actually if the solar panels would need to be washed every now and then I would use something like a sprinkler building. It has a fixed range around itself and a connection for a waterpipe. Not only could it be used to wash the Solar Panels, but it could also be used for a treefarm to produce wood (if the devs ever plan on actually expanding the wood industry).

[bobucles]

It is like playing a shooter and then every 5 minutes someone comes in and takes your mouse and keyboard or controller away for 2 tedious minutes...

Nothing is stopping a player from running steam power to survive the night. The player can still expand his factory or go fighting or anything he wants during that time. The actual amount of fuel required to survive the 0% solar hours is very low, and if a player doesn't have that kind of fuel then they already have a crisis.

[Lallante]

MeduSalem's proposal is great.

People saying "if you dont like solar, dont use it" fundamentally shouldnt be posting in a BALANCING forum.

A "one size fits all solution" that eliminates a large amount of gameplay, like accumulators and solar in combination, is a bad solution.