Aquilo: platform design troubles

[Dixi]

I use rather small platforms, about 170t, to transport good between Nauvis and other 3 planets. They fly well, maybe no so fast, but no complains.
I've made a little bigger platform 194t to travel to Aquilo, with two missile launchers.
Problem is lower electric power on Aquilo orbit. I use just solar panels.
Am I expected to use panels with better quality? (I never researched quality at all)
Or just make bigger platform with lots of solar panels?
Or use some other power source? I really doubt that other generators will work in space, due to water consumption.
Or should I just use green modules everywhere to save power?

[Dixi]

Update. I used Green-3 modules, to save power, and adds some more solar panels, increasing total weight to 216t.
I still have strong feeling that Quality really expected to be used at least for some part of platform equipment.
Or bigger platform? Not sure about bigger, since it will likely require more ammo to defend, and I'll bump into same low resource/power problem again.
Because I managed to get to Aquilo, but now stuck there due to low missile stock, and they are replenishing quite slow.

[r3nt5ch3r]

Your next destination after Aquilo has "Solar power in space: 1%". This might give you a hint. Quality is not required.

[angramania]

Or use some other power source? I really doubt that other generators will work in space, due to water consumption.

Nuclear power works fine and takes less space than solar panels. Do not forget that in 2.0 we have 1:10 ratio for water to steam conversion. And there are a lot of ice asteroid in Aquilo orbit. Actually you will have to convert ice to other types.

[mmmPI]

Using only solar to reach Aquilo is more difficult than attempting to use nuclear imo. The water consumption can be problematic as you guessed but all the strat you mentionned works. A few efficency module and a few solar can allow for minimal drain when "passive", and when "moving" , near Aquilo, you will have plenty of ice to sustain the nuclear reactor.

Using nuclear you don't "need" quality, with solar it helps a lot, particularly accumulators, if you don't stay in Aquilo's orbit but just go there to pick up science and back. Otherwise , pannels, but that's not very effective there.

[HadesSupreme]

My ships with solar worked just fine above Aquilo, but my ships weigh about 800-1600 tons so its basically an order of magnitude bigger. Past Aquilo you definitely want to throw down a fusion generator.

[Daid]

I went there on solar power with a what I think is about a 200T ship. But, I did use epic quality solar panels. It got a bit damaged in transport back, and after that I scrapped the whole design and made a newer bigger nuclear powered one. Which falls back to some of the epic solar panels when near the 4 early planets.

Dealing with solar so far out isn't worth the effort IMHO. As solar power is only 20% of that is what it is in Nauvis orbit, so you need 5x the panels. A stack of nuclear fuel last you a very long time, and as stated, ice makes water plentiful.

[Stargateur]

you also can save more water by having circuit to use your engine at 100% efficiency.

[Ranec1]

Nuclear is easier in my opinion.

Get a quality reactor and turbines. It doesn't take up much space. Also, you can put steam in a tank to store the "water" for travelling.

You also use less water with the calcite based fuels too.

[Forblaze]

So with nuclear are you just wasting a load of potential energy or doesn't it take a huge amount of space to place all of those heat exchangers and turbines?

[Daid]

As long as you do not over-feed your nuclear fuel (so only insert fuel if the temperature is below 550C for example) then you won't waste any energy. You don't need to use the 40MW, that's just the maximum potential of a nuclear reactor. It can run a single steam turbine if you just need ~5MW, and your fuel will just last 8x longer compared to using 40MW.

[BraveCaperCat]

While quality might not be necessary, it certainly is encouraged...

[Zaflis]

As long as you do not over-feed your nuclear fuel (so only insert fuel if the temperature is below 550C for example) then you won't waste any energy. You don't need to use the 40MW, that's just the maximum potential of a nuclear reactor. It can run a single steam turbine if you just need ~5MW, and your fuel will just last 8x longer compared to using 40MW.

I read both reactor contents (fuel = 0) and heat level, then have them both as conditions in a single decider combinator using AND to merge them. Output some R=1 when you should add more fuel. Good thing is the content reading also counts the fuel that is currently being burned.

But yes, nuclear reactor is easy on platforms. You have infinite water as you can recycle metal and carbon to water too. I used 2 chem plants to make water to fuel my 4 reactors to solar system edge, no beacons.