Solar panels less of a no-brainer

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AileTheAlien
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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by AileTheAlien »

Nasabot wrote:One might argue that oil energy(fuel cubes) is also infinite, but I counter: Oil-Energy produces pollution, so there is some sort of "cost". Solar energy does not produce pollution. And this does make a difference.
Oil production can also produce nearly zero pollution too, however. Just dump efficiency modules onto all your pump-jacks, refineries, and chem plants. The fact that oil is infinite, means that you can safely exploit a large number of oil fields, since you don't actually need to care about speed modules or productivity modules. Instead of either of those two types of modules, you can just put down more pump-jacks, with efficiency modules on them. 80%-reduced pollution means that they don't anger the biters very much, and are easy to defend. For the other resources, you need to constantly expand, defend, and exploit those resources, but with oil, you just keep adding to your ever-growing infinite-oil-production system.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Criperum »

I sorry if this was suggested before, but what about making solar enegry avalable like other resources?
I mean solars should work only on desert tiles and requires lubricant to follow the sun.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

This topic is now irrelevant. Steam Engines have almost doubled their output in 0.15 and nuclear power provides a means of sustainably expanding energy production in the lategame. Solar panels are expensive and take up a LOT of land, we don't need the hassle of needing to provide them with lubricant too.

Also desert on my world is sparse. I've got a few patches of maybe 100 - 500 tiles, nowhere near enough to power a factory with. Limiting solar to desert would just make it an obscure thing nobody bothers with except in that one game they restart a hundred times to start in a desert.

How about you play 0.15 some and if you still think solar is overpowered, THEN come back and make suggestions?
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MeduSalem
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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by MeduSalem »

Deadly-Bagel is somewhat right. Solar Power is actually in a very, very bad spot now. It was a weird game mechanic before, but now it's just an obscure feature. And you will see a lot less bases using Solar Power in the future, probably none once everyone looks into Nuclear Power. You'll regret that you even crafted a single solar panel/accumulator.

Nuclear Power is pretty much friggin insanely power efficient and causes no pollution either. A Uranium Patch of 200k ore will sustain a 800MW 2x3 reactor setup for 1500-2000 game hours if using the Kovarex Enrichment correctly. No kidding. I might even be convinced to use Uranium Magazines in my Gun Turrets for the shits and giggles to see how the Biters get oneshot with my high level infinite Gun Turret related damage researches.

And the entire plant takes even less than a third or quarter the space my 500MW Steam Power plant used to have in 0.14.


In my base Solar Power only serves in spots where I don't ever want to risk a brownout. (Like for example the feeding mechanism for Uranium Fuel).

I never thought I'd see the day but there it is:


Solar Power is deader than dead. End of story.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Hmm, not necessarily true...

Nuclear power can take a while to get going. It took me over 70,000 uranium ore to get my first 40 U-235 and for about five hours I probably ran an average of around 50% power satisfaction. And it seems while the new boilers/engines do pump out more power they're also a lot hungrier, I went through two coal patches and a ton of solid fuel just to keep my factory (sluggishly) ticking over. If I'd known it would take so long I would have set up a few solar arrays to lighten the load on my steam engines.

Not sure if solar panels should be made a bit cheaper now or something, like 3 steel and 10 circuits (maybe 2 steel and some plastic or light oil?) to make them more attractive just as a little side supply or until you get nuclear up and running. But yeah gone are the days of 10,000 solar panels in every big base.
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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by torne »

The same number of boilers now consumes more coal, but also puts out proportionally more power. The amount of power generated per coal/solid fuel is exactly the same as in 0.14.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by MeduSalem »

Deadly-Bagel wrote:Nuclear power can take a while to get going. It took me over 70,000 uranium ore to get my first 40 U-235 and for about five hours I probably ran an average of around 50% power satisfaction. And it seems while the new boilers/engines do pump out more power they're also a lot hungrier, I went through two coal patches and a ton of solid fuel just to keep my factory (sluggishly) ticking over. If I'd known it would take so long I would have set up a few solar arrays to lighten the load on my steam engines.
Yeah, I agree that the U-235 gambling in the beginning can be a bit of a pain. I filled up more than an entire Steelchest of U-238 before I got 40 U-235 together to start Kovarex Enrichment... and also about 3-5 hours or so. I didn't use Nuclear before I had the Enrichment researched.

But you got a point there... if Coal/Oil are a problem and Nuclear isn't ready yet then it might be a viable option if there's a lot of Iron/Copper around.
Deadly-Bagel wrote:Not sure if solar panels should be made a bit cheaper now or something, like 3 steel and 10 circuits (maybe 2 steel and some plastic or light oil?) to make them more attractive just as a little side supply or until you get nuclear up and running. But yeah gone are the days of 10,000 solar panels in every big base.
I don't know if making them cheaper would make them more attractive on longterm. Especially if you are past the point of resource concerns. They could be for free for all that I care and I still wouldn't use them on large scale because I find them boring and spammy and I don't have to put any thought effort into it on how to maintain them. It's just free energy forever in a game that is about automation and keeping things going.


I'm actually using my Boilers to pre-heat the Water to 165°C Steam and then insert that Steam into the Heat Exchangers. Allows me to drive 10 Steam Turbines on 4 Heat Exchangers and 10 Boilers... instead of 6.9 Turbines on 4 Heat Exchangers.

So basically I have a reason to keep using the boilers and my chemical fuel production even in endgame as a way to cover power spikes which the Nuclear Reactors don't respond to well to due to their huge delay in heat propagation. Basically I just replace the Steam Engines behind my boilers with Heat Exchangers followed by the Turbines. So basically I don't have to set up a new shoreline from scratch. I can reuse the existing infrastructure and integrate it. So for me Chemical Fuel/Boilers don't lose any of their value even in endgame. Heck I can push my 800 MW 2x3 Reactor design to 1160 MW due to using pre-heated Steam. A 1.45x increase. Also they act as a backup for one another if I don't have Uranium or Chemical fuel the other one kicks in... and both are integrated into one neat build!


But Solar Panels on the other hand remain a boring blueprint stamp spam. That's the reason why this thread even came into existence... the mechanic about Solar Power itself is boring and wastes a lot of space.


There have been several ideas presented within the thread already on how to make it more interesting...
  1. Like using Solar-Thermal instead of Solar-Electric. That would require you to provide working fluid to be heated in Solar Panels which then moves to heat exchangers which then output Steam for the Steam Engines/Turbines. Something along the order.
  2. But I've also had the idea of using a Solar Power Tower where connected Mirrors reflect the sunlight to... which increase the power output tremendously due to concentration. That might actually also be an interesting concept to follow which would work similar to Reactors of increasing the efficiency with the neighbouring system. The power tower would then also transfer the Heat to Exchangers using Heat Pipes which are then to be connected to Geat Exchangers and the Output Steam goes to the Steam Engines/Turbines.
Both methods would integrate well in the other power production infrastructure, which in my opinion is a good thing because it allows you to re-use items and infrastructure... and that might be enough reason for me to use it even in endgame because those systems are fun to fiddle around with as there's always something to optimize or do differently the next time.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by iceman_1212 »

Imo solar is "undervalued" atm of the hype of new steam engines and, more importantly, nuclear power. This is mainly relevant for those who play without biters (i.e., acquiring territory is not a concern) which I know is not uncommon these days.

For those who are willing to invest a little bit of time into an initial setup, it's now possible to have a solar setup that can be expanded efficiently without ever needing to go near it. On my current base, I rely on a blueprint of 6k solars/~5k accus/2 radar/a train track (blueprint consists of two 6x3 arrays - one above the track and one below - each of which is comprised of the typical single-roboport solar array) and a train that drops off panels/accus/etc. The blueprint is about the biggest that can be placed accurately using the map zoom feature.

Every now and then (e.g., when i'm waiting for my personal bots to finish placing something, when i'm riding in a train, etc.), I will zoom via the minimap and place down a blueprint. Meanwhile, there is a train carrying solar/accu/substation/roboports + train stations/passive providers/filter inserters that shuttles back and forth between a pick up point at my make-everything factory and the farthest stop on this track. Every two - three hours, I plop down a new dropoff station blueprint along the track so my construction bots don't get too tired.) I last visited my solar setup in person at ~50k solar panels, it's currently at ~165k and rising.

Tbh, the only reason I bothered to set it up on my current map is because I set the uranium to very low and I was a bit unlucky in that I didn't find uranium for a huge portion of the game. At this point, I have ~10k u-235 (and climbing) that I will most likely never use.

This is obv not nearly as viable for games without biters and I know full well that I won't be able to use this on my next game, which will be a death world.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Chartas »

Okay, so i started reading this thread because i too belive solar panels to be somewhat boring/cheaty/no-brainer compared to the rest of the game. And as any good reader should do i started at the start of the thread. And there i noticed that "The Phoenixian" proposed the most sensible solution i have read up to now on the very first page over two years ago. Either go back and read what is written in the sixth post on the first page by "The Phoenixian" or read the following proposal.
Proposed Solution
Use the heat pipe/ heat exchanger mechanic to make solar panel setups more interesting.
  • Solar panel gets one heat pipe connector. (Or maybe multiple for chaining. But that could make it too easy and the heat pipe itself obsolete. Also neighbour bonus on solar panels would be overkill.)
  • Heat exchanger gets adjusted to work with lower tempratures, making steam production on any temperature possible. (Or at least one lower temparture. Reaching 500 C° with Solar panels might take a frustrating amount of time? Or simply be not intended at all.)
Right now the greatest advantage this proposal has is that nearly eveything needed for this is already implemented. From a programming point of view these changes are probably manageable within a day, if not a week. (Maybe even mods could manage this? I'm not sure on how extensive the api is.)
Effects
  • Solar panel setups require at least water, leading to the same restrictions of placement near water like any other power source. (It's still not a depletable resource but, as has been argued, neither is oil and therefore steam power.) This makes expanding minimaly more challenging since at least the supply pipe for water has to be taken into account.
  • No more solar panel/accumulator mono cultures. There is room for diverse and interesting designs for getting heat in the best possible way from solar panels to heat exchangers. (I'm not sure if there is a heat loss with distance for heat pipes? They're currently somewhat buggy [0.15.9], therefore it's hard to say.)
  • Introduction of heat pipe mechaninc happens earlier than nuclear power. This shitfs some of the complexity to get nuclear power running to solar panels, since some of the infrastructure is already present. Players can then focus on uranium processing instead, while at the same time solar panels become more interesting.
  • Accumulator mechanics could be reworked. Since it's possible to store energy over night in the form of steam, accumulators could become low capacity but high burst energy provider, shifting them from powering a base over night to actually powering defenses with laser turrets. (This is more like a follow up proposal so feel free to ignore this.)
I can't really think of any negative effects this would have. So if someone has any constructive critic, that would be interesting.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Nexarius »

I like the idea of using solar panels with heat pipes. This would basically mean we switch from photovoltaic solar panels to concentrated solar power and its not a "place and forget" solution because you would have to plan for water transport with trains or something similar.

Allowing solar panel only in the desert wouldn't be good but having solar panels with different maximal output depending on the climate (right now desert and not desert) would be cool.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

._.

Solar isn't now unpopular because it isn't interesting, it's unpopular because of the amount of land it requires. Let's say you do set it up to require heat pipes and turbines or w/e, how is that different from Nuclear aside from requiring 1000x the space? It's also much more expensive to expand (as nuclear power is extremely cheap once it's running) so about the only thing it's got going for it is it's available a bit earlier.
MeduSalem wrote:I don't know if making them cheaper would make them more attractive on longterm
The point isn't to make them an attractive endgame power supply, it's to make them a viable mid-game power supply. Just 200 solar panels (roughly your standard blueprint) costs 1,000 Steel and 3,000 Electonic Circuits, and to replace Steam (or to supplement two boiler columns) you'll probably want at least four of them to make it to nuclear. Don't know about you but I usually don't have 4,000 steel and 12,000 circuits to throw around in the mid game, I mean sure you could spend more time setting up that production but by the time you get all that you could have used it to get to endgame and nuclear. Let's look at cost:

800 Solar Panels + 672 Accumulators:
+ 4,000 Steel
+ 16,704 Iron
+ 25,360 Copper
+ 6,720 Sulphuric Acid
= 48MW

1 Reactor + 30 Heat Pipes + 4 Heat Exchangers + 7 Turbines:
+ 840 Steel
+ 1,750 Copper
+ 1,880 Iron
+ 1,000 Plastic
+ 500 Concrete
= 48MW

Let's disregard oil products as they're difficult to compare but oil is infinite and both sides use a fair bit. I'm also not so interested in Concrete as there's not a lot of it, it's really cheap and I didn't include the substations or roboport included in the usual solar builds.

Nuclear cost as % of solar cost:
Steel: 21%
Iron: 11%
Copper: 7%

So as it turns out, nuclear power (in terms of steel, copper and iron) is cheaper than a single solar array to set up, and we know the ongoing cost of nuclear (especially once Kovarex is involved) is minimal. Given that your solar farms are going to be worth very little once you turn your reactors on, they're not exactly attractive as any sort of power supply. The only thing they have going for them is they're available much earlier, but that just means you have less capital to throw into them.
Last edited by Deadly-Bagel on Tue May 09, 2017 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Aeternus »

Solar arrays do remain an option for local power generation at remote mining posts, if you don't want to run pylons to them. A small solar array with some accumulators and mines/furnaces with Efficiency modules is essentially self-powered. And low pollution, so you won't be dealing with heavy Biter waves.

One thing the post above omitted from the nuclear equation is the time it takes to get Nuclear power researched, the Kovarex process researched, the spent fuel processing researched and the Kovarex loop started so that you have sufficient U-235 to consistently make fuel. That takes a long time and a lot of resources/energy, whereas solar is available at green research. Solar is also better suited for small scale production - to take a load off of your steam plants early on and save on coal/solid fuel. It's a nice midgame supplement, not a replacement for steam. Accumulators however? I don't even bother anymore - An extra steam engine with a storage tank provides more spare capacity for less resources (3 engines to 1 boiler plus a tank).

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by MeduSalem »

Deadly-Bagel wrote:._.

Solar isn't now unpopular because it isn't interesting, it's unpopular because of the amount of land it requires. Let's say you do set it up to require heat pipes and turbines or w/e, how is that different from Nuclear aside from requiring 1000x the space? It's also much more expensive to expand (as nuclear power is extremely cheap once it's running) so about the only thing it's got going for it is it's available a bit earlier.
Still unpopular with me because it's boring, even if I might not speak for majority of the playerbase.

But that said the amount of land it requires is also a huge issue... which is why I suggested using Solar Thermal with High-temperature collectors/power towers etc.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

MeduSalem wrote:Still unpopular with me because it's boring, even if I might not speak for majority of the playerbase.
Steam isn't exactly exciting either, at least with solar you actually need to set up a production line for them and accumulators which means you probably need to expand your battery production too, and you are definitely going to need more steel. So it's probably more involved, it's just stuff you would eventually be doing anyway.
MeduSalem wrote:But that said the amount of land it requires is also a huge issue... which is why I suggested using Solar Thermal with High-temperature collectors/power towers etc.
I see, so basically Heat Pipes and Thermal Exchangers? Unless you mean like a central collecting tower which does... whatever... in which case it's exactly the same as now, just slightly different blueprint and you've got one more thing to hand craft. By definition solar power itself is boring, the least it can do is be a mild resource drain for the mid game to prompt you to improve your steel output but (ironically) it's too expensive so most probably won't bother.
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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by AileTheAlien »

Aeternus wrote:Solar arrays do remain an option for local power generation at remote mining posts, if you don't want to run pylons to them. A small solar array with some accumulators and mines/furnaces with Efficiency modules is essentially self-powered. And low pollution, so you won't be dealing with heavy Biter waves.
You could also run trains full of hot steam, to run remote steam engines or steam turbines, and keep your steam-generation in the main base, where your boilers or nuclear plants are. At least for outposts remote enough to already require some train tracks. :)

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Selvek »

I'm actually pretty happy with how it works out in 0.15.

1) Build steam engines. They are cheap and easy to set up, but somewhat annoying to scale because every new line of engines means more belts, more miners, possibly more trains once the local deposits start to run out.
2) Research bots.
3) Build solar. They are more expensive in raw material costs, but way cheaper in terms of setup and maintenance time (assuming not-ridiculously-high biter concentrations). Solar scales well for a mid sized base, because it's easy to expand with blueprints, but don't require the ridiculous amounts of land.
4) Research Kovarex and get your nuke plants online for truly large bases.

Obviously you could skip the setup for solar and just use steam up until nuclear, but when I've tried that the coal usage climbs so high that I find myself spending a lot of time chasing coal outposts. With the buff to oil availability, maybe next time I'll try going a bit more oil heavy initially and switching to solid fuel.

Anyway, I feel like each one has a pretty good niche at the moment, and end game nuclear certainly solves the problem of ludicrously-sized solar arrays.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Aeternus »

AileTheAlien wrote:
Aeternus wrote:Solar arrays do remain an option for local power generation at remote mining posts, if you don't want to run pylons to them. A small solar array with some accumulators and mines/furnaces with Efficiency modules is essentially self-powered. And low pollution, so you won't be dealing with heavy Biter waves.
You could also run trains full of hot steam, to run remote steam engines or steam turbines, and keep your steam-generation in the main base, where your boilers or nuclear plants are. At least for outposts remote enough to already require some train tracks. :)
Hadn't thought of that... creative. That wasn't possible with barrels before. 500 dgr steam tapped from the nuclear plant would definately produce enough energy to drive a few local turbines, and the tanker wagons make fast transfers easy enough. Trick would be to keep enough of a buffer in case of a rail congestion event. It's not very realistic to drive steam around though...

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Selvek wrote:Obviously you could skip the setup for solar and just use steam up until nuclear, but when I've tried that the coal usage climbs so high that I find myself spending a lot of time chasing coal outposts. With the buff to oil availability, maybe next time I'll try going a bit more oil heavy initially and switching to solid fuel.
You can use Coal Liquefaction to turn 10 coal into 10 Heavy, 15 Light and 20 Petroleum. You could use the Light Oil alone for 15 Solid Fuel to burn way longer than the coal (should also make up the energy cost of the Refinery).

And yeah I burned through both coal deposits by my main factory before I got to nuclear. In my current game I've tried going for solar but I just don't have the steel for it, I don't have the iron to make more steel and I've tapped my entire starting area of Iron. So next step is to set up a train... which requires a ton of steel for the rails and poles. But before I can do that I have to set up another rail for coal just to power the steam engines so I have power to make the damn steel. Blegh.
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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by BlakeMW »

Deadly-Bagel wrote: You can use Coal Liquefaction to turn 10 coal into 10 Heavy, 15 Light and 20 Petroleum. You could use the Light Oil alone for 15 Solid Fuel to burn way longer than the coal (should also make up the energy cost of the Refinery).
Might want to divide by 10. Coal liq turns 10 Coal into (15 + 10 * 3 / 4) / 10 + 2 / 20 = 3.25 Solid Fuel. The 10 Coal = 80MJ, the 3.25 solid = 81.25MJ.

The nominal energy cost: 420kW * 5s + 210kW * 0.25 * 3s / 1.25 + 210kW * 3.25 * 3 / 1.25 = 3.864MJ
(1 Coal Liq cycle + 1/4 a Heavy Oil Cracking cycle + 3.25 Solid Fuel cycles)

That nominal energy cost can be reduced by 80% to 772kJ by efficiency modules, which makes the solid fuel have a very slightly higher energy value. BUT if you're using that solid fuel to burn in a boiler and run the process, then you lose 50% of the energy value of the fuel, in which case not even efficiency modules allow the process to break even.

So the coal->solid fuel conversion is only favorable if you're using solar/nuclear power and want the resulting fuel for purposes other than generating electricity.

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Re: Solar panels less of a no-brainer

Post by Tev »

God, people are now crying about uselessness of solar power now? :D It seems funny how such numbers and thinking driven game is talked about with so little reason.

Solar panels were always ok, it were (and still are) accumulators that are ridiculously small&cheap compared to their usefulness. But we got something ridiculously good for power production and as a bonus we got better (higher temp) steam, making even accumulators not the best energy storage anymore . . . but you need a lot of time and resources to reach that stage. I agree with Selvek, it's fine. Solars are miid-late game power source, bridging gap between coal and nuclear, especially for Marathon/Deathworld settings. The fact that they need no maintenance and fuel make them survive even into nuclear era, or as a niche source for faraway outposts (like radar behind enemy lines put down during expanding).

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