Eclipses

[InsaneFox]

Yes, YES! Especially with the possibility of other planets, the addition of inter-planetary resource management would be amazing.

[ssilk]

I had time to think a bit about this and added some pics to the OP.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6181

[Mehve]

As interesting/fun as this might be on its own merit, I'm not sure it actually addresses the primary complaint towards solar that I see - lots of gain, moderate buy-in, zero long-term costs. Since you can't exactly drop everything and redo your power infrastructure when the eclipse-o-meter tells you one is coming up, you have to adopt a game plan from the outset. So, from the start, you'll either:

1) Gamble and hope no severe events happen to wreck your solar power before you get your rocket launched (short term solution).
2) Accept that your solar WILL abandon you at some point in the future, and thus:
a) Simply build a non-solar infrastructure and be done with it.
b) Build a non-solar infrastructure and then just throw down tons of solar panels as you can make them, eventually resulting in the non-solar infrastructure sitting dead for ~70% of the time.
c) Add a metric shitton of accumulators to try and brute force through the event.

So I'm not sure how much this would actually modify the solar game, aside from increasing the initial buy-in cost of a good panel/accu solution.

[ssilk]

I thought also about this.
With the coming nuclear power we could say that solar power is a "transition". From dirty burner based to "clean" nuclear. (Sounds wired, but for the game it is OK)

And this will help with that "transition" to show players: Look solar is nice, but is not safe: In about 10 days we will have a big eclipse lasting two days. Perhaps you should change to nuclear energy, maybe, eventually - especially as you know, that the natives hormones goes crazy in the dark - as they breed much more effectively - and they will attack you all at once during a loooong night.

I would say that is a target, that a player could master and it is very revealing with all the adrenaline you get when the time hurries.

[Mroczny_Pasterz]

I absolutely love this idea !
+1

[rolfl]

One suggestion here would be that pollution creates smog, and smog reduces the energy avalilable to solar panels.

So, the more pollution, the less energy - putting your panels outside your smog cloud makes sense too.

[MeduSalem]

One suggestion here would be that pollution creates smog, and smog reduces the energy avalilable to solar panels.

So, the more pollution, the less energy - putting your panels outside your smog cloud makes sense too.

But if you build the panels outside the smog cloud... why even have the smog cloud affect the panels?

It would only work if power transmission loses energy the further away the energy source is from the target. That way you would force the player to build the solar panels near the base where it would be affected by smog. That in turn would create a synergy where you have to put Efficiency Modules into machines so that the smog cloud gets further reduced so you can build less solar panels which in turn means that less energy is lost through distance since the overall solar powerplant can be much smaller.

Otherwise the smog cloud affecting the panels can be overcome way too easily. Build the panels at a location where smog never reaches the solar plant = profit forever.



So with other words a global solution like solar eclipses or seasonal weather effects are better suited to take care of that because they can't be counteracted that easily by just building the solar farm in a suitable location.

As long as it is an option people can activate/deactive I'd say yes to it.

[ssilk]

That the smog makes the panels dirty and needs maintenanceis a very old suggestion. But it doesn't have nothing to do with this one.