Solar panels less of a no-brainer

[BEEFE]

Nuclear also requires the biggest logistical investment of anything other than space science. Even if you ignore circuits to optimize fuel consumption, you've got to:

1. Transport fluid to a resource patch
2. Set up a production line for a unique resource (versus solar panels using resources that you already have tons of: steel, copper, and green circuits)
3. Wait a while for U-235 to spin out (waiting longer if you insist on only using Kovarex-enriched U-235)
4. Assemble reactors, heat pipes, heat exchangers, and steam turbines. All of which have high unit costs, which adds more complexity: either you have to deal with inventory space issues while handcrafting, or you set up a dedicated line to produce machines you won't use many of.
5. Lay out plumbing. It's not as complicated as plumbing an oil refinery, but it's not trivial either, especially as you scale up.

Going back to this, I think I have a new approach for making nuclear power appealing vs solar: nerf Uranium Ammo and move it earlier in the tech tree.

If you start out with a use for U-238 where U-235 is the byproduct, steps 1 and 2 are sufficient by themselves, and 3 vanishes into the background. Steps 4 and 5 then become much less daunting when you can build them on top of existing infrastructure.

Doesn't have to be uranium ammo, any industrial use of U-238 would work to get the logistic juices flowing, but like I don't see the Haber–Bosch process fitting into Factorio.

[FuryoftheStars]

Why shouldn't they be a primary source of power?

If your argument is that it's boring tedious work that can't be automated to place down solar blueprints

Nope. I feel as though they shouldn’t be a primary source of power because beyond the initial investment to build and lay down, there’s nothing left. They’re a “no brainer” power source.

Don't ask for solar nerfs, it is already taking so much space that it is not possible to keep your sanity after placing your megabase solar blueprints manually.

Well, that’s the thing. I feel as though all the space it takes up should be something that discourages players from trying to use them as primary power sources. Obviously in their current state, that’s not what’s happening. While you could simply straight nerf power generation or something, I don’t feel as though this would have the desired effect. Adding an unreliability factor, even if only 10% of the time, would drastically increase the space requirements as a primary power source, while not significantly nerfing their actual power generation.

[Qon]

Why shouldn't they be a primary source of power?

If your argument is that it's boring tedious work that can't be automated to place down solar blueprints

Nope. I feel as though they shouldn’t be a primary source of power because beyond the initial investment to build and lay down, there’s nothing left. They’re a “no brainer” power source.

If you are exhausting ore fields in megabase stage then you are doing it wrong. Resources are effectivly infinite in 0.17, no power source requires maintenance. Initial investment with no maintenance cost is a common factor for all of them.

Don't ask for solar nerfs, it is already taking so much space that it is not possible to keep your sanity after placing your megabase solar blueprints manually.

Well, that’s the thing. I feel as though all the space it takes up should be something that discourages players from trying to use them as primary power sources. Obviously in their current state, that’s not what’s happening. While you could simply straight nerf power generation or something, I don’t feel as though this would have the desired effect. Adding an unreliability factor, even if only 10% of the time, would drastically increase the space requirements as a primary power source, while not significantly nerfing their actual power generation.

But there's no point to having a "secondary" system. Why have a system that is not used at all 90% of the time when coal or uranium power works 100% of the time? If you can't practically use something all the time then no-one is ever going to use it at all except maybe to reduce coal use slightly on a death world where you are running out of coal and can't reach new patches. And that's a bit of a niche and always temporary case. Your suggestion is to make solar completely useless. If you build 2 systems then why not run both all the time? If you have 1 primary and one secondary and run only one at a time why not just ignore the one that fails occasionally (coal running out in early game isn't a fail, it's something you expand mining of before it fails) and only go with the reliable one?

[Qon]

The argument is that solar is too simple to set up relative to other power source types (especially nuclear), so it should either be MORE tedious (e.g. way more accumulators) to punish you for taking the brainless way out, or have more requirements to work (e.g. steam-based solar, harder math to compensate for weather) to make it more interesting.

Nuclear is simpler than solar because it requires less space. Getting a lot of space is manual work without Recursive Blueprints. The real reason megabases use solar is because it doesn't affect UPS when used. But it takes a lot of time to build and tanks your UPS when building it at speed. But nuclear is so space efficient that it is still the easier option as long as you have UPS to spare. For megabase builders nuclear complexity is pretty much reduced to placing the blueprint, just like solar. Designing the factory takes much more time in comparison.

With solar, the ONLY requirement is that you find enough space to throw down a blueprint. That is brainless.

You also need the time to clear the area and the time to place the blueprints and the factory to produce the panels and accumulators. The most tedious parts are placing the blueprint over and over and clearing the natives. The space doesn't find itself, it is something you buy with your time.

Other power types involve some logistics burden to keep them fueled/watered. Arguments of size don't really hold water because there isn't a practical limit to blueprint size, so even for megabases in vanilla people just start doing things like this.

Of course there's a practical limit to blueprint size. Especially in vanilla that centers the blueprints on their center. Just measuring out where to stand can take a lot of time if you can't see the edges of the blueprint to align it. You just haven't tried working with big ones. If your game doesn't drop to single digit UPS when the blueprint is picked up and then freeze for a while, maybe minutes when placed and then have to wait hours for have bots complete it then what you have is a small blueprint.
Now that you can no longer place things ghosts outside radar range any blueprint you can place is a small blueprint.
Did you even read the link you posted? He has a several paragraph guide on how to how build the blueprint in several steps and he needed a landfill mod to make the blueprint. And the description includes:

First up, you'll want to run around and clear the fog of war for that 1880x1485 area I mentioned.
[...]
First you'll want to place what I call the foundation. There's a blueprint for that. It includes the various
radar, rails, stations and support infrastructure for building the farm itself. It also includes landfill in it.
Once you've placed that blueprint, you'll probably want to build it out yourself with personal robots and a train
hauling what you need for it. Once this is done and you have radar coverage you can build the actual solar farm.

If you need more power, then you need to place the blueprint again. And again. And not everyone plays without any natives or water like you.

[Theikkru]

It would help if you didn't make erroneous assumptions about how other people play, for a start.
You pointed out the solution to the blueprint placing problem yourself in the linked post: multi-stage prints. If you have orientation markers to work off, it doesn't matter if the main one takes a little slideshowing to put down, it's still way faster than placing smaller prints repeatedly. Nuclear, on the other hand, is by no means as simple, because even if you have a ready-made print on-hand, you either need to find a body of water big enough to accommodate it, or figure out how to run custom piping to it, which takes (you guessed it!) time and exploration, not to mention setting up a fuel line. Not everyone tweaks their map generation to suit their needs like you. (See what I did there?) I don't see how you can complain about time to explore and clear land if you're such a proponent of recursive blueprints, since automated artillery deployment trivializes the process.

Besides, if you think placing solar blueprints is mind-numbingly repetitive (which is the whole point of this topic anyways), then maybe that's a hint that you should try something that exercises your brain a little more.

The real reason megabases use solar is because it doesn't affect UPS when used. But it takes a lot of time to build and tanks your UPS when building it at speed. But nuclear is so space efficient that it is still the easier option as long as you have UPS to spare.

UPS issues are a game engine problem, not a game balancing issue. The game should be designed around what's interesting and fun and then have UPS optimized accordingly, not the other way around.

[FuryoftheStars]

If you are exhausting ore fields

Nope, wasn’t saying that.

no power source requires maintenance. Initial investment with no maintenance cost is a common factor for all of them.

Not strictly true. All ore fields have limits and eventually you do need to find another. But also, boiler/steam gen and nuclear setups do require much more complex setups (comparatively) to keep running.

But there's no point to having a "secondary" system. Why have a system that is not used at all 90% of the time when coal or uranium power works 100% of the time?

I’m not sure where you’re getting that from? Secondary doesn’t necessarily mean not used until certain situations come up. As is, with the game mechanics as they are (and it makes sense this way), power generated by solar takes precedence over the other sources, allowing them to throttle back, conserving resources, and reducing pollution.

[mrvn]

Why shouldn't they be a primary source of power?

If your argument is that it's boring tedious work that can't be automated to place down solar blueprints, ask for Recursive Blueprints to become vanilla. Then it's possible to automate it, and it becomes the least brainless way to build your power generation. Placing solar arrays is the the perfect introduction for circuit newbies to Recursive Blueprints because it can be done in a simple line and the use of Recursive Blueprints is obvious.

Don't ask for solar nerfs, it is already taking so much space that it is not possible to keep your sanity after placing your megabase solar blueprints manually. Recurisive Blueprints is the next logical step in automation and the best argument for having the combinators in the game instead of them being just a niche thing for people to do useless (but cool) things with.

You wouldn't handcraft everything to research and launch a rocket. Placing blueprints manually is silly and needs an automated alternative.

The argument is that solar is too simple to set up relative to other power source types (especially nuclear), so it should either be MORE tedious (e.g. way more accumulators) to punish you for taking the brainless way out, or have more requirements to work (e.g. steam-based solar, harder math to compensate for weather) to make it more interesting. With solar, the ONLY requirement is that you find enough space to throw down a blueprint. That is brainless. Other power types involve some logistics burden to keep them fueled/watered. Arguments of size don't really hold water because there isn't a practical limit to blueprint size, so even for megabases in vanilla people just start doing things like this.

I think what might make you happy would be solar boilers. Instead of power from the sun you get steam. Which means you need to supply water at one end and put steam engines on the other.

[Qon]

If you are exhausting ore fields

Nope, wasn’t saying that.

no power source requires maintenance. Initial investment with no maintenance cost is a common factor for all of them.

Not strictly true. All ore fields have limits and eventually you do need to find another.

I don't think this level contradictory beliefs are conducive to a fruitful discussion. Maybe take a break until the cognitive dissonance settles down?

[Qon]

It would help if you didn't make erroneous assumptions about how other people play, for a start.

I didn't. You told me that yourself:

With solar, the ONLY requirement is that you find enough space to throw down a blueprint.

You can't say it's the only requirement on a world where there's no space to find. If you need to do other things first then it's a lie. But you don't have to kill the natives if you disable them. Your statement leads to a logical Qonclusion. I didn't assume, I Qoncluded.

You pointed out the solution to the blueprint placing problem yourself in the linked post: multi-stage prints.

So the solution to placing many small blueprints over and over, which takes time, is to place several large blueprints where you wait for each stage to complete before placing the next? Multiple stages mean you just spend more of your time.

Nuclear, on the other hand, is by no means as simple, because even if you have a ready-made print on-hand, you either need to find a body of water big enough to accommodate it, or figure out how to run custom piping to it, which takes (you guessed it!) time and exploration, not to mention setting up a fuel line. Not everyone tweaks their map generation to suit their needs like you. (See what I did there?)

Are you seriously saying that you need to find space for nuclear so it's the same as solar, when nuclear gives orders of magnitudes more power/tile? Are you just trolling now? Or is that actually your honest opinion?
What map are you playing where you have trouble finding space for nuclear power? What does your map look like?

I don't see how you can complain about time to explore and clear land if you're such a proponent of recursive blueprints, since automated artillery deployment trivializes the process.

Show me your trivial solution then?

Besides, if you think placing solar blueprints is mind-numbingly repetitive (which is the whole point of this topic anyways), then maybe that's a hint that you should try something that exercises your brain a little more.

Recursive Blueprints.

The real reason megabases use solar is because it doesn't affect UPS when used. But it takes a lot of time to build and tanks your UPS when building it at speed. But nuclear is so space efficient that it is still the easier option as long as you have UPS to spare.

UPS issues are a game engine problem, not a game balancing issue. The game should be designed around what's interesting and fun and then have UPS optimized accordingly, not the other way around.

Well, I haven't said that I want it the other way around. I described why players choose as they do. And UPS is a quality. So while a game shouldn't be designed around it, it can make sense to sometimes make game design decisions based on how fast you can make things run.

Nerfing solar doesn't make it more interesting. It just potentially removes it as an option, making the game less interesting.

[FuryoftheStars]

It would help if you didn't make erroneous assumptions about how other people play, for a start.

I didn't. You told me that yourself:

With solar, the ONLY requirement is that you find enough space to throw down a blueprint.

You can't say it's the only requirement on a world where there's no space to find. If you need to do other things first then it's a lie. But you don't have to kill the natives if you disable them. Your statement leads to a logical Qonclusion. I didn't assume, I Qoncluded.

Except that you have made assumptions on how I’m playing... twice. Further, as Theikkru pointed out later, artillery trivializes clearing biter nests. This does, in many people’s eyes, make it so that the only real requirement of solar is space. Theikkru is not wrong.

Nuclear, on the other hand, is by no means as simple, because even if you have a ready-made print on-hand, you either need to find a body of water big enough to accommodate it, or figure out how to run custom piping to it, which takes (you guessed it!) time and exploration, not to mention setting up a fuel line. Not everyone tweaks their map generation to suit their needs like you. (See what I did there?)

Are you seriously saying that you need to find space for nuclear so it's the same as solar, when nuclear gives orders of magnitudes more power/tile? Are you just trolling now? Or is that actually your honest opinion?
What map are you playing where you have trouble finding space for nuclear power? What does your map look like?

I think your Qonclusions on what people are saying is heavily flawed. Theikkru appears to me to be saying that nuclear has more requirements and is thus more complex to setup. Not that it requires more space.

I don't think this level contradictory beliefs are conducive to a fruitful discussion. Maybe take a break until the cognitive dissonance settles down?

I think you may need to take a step back and reread your own replies as an outside observer and maybe take you’re own advice.

[bobucles]

Weather really make zero difference. It simply shifts the balance a bit towards more accumulators and makes the math harder. So the blueprint on the internet will simply have more accumultors and people still just place them with no brain.

A single day without solar power means you need colossal energy storage to survive. Two days of bad weather in a row can be stored in accumulators, but the cost increase is ridiculous and it means making your solar farms about 3 times larger (or even more). There's nothing trivial about that.

[Qon]

I don't think this level contradictory beliefs are conducive to a fruitful discussion. Maybe take a break until the cognitive dissonance settles down?

I think you may need to take a step back and reread your own replies as an outside observer and maybe take you’re own advice.

No u.

Good one. Really Qonvinced me. No Qontext. Just because you say that I'm wrong, I am? No need to demonstrate anything? This is silly.

[Theikkru]

You can't say it's the only requirement on a world where there's no space to find. If you need to do other things first then it's a lie. But you don't have to kill the natives if you disable them. Your statement leads to a logical Qonclusion. I didn't assume, I Qoncluded.

Then I believe I can conclude that you've never learned how logic works, since conditional statements say nothing about what is necessary to meet the condition, nor what happens if the condition is false.

Are you seriously saying that you need to find space for nuclear so it's the same as solar, when nuclear gives orders of magnitudes more power/tile?

I think your Qonclusions on what people are saying is heavily flawed. Theikkru appears to me to be saying that nuclear has more requirements and is thus more complex to setup. Not that it requires more space.

Thank you, FuryoftheStars.

Are you just trolling now? Or is that actually your honest opinion?

Right back at you.

Show me your trivial solution then?

So you DO want everything served up on a platter then!

Besides, if you think placing solar blueprints is mind-numbingly repetitive (which is the whole point of this topic anyways), then maybe that's a hint that you should try something that exercises your brain a little more.

Recursive Blueprints.

Then why are you here? Even if solar gets nerfed (which is NOT necessarily what this topic is asking for, if you read carefully), your recursive prints should handle the problem just the same.

Nerfing solar doesn't make it more interesting.

It makes other options more attractive by comparison, making the game more interesting.

It just potentially removes it as an option, making the game less interesting.

Then don't remove it.

quotes

If you are exhausting ore fields in megabase stage then you are doing it wrong. Resources are effectivly infinite in 0.17

Adding an unreliability factor, even if only 10% of the time, would drastically increase the space requirements as a primary power source, while not significantly nerfing their actual power generation.

But there's no point to having a "secondary" system.[...]Your suggestion is to make solar completely useless.

If you are exhausting ore fields

Nope, wasn’t saying that.

no power source requires maintenance. Initial investment with no maintenance cost is a common factor for all of them.

Not strictly true. All ore fields have limits and eventually you do need to find another.

I don't think this level contradictory beliefs are conducive to a fruitful discussion. Maybe take a break until the cognitive dissonance settles down?

It would help if you didn't make erroneous assumptions about how other people play, for a start.

I didn't. You told me that yourself:

With solar, the ONLY requirement is that you find enough space to throw down a blueprint.

You can't say it's the only requirement on a world where there's no space to find. If you need to do other things first then it's a lie.

You pointed out the solution to the blueprint placing problem yourself in the linked post: multi-stage prints.

Multiple stages mean you just spend more of your time.

AND

I think you may need to take a step back and reread your own replies as an outside observer and maybe take you’re own advice.

No u.

Good one. Really Qonvinced me. No Qontext. Just because you say that I'm wrong, I am? No need to demonstrate anything? This is silly.

.....................

[Koub]

[Koub] Please, keep focused on the topic, not on the people and their rhetorical quirks .

Now my opinion is that once one has invested some time designing a tillable blueprint, and has automated all the required elements to build the blueprint, there is little difference between solutions.

It surely depends on the map itself : a tillable nuclear setup will be almost impossible to scale indefinitely on a map without water. And conversely, laying down a few GW of solar panels and their accumulators is a chore on maps with more water than land and/or very aggressive biter settings.

The nuclear plant here is supposed to generate 25 GW. it should be around 450x150 tiles (67,500 tiles total). And you even have buffer tanks in case of need.
One would need around 600k solar panels, 500k accumulators, 17k substations, 4300 roboports for an approximative total of 7.5M tiles (based on this setup) That's over 100 times more than nuclear, and past the initial setup design, there's not much brain involved into pasting a blueprint.

Adding randomization is a divisive decision. Some people will like it, some won't. I think (but I might be wrong) that the majority of the player base prefers predictability over unpredictability. If I'm right, adding some way to make the solar panels inadequate would be a bad move from a design standpoint.

I think the current power generation options are decently balanced, with each having advantages and disadvantages.

Note : all this assumes vanilla. With modding, there's no much sense arguing, as mods can add pretty much anything.

[Qon]

The nuclear plant here is supposed to generate 25 GW. it should be around 450x150 tiles (67,500 tiles total). And you even have buffer tanks in case of need.

It's at least 340 tiles wide, not 150.
Not that it actually really matters. Twice as big as that estimate is still so much better than 50 times as big.

I checked default settings water and could fit 24.7 GW in the first lake I tried on. And it's kind of split in two so I only used one half of the lake. But the power plant is 330x390 or 128 700 tiles. And as in the post you linked the lake only needs to be ~24 tiles wide and as long as your powerplant so it really doesn't need to be a very big lake. And you can make a design that takes water from trains, though that a little bit more effort. But nothing good blueprints can't solve.
And 24.7 GW easily supports 10 RPM if you have enough mining productivity so not many will ever need even close to those numbers.

Even the tiny starting puddle with an irregular diagonal shape that isn't really suitable and a total area less than the logistics area of a roboport gives me like 2 GW if I use half of it (12 reactors). So even if you turn off the water in map gen settings you can run a megabase on your starting area water with nuclear power. If you build reactors outside the puddle you can extract many times more water and can get maybe 5-10 times as much from it...

I agree with everything except the small numerical error of course.

[chuz]

So it will make clear that uranium IS the transition between coal energy and solar energy.

At the moment the transition is not clear, you can directly make solar panel without using the nuclear energy.

I think it's intended : solar power is available significantly before nuclear.
Solar panels and accumulators can be fully automated with just green science. Solar panels tech has only red science prerequisites. Accus only need oil processing => batteries branch, which is quite early green science

Nuclear needs at least blue science (nuclear power and uranium processing) to be set up, and even purple science for recycling used up fuel cells.

Nuclear IS meant to be available after solar.

[Koub] Please, keep focused on the topic, not on the people and their rhetorical quirks .

Now my opinion is that once one has invested some time designing a tillable blueprint, and has automated all the required elements to build the blueprint, there is little difference between solutions.

It surely depends on the map itself : a tillable nuclear setup will be almost impossible to scale indefinitely on a map without water. And conversely, laying down a few GW of solar panels and their accumulators is a chore on maps with more water than land and/or very aggressive biter settings.

The nuclear plant here is supposed to generate 25 GW. it should be around 450x150 tiles (67,500 tiles total). And you even have buffer tanks in case of need.
One would need around 600k solar panels, 500k accumulators, 17k substations, 4300 roboports for an approximative total of 7.5M tiles (based on this setup) That's over 100 times more than nuclear, and past the initial setup design, there's not much brain involved into pasting a blueprint.

Adding randomization is a divisive decision. Some people will like it, some won't. I think (but I might be wrong) that the majority of the player base prefers predictability over unpredictability. If I'm right, adding some way to make the solar panels inadequate would be a bad move from a design standpoint.

I think the current power generation options are decently balanced, with each having advantages and disadvantages.

Note : all this assumes vanilla. With modding, there's no much sense arguing, as mods can add pretty much anything.

it looks like for for you, the energy is balanced : nuclear require higher science (blue at least), and solar only green, so building solar panel before nuclear is nothing wrong.

but do you think nuclear is better than solar in endgame ? you link a nuclear plant that is capable to produce 25GW, but at this production of energy, the uranium you need become problematic, it force you to permanently expand your base to search for new ressources. and bigger base also need more energy to defend the base so you will need more and more uranium until you can't expand fast enough.

I think solar panels should be severly nerfed, maybe producing 5kwh instead of 60kwh will fix the problem.

So it will make clear that uranium IS the transition between coal energy and solar energy.

At the moment the transition is not clear, you can directly make solar panel without using the nuclear energy.

I would not be against completely the idea IF each science after solar is introduced incrementally increases solar power output ending at slightly higher than current levels after space science.

I think in the current game model it is anticipated you go
coal
coal+some solar/accum
coal+some solar/accum+nuclear
solar/accum+nuclear
solar/accum (space/biters permitting)

each time the base area increase by 100%, the perimeter of the base that need to be defended will increase by only 40%.
when the base will reach a critical size you will still have enough space to put solar panel even if nerfed to 5kwh

[Theikkru]

[Koub] Please, keep focused on the topic, not on the people and their rhetorical quirks .

I think I should be allowed to take exception when said quirks serially demean other people's ideas and methods with unsupported hyperbole or double standards, BUT

back on topic, as you say, I'd like to reiterate that at no point did I argue that nuclear somehow occupies more space, or requires more time, or is more of a chore. The issue being raised here, as the title says, is the disproportionately low amount of thought that goes into setting up solar.

Now my opinion is that once one has invested some time designing a tillable blueprint, and has automated all the required elements to build the blueprint, there is little difference between solutions.

This is generally true, since the entire purpose of blueprints is to simplify implementation of existing designs, but as I see it, the essence of this game lies in what comes before that stage, i.e. the design and modification of blueprints to fulfill different needs. That is where I think the difference lies, because in designing solar setups, the main factors to consider are just conservation of space, logistics to assist deployment of the print, and accumulator/panel ratio. On the other hand, nuclear power, which must also consider space and deployment requirements, additionally has to account for reactor layout, reactor/exchanger/turbine ratios, water sourcing/routing, fuel/waste distribution, heat distribution, and steam distribution. Even boiler-based power is more complex, having to handle both fuel and water (on top of the common 2 factors) at scale (this is assuming you accept the widely known 1:2 boiler-engine subunit by default). The complexity of the problem when these extra factors are involved is what makes for an interesting puzzle to solve, and why I see solar as lacking by comparison.

The reason I see weather or other unreliability in solar power as a potential solution is not because I think it will add more repetitive tasks, or make solar nonviable as a power source (because neither of those would involve more thinking), but because it will encourage players to find intelligent solutions to compensate for that unreliability without just brainlessly deploying 5× or so more accumulators. For instance, currently, a lot of people keep their boiler-based power plant when they start building solar, and convert that to backup power once their solar setup is sufficient for their needs. However, as has been pointed out plenty of times, that backup power rarely sees use under normal circumstances, is rarely thought of, almost never expanded, and is often ultimately destroyed as a result. Intermittent (not extended!) unreliability in solar power could make for far more interesting and relevant backup designs that are unique to the situation (since the design requirements for what is effectively a UPS are quite different from regular power supplies), all while avoiding the need to scale solar installations excessively.

Solar boilers are a good example of a more direct alternative to make the design of solar more interesting by introducing complexity to the problem, and carry with them all sorts of exciting possibilities for the distribution of power as steam, as well as the as yet largely unused temperature mechanic. If solar power were changed to work so, I think it would even be fair to buff the power rates of solar to compensate for the increased complexity and logistical burdens. My only reservation is that implementing this would probably involve a lot of work under the hood to keep performance reasonable.

In short, I'm looking for ways to increase solar brainwork, not busywork.

[Koub]

but do you think nuclear is better than solar in endgame ? you link a nuclear plant that is capable to produce 25GW, but at this production of energy, the uranium you need become problematic, it force you to permanently expand your base to search for new ressources. and bigger base also need more energy to defend the base so you will need more and more uranium until you can't expand fast enough.

With a long 2x79 tiled nuclear plant, you should be able to generate 25.1 GW. A reactor uses one nuclear fuel cell every 200s, so that's 158 fuel cells every 200s, or 0.79 cell/s
According to this, one needs 6 classically moduled and beaconized centrifuge setup (one for Kovarex process and 5 for initial ore processing) and one assembling machine running at one fifth of its capacity to feed the beast. I can say this is negligible for a megabase that needs 25 GW.

Also the starter uranium patch on a map (the closest one from the starting area) on default settings is around 2M ore. At the rate of 10 ore/s, It would take over 55 hours to deplete it with that nuclear setup. These numbers are so absurd (related to the scale of the base you can feed with them) that I even doubt I haven't made a mistake - despite I couldn't find any.

Once the initial setup for the nuclear is done (which indeed does take some time and resource investment), it's pretty much a "I win" power generation method. I'm not saying nuclear should be nerfed, just that it crushes solar on many aspects - which is fine to me. Once nuclear becomes affordable, why even bother with solar (apart for UPS reasons) ?

[BEEFE]

Once the initial setup for the nuclear is done (which indeed does take some time and resource investment), it's pretty much a "I win" power generation method. I'm not saying nuclear should be nerfed, just that it crushes solar on many aspects - which is fine to me. Once nuclear becomes affordable, why even bother with solar (apart for UPS reasons) ?

Speaking for myself, simply out of inertia. There's so many hurdles to starting up nuclear power from scratch and solar is Good Enough enough that there's no point where it becomes really appealing to dive headfirst into making the transition.

I'm gonna be the change I want to see in the world so I'm working on a mod to make U-238 useful by itself in the blue science era. Whole lot of stuff to learn but "duplicating and/or changing a couple existing recipes" is baby-tier stuff.

[FuryoftheStars]

[Koub] Please, keep focused on the topic, not on the people and their rhetorical quirks .

I think I should be allowed to take exception when said quirks serially demean other people's ideas and methods with unsupported hyperbole or double standards, BUT

back on topic, as you say, I'd like to reiterate that at no point did I argue that nuclear somehow occupies more space, or requires more time, or is more of a chore. The issue being raised here, as the title says, is the disproportionately low amount of thought that goes into setting up solar.

Now my opinion is that once one has invested some time designing a tillable blueprint, and has automated all the required elements to build the blueprint, there is little difference between solutions.

This is generally true, since the entire purpose of blueprints is to simplify implementation of existing designs, but as I see it, the essence of this game lies in what comes before that stage, i.e. the design and modification of blueprints to fulfill different needs. That is where I think the difference lies, because in designing solar setups, the main factors to consider are just conservation of space, logistics to assist deployment of the print, and accumulator/panel ratio. On the other hand, nuclear power, which must also consider space and deployment requirements, additionally has to account for reactor layout, reactor/exchanger/turbine ratios, water sourcing/routing, fuel/waste distribution, heat distribution, and steam distribution. Even boiler-based power is more complex, having to handle both fuel and water (on top of the common 2 factors) at scale (this is assuming you accept the widely known 1:2 boiler-engine subunit by default). The complexity of the problem when these extra factors are involved is what makes for an interesting puzzle to solve, and why I see solar as lacking by comparison.

The reason I see weather or other unreliability in solar power as a potential solution is not because I think it will add more repetitive tasks, or make solar nonviable as a power source (because neither of those would involve more thinking), but because it will encourage players to find intelligent solutions to compensate for that unreliability without just brainlessly deploying 5× or so more accumulators. For instance, currently, a lot of people keep their boiler-based power plant when they start building solar, and convert that to backup power once their solar setup is sufficient for their needs. However, as has been pointed out plenty of times, that backup power rarely sees use under normal circumstances, is rarely thought of, almost never expanded, and is often ultimately destroyed as a result. Intermittent (not extended!) unreliability in solar power could make for far more interesting and relevant backup designs that are unique to the situation (since the design requirements for what is effectively a UPS are quite different from regular power supplies), all while avoiding the need to scale solar installations excessively.

Solar boilers are a good example of a more direct alternative to make the design of solar more interesting by introducing complexity to the problem, and carry with them all sorts of exciting possibilities for the distribution of power as steam, as well as the as yet largely unused temperature mechanic. If solar power were changed to work so, I think it would even be fair to buff the power rates of solar to compensate for the increased complexity and logistical burdens. My only reservation is that implementing this would probably involve a lot of work under the hood to keep performance reasonable.

In short, I'm looking for ways to increase solar brainwork, not busywork.

I pretty mich agree with everything Theikkru said, with the exception of solar boilers. Let’s face it... this would be nothing more than another fuel source for boilers. I wouldn’t necessarily say I oppose the idea, but I won’t advocate for or support it.