Factorio Forums

I think the actual underlying question here is not "Why is solar so OP?", it is "Why does the majority of players gravitate towards solar?" The same thing happens with steel and electric furnaces, most people go for electric furnaces even though steel ones are either more efficient or have far lower up-front cost, depending on whether you use efficiency modules or not.

Why? Because they are far nicer to use. You can place them anywhere without the need to be close to water, you don't have to defend them because they don't pollute, there's no need to worry whether the belts bringing them coal still have enough throughput, etc. You just plop them down with a blueprint somewhere and done, let's move on. Most importantly, solar hugely reduces the need to build new outposts, one of the most boring parts of the game. Most people don't enjoy laying long railroad tracks or building 8-lane belt highways; if you gave them hugely inefficient transport aircraft they would use them almost exclusively just to avoid the tedium of connecting outposts to the base.

That's what makes solar 'superior' - player's time and patience is a resource as well, and solar scales much better than steam does. Ideally we would get an option to automate outpost-building, or something like a nuclear fission reactor. Speaking of which, if we want to avoid a "Nuclear reactor less of a no-brainer" topic in the future, the reactor should be mechanically complex, modular and present trade-offs between efficiency, complexity and power (and possibly the danger of Chernobyl-like steam explosion if something goes wrong). The game would then present an interesting decision - should you go with the easy-to-use but expensive solar, or the cheap but complex nuclear?

Rahjital wrote:I think the actual underlying question here is not "Why is solar so OP?", it is "Why does the majority of players gravitate towards solar?" The same thing happens with steel and electric furnaces, most people go for electric furnaces even though steel ones are either more efficient or have far lower up-front cost, depending on whether you use efficiency modules or not.

Why? Because they are far nicer to use. You can place them anywhere without the need to be close to water, you don't have to defend them because they don't pollute, there's no need to worry whether the belts bringing them coal still have enough throughput, etc. You just plop them down with a blueprint somewhere and done, let's move on. Most importantly, solar hugely reduces the need to build new outposts, one of the most boring parts of the game. Most people don't enjoy laying long railroad tracks or building 8-lane belt highways; if you gave them hugely inefficient transport aircraft they would use them almost exclusively just to avoid the tedium of connecting outposts to the base.

That's what makes solar 'superior' - player's time and patience is a resource as well, and solar scales much better than steam does. Ideally we would get an option to automate outpost-building, or something like a nuclear fission reactor. Speaking of which, if we want to avoid a "Nuclear reactor less of a no-brainer" topic in the future, the reactor should be mechanically complex, modular and present trade-offs between efficiency, complexity and power (and possibly the danger of Chernobyl-like steam explosion if something goes wrong). The game would then present an interesting decision - should you go with the easy-to-use but expensive solar, or the cheap but complex nuclear?

While I agree with the general statement, that solar is mostly about convenience (see my early posts in this thread), I disagree with some of the points.
I do not think that "most" players do *not* enjoy creating outposts. In fact, RSO and some other mods that favor outpost creation and train track management are very popular. Also, I am pretty sure that electric furnaces pollute.

That being said, I noticed that the whole discussion starts to repeat, so I'll try to summarize and hope that this leads to a more directed discussion:

• it is agreed that solar power is a no-management, place-and-forget power source
• some say it is thus OP, others say that if it is OP depends on your goals and the style in which you play the game
• if this is a "problem" that should be fixed
  • simply increasing the cost is rejected as it does not solve the original cause of the "no-management" tech
  • active suggestions are making the layout challenging (mainly through making size a problem), making solar unpredictable (randomized output / outage times), and introducing mechanics similar to the rest of the factory (supply of resources, incoming and outgoing flow management)

It takes me only a few seconds to see the outcome that will occur if ssilk's proposal is implemented - players will build 10-20x extra solar, so they can survive eclipses. This is not interesting. This is not fun gameplay.

Yes, someone could brute force their way through a solar shortage. But why brute force something that doesn't want to happen 100%, when steam power already exists and does? Why run the factory at full tilt when the power isn't available? A player COULD spend 10x or more resources making sure their renewable energy NEVER runs out, but going from 100K to 1million solar panels is an incredibly HUGE leap. It would be far simpler to master an AUTOMATED answer to the occasional bad day.

It's not about punishing the player. If it was about punishment then the answer is to simply multiply the raw expense of solar. Any idiot can do that. The goal is to make the player consider more problems and find more solutions for building their power supply. A random eclipse doesn't have to cut the net use of solar power by more than 10% to perform that function. Actually you can increase solar panels to 100kW AND have the eclipses and end up with an overall BUFF in the energy supply. Isn't it a strange thing indeed where you can increase overall solar output yet STILL create a situation where solar isn't the de factorio answer to a long lasting base?

"Complex" nuclear power

Uh. Blueprints. Your complexity argument is invalid. It may be fun to solve the puzzle once or twice, but after that point the player is free to automate the setup.

Speedrunners

Speedrunners care about reaching their end goal as quickly and efficiently as possible. Solar panels take a few game days to pay off. Steam power pays off almost immediately. Solar panels allow coal deposits to last for a vastly longer amount of time. Speedrunners quit at the goal target. That's why solar panels don't get used.

Phoenix' suggestion with Solar Thermal energy instead of Photovoltaic is probably the best solution the community came up with yet.



I would have done something similar by fiddling around with the accumulators instead by implementing something like a wear-off system based on charging/recharging. The batteries would degrade over time depending on how often they have been charged/recharged.

The process would have involved swapping "degraded" batteries with "renewed" batteries in accumulators every now and then.

The "degraded" batteries would then have to be emptied of their electrolyte, which has to be reprocessed and then refilled into the empty battery shell again or something like that.

During the process some new sulfuric acid has to be added to the electrolyte again but that's purely optional. I'd change the way Sulfuric Acid is created for that so it doesn't require Iron Plates.

The battery shells are an one time investment and would be re-used infinitely, but the little drain on sulfuric acid to refresh the electrolyte every now and then could be similar to the loss of heating oil in Phoenix' approach.

Might not be the most realistic production cycle but it would also provide a similar puzzle effect. The thing I don't like about is that it could put Steam Engines in an even worse spot because if one uses Steam Engines together with Accumulators for whatever reason (I have not found a reason to do that yet but doesn't mean there is no reason) you'd be double punished. That's why I held back on the idea for so long because I thought of it as an obvious flaw.

The fun part is, that I came up with this solution because I looked for a way to deal with the Solar Energy problem AND the Laser Turret balancing problem (the Laser Turrets are as boring as the Solar Energy in that matter). The Laser Turrets would then have to face the same process as accumulators. The batteries would degenerate there as well (due to discharge/recharge) and they'd have to be swapped with renewed ones every now and then, basically being their "ammunition" (even if it doesn't cost as much resources as bullets do).

People will probably hate on this idea because it would make things a lot more difficult for Solar energy users AND laser turret users (and maybe even Robots)



Overall I think Phoenix' suggestion is probably still the better solution because it would only require 2 new items (heat exchanger, heat oil) and the solar panel sprite could be repurposed with some additional coding.

Maybe Phoenix' approach and mine could be combined in some way so that there is a puzzle element and/or trade-off element to everything.

MeduSalem wrote:Phoenix' suggestion with Solar Thermal energy instead of Photovoltaic is probably the best solution the community came up with yet.



I would have done something similar by fiddling around with the accumulators instead by implementing something like a wear-off system based on charging/recharging. The batteries would degrade over time depending on how often they have been charged/recharged.

The process would have involved swapping "degraded" batteries with "renewed" batteries in accumulators every now and then.

The "degraded" batteries would then have to be emptied of their electrolyte, which has to be reprocessed and then refilled into the empty battery shell again or something like that.

During the process some new sulfuric acid has to be added to the electrlyte again but that's purely optional. I'd change the way Sulfuric Acid is created for that so it doesn't require Iron Plates.

The battery shells are an one time investment and would be re-used infinitely, but the little drain on sulfuric acid to refresh the electrolyte every now and then could be similar to the loss of heating oil in Phoenix' approach.

Might not be the most realistic production cycle but it would also provide a similar puzzle effect. The thing I don't like about is that it could put Steam Engines in an even worse spot because if one uses Steam Engines together with Accumulators for whatever reason (I have not found a reason to do that yet but doesn't mean there is no reason) you'd be double punished. That's why I held back on the idea for so long because I thought of it as an obvious flaw.



Overall I think Phoenix' suggestion is probably still the better solution because it would only require 2 new items (heat exhcanger, heat oil) and the solar panel sprite could be repurposed with some additional coding.

Maybe Phoenix' approach and mine could be combined in some way so that there is a puzzle element and/or trade-off element to everything.

Interesting! This is a good way to think about a decay mechanic that doesn't have you just spam repair packs (and reminds me a lot of LFTR type nuclear power.) The one thing I'd add is that what batteries fluid decays into doesn't necessarily need to be sulfuric acid. If needed it can be it's own type in order to isolate working with it from the general production chain.

I think something good to add here would be Rwn's interesting idea in the Electric energy dev proposals a bit ago. To put it short, it would give each type of power a limited ability to change it's power output and add some consequences, usually fuel inefficiency, if it had too much power supply and not enough consumption.

Now in all honesty I think this idea is best suited to nuclear power as it can be rigged so you need to keep a consistent, MASSIVE baseline power demand or something violently explodes*, but when combined with your idea it could work very well for PV solar too.

For example, if --- as Rwn suggested --- PV solar cannot supply less than it's total available power and overcharging accumulators is what makes their batteries decay either in addition to or instead of when charged/used.

Now, I take it your intent is for battery decay to work a bit like damaging a power plant in the typical RTS: It loses max power storage first and only much later does it completely shut down. And if so I think that's an excellent way for it to work because it means that, while there is an ideal solar to accumulator ratio, you also get a problem where having a little too much power one day will denature the batteries so it's just a little easier to overcharge them the next day.

Which makes it a little easier to overcharge, which makes it a little easier to overcharge.

So you get this exponential effect going on: You can sort of cheese the system by having a secondary, more flexible, power supply** but in the end the higher your solar power fraction the easier it is to overcharge, the faster your accumulators decay, which forces you to have a bigger battery renewal system.

So a system that's near parity with production to consumption or one which has a high steam fraction will experience little to no battery loss.

A high solar fraction or a base that has far more power than it needs will need a massive renewal system.

And a base that's total solar needs a massive battery renewal system or it will have trouble expanding without the extra flexibility that a steam sector provides.

You can also have a secondary advantage: With accumulators soaking up as much power as they're given, they'll help to reduce decay in other inflexible systems. So if your nuclear reactor or solar panel takes damage if it can't find a source for it's power, the accumulator takes the brunt of that first, and it's far easier to renew the batteries than to repair the nuke plant or the solar panel.

*Nukes: Awesome for Megabases, far more situational for everyone else.
**Although, is it really cheesing the system if it's by design?

The Phoenixian wrote:Interesting! This is a good way to think about a decay mechanic that doesn't have you just spam repair packs (and reminds me a lot of LFTR type nuclear power.) The one thing I'd add is that what batteries fluid decays into doesn't necessarily need to be sulfuric acid. If needed it can be it's own type in order to isolate working with it from the general production chain.

Well the idea came alongside when I tried to come up for a solution that fixes the boring "plop&forget" aspects for both Solar Energy and Laser Turrets. For me Laser Turrets vs Gun Turrets is exactly the same problem as Solar Energy vs Steam Energy. Both Laser Turrets and Solar Energy don't need any ammunition or sophisticated production cycles to keep going.

I thought that maybe both problems could be solved with one and the same feature: Having to swap deteriorated batteries in Accumulators/Laser Turrets.

To make it work in a way that doesn't annoy players to hell I wanted to have something that should be still somewhat "self-sufficient" or at least manageable so it doesn't cost too much additional resources to keep the stuff going. The additional complexity for the re-processing of batteries and the overall increased one-time investment would be already enough to keep people on their toes.

Of course the Energy required to fire a Laser Turret can be lowered then because some of the energy would be already required to re-process the batteries and I might even argue that the consumption could be lowered even further than that to repay the player for having to deal with the more sophisticated setup.

But it would work perfectly with existing defense systems before one reaches Laser Turrets. After reaching laser turrets one doesn't have to tear down the ammunition belts, but rather one would use the near side of the belt to deliver "renewed" batteries and the far side for the "decayed" batteries.


And yeah, of course the fluid extracted from a decayed battery can be it's own waste material other than sulfuric acid of course. The waste fluid might even be useful for some additional byproducs other than pure reprocessing, who knows? I just wanted to keep it simple for the first suggestion.

The Phoenixian wrote:For example, if --- as Rwn suggested --- PV solar cannot supply less than it's total available power and overcharging accumulators is what makes their batteries decay either in addition to or instead of when charged/used.

Now, I take it your intent is for battery decay to work a bit like damaging a power plant in the typical RTS: It loses max power storage first and only much later does it completely shut down. And if so I think that's an excellent way for it to work because it means that, while there is an ideal solar to accumulator ratio, you also get a problem where having a little too much power one day will denature the batteries so it's just a little easier to overcharge them the next day.

Which makes it a little easier to overcharge, which makes it a little easier to overcharge.

So you get this exponential effect going on: You can sort of cheese the system by having a secondary, more flexible, power supply** but in the end the higher your solar power fraction the easier it is to overcharge, the faster your accumulators decay, which forces you to have a bigger battery renewal system.

How the decay-mechanic exactly works is of course up for discussion. I only centered around how to re-process the batteries for the most part.

If there is a way to accidently overcharge the accumulators and thereby make the batteries decay even faster then it might lead to a death spiral. So that's something that has to be tweaked very, very well otherwise people get sick of the mechanic pretty soon because they can't counterfight the deterioration effect. Especially if the Laser Turrets would be tied into that system as well.

But that's really something people could fiddle around with when coming up with circuit network stuff. A sensor on an accumulator sending a signal to a power switch could do the trick. It would cut off the solar panels from the accumulator grid once the grid reached a certain threshold so it doesn't overcharge. It would be pretty much the same as creating a priority control for oil processing with circuit network. Steam Engines with Solid fuel have the Refinery Deadlock and Accumulators would have a death spiral. People have to become creative to solve that.

ssilk wrote:

SirRichie wrote:@ssilk: I still do not think that this is a good solution. Making things less reliable (e.g., random power generation) will just force players to build more. You basically calculate with the minimum. It's the same as increasing the cost.

You don't know the minimum, that's the point! (*)

Consequence: All those threads about "What is the right amount of solar panels vs. accumulator-ratio?" are then useless.

No one except the most perfectionist player uses those. Players just overbuild and go "ehh, good enough".

ssilk wrote: So as a player you have a choice: You have a very reliable power generation, with extreme costs, cause - if you want to make it safe - you need to produces 4-8 times more energy than yet (and/or store 4-8 times more) and that still doesn't make it sure that you will come through with it, or - also a good choice - not so reliable power generation, but either a good defence, that is able to hold down enemies for a while, until you get power again. Or - much better! - intelligent power management: You switch off the parts of the factory, that are not needed - with 0.13 we will have that new element.

You want to discover an even more controversial change than the current complaints about the circuit system changes in 0.13 - well this is it. I expect the mod that disables reverts the "realistic" solar power reliability to be the single most popular Factorio mod yet. That's bad, because if most players disagree with the direction of the game design, then the developers have failed.

Unreliable solar power is a terrible solution, worse than doing nothing at all.

Afforess wrote:

ssilk wrote:Consequence: All those threads about "What is the right amount of solar panels vs. accumulator-ratio?" are then useless.

No one except the most perfectionist player uses those. Players just overbuild and go "ehh, good enough".

True story.

The golden ratio for Solar Panels vs Accumulators is completely useless anyways because normally the player will face one of three situations (even when built in the golden ratio):

1. There are much more Solar Panels and Accumulators than power needed.
   Meaning the ratio is worthless.
2. There are almost exactly enough Solar Panels and Accumulators to match the power demand.
   Meaning you are inflexible to spikes in demand, but that's the only point where the ratio kicks in and makes the solar farm efficient.
3. The power demand is greater than what the Solar farm is able to provide
   Meaning the ratio is worthless.

Typically the player will face either 1) or 3) and rarely the equilibrium point at 2). At least I find myself pending between 1) and 3) almost all the time when building my base and doing all the research, so you have to expand the solar farm constantly anyways due to increasing power demand. After launching the Rocket I always face 1) because the power demand usually drops to a fraction as there are almost no consumers except the Biter Attacks every now and then, but at that point you won't go ahead and tear down the entire solar farm because it is not working efficiently.

So the golden ratio is just a pure hypothetical discussion in my opinion because the real world application then tends to diverge from one extreme to another.

That said, making Solar Power less reliable in the first place by turning it into a game of chance just sucks big time ( It's just a personal war I am having with chance based systems, so no offense intented ssilk ) like any game mechanic that is based on pure chance in any other strategy game out there. In strategy games "chance" is always used as an easy workaround when a gameplay mechanic is flawed in its foundations. Normally it always causes the player to feel being uninvolved in the process and not being able to influence the outcome.

Really, almost nobody would ever want to deal with that because of its near to unpredictable behavior. Maybe some ultra hardcore elitists who exploit the inner workings of the game engine and are therefore able to create a circuit network to make a prediction might not see a problem, but I highly doubt that majority of the playerbase is willing to do such a thing, not even with the proposed blueprint books. It would literally kill all the fun if one has to rely on the contraptions other people made and not being able to understand why it works because it would require more insight into a nebulous game mechanic.

Transparent/Straightforward Game Mechanics > Nebulous/Chance-based Game Mechanics

That should be a design rule for every game developer out there. If more games would follow that rule they wouldn't necessarily boil down to excel-spreadsheet and/or calculator-website wars.

So I am against turning solar power into rolling the dice. And it wouldn't solve the plop&forget behavior at all:

• Elitists build a ridiculous complex circuit network to make predictions once and then resume to plop&forget strategy.
• The average player builds a solar farm multiple times as big as now to store enough energy to cover even the ugliest gaps the game might throw down your way due to not knowing exactly what you need.

If it doesn't make the players stop using Solar Farms completely in the first place, the players at least wouldn't stop plastering the landscape with more of the same boring stuff. That said I stopped doing that a long time ago because of how braindead boring it is and turned over to Solid Fuel+Steam Engine anyways because it offers more gameplay challenge and thereby greater gameplay value.

So after turning the Solar Farming into gambling and eventually overcoming the problem by either "cheating" the mechanic by making predictions or brute force methods by making solar farms even bigger we would be back the same question: "How to make it a more interesting experience compareable to Solid Fuel/Steam Engines?"

And that's where I think it will eventually boil down to either:

• Phoenix' suggestion of turning Solar Farms from Photovoltaic into Solar Thermal and a cycle based around that incorporating Heat Exchanger and reusing the Steam Engines.
• My solution with implementing a production cycle that deals with deteriorated batteries for Accumulators based on Charge/Recharge
  (which would also offer a possible solution to Laser Turrets being as boring as Solar Farms, because swapping batteries might be like having to deal with ammunition)
• A combination of both above.
• Somebody else comes up with an even superior, but still similar approach to the two above.

Both solutions above turn the problem into a puzzle-solving, logistics- and layout-bound problem, where the complexity increases with the size of the contraption, which is exactly the way it should be because that's what Factorio is all about.

Anyone here ever used a depleted oil well as an infinite power source ? A single depleted well can provide just about 1 MW of power. Not to shabby. The one problem with this is that you can't just get 200 wells just like that but this is otherwise drastically cheaper and more compact than solar.

As a mega base builder you could start off with coal and maneuver to secure lots of oil. Then you switch to oil power and continue to get more oil wells as you get more iron and copper. The more oil wells you burn through the less you need to find new ones as your infinite supply is gradually becoming big enough to run everything.

Did any of you ever consider that possibility ? If solar becomes much of a hassle it might stop being used entirely.

Zhab wrote:Anyone here ever used a depleted oil well as an infinite power source ? A single depleted well can provide just about 1 MW of power. Not to shabby. The one problem with this is that you can't just get 200 wells just like that but this is otherwise drastically cheaper and more compact than solar.

As a mega base builder you could start off with coal and maneuver to secure lots of oil. Then you switch to oil power and continue to get more oil wells as you get more iron and copper. The more oil wells you burn through the less you need to find new ones as your infinite supply is gradually becoming big enough to run everything.

Did any of you ever consider that possibility ? If solar becomes much of a hassle it might stop being used entirely.

Well yeah, that's basically what I have been doing for the past 1.5 years now, though I still split the Petroleum Gas off from the depleted wells and run solely on Light Oil where possible. But that works because I am using a centralized Oil Refining rather than distributed. I only burn Petroleum Gas to avoid deadlocks in Refineries when the Factory doesn't use the Petroleum Gas. But that's easy to control ever since tanks and pumps can be hooked up to the circuit network.

MeduSalem wrote:Well yeah, that's basically what I have been doing for the past 1.5 years now...

So I guess that solar isn't that much of a "no-brainer" for you then ?

Zhab wrote:

MeduSalem wrote:Well yeah, that's basically what I have been doing for the past 1.5 years now...

So I guess that solar isn't that much of a "no-brainer" for you then ?

I started using Solid Fuel/Steam Engines on grand scale back then because Solar is a "no-brainer" and nothing being changed about it for so long.

So one could argue "leave it as it is if you haven't been using for so long anyways", but in fact I would like to use it... but only if it would offer more interesting gameplay, which it currently doesn't.

MeduSalem wrote:I started using Solid Fuel/Steam Engines on grand scale back then because Solar is a "no-brainer" and nothing being changed about it for so long.

So one could argue "leave it as it is if you haven't been using for so long anyways", but in fact I would like to use it... but only if it would offer more interesting gameplay, which it currently doesn't.

I would like to clarify your stand on this. are you not using solar because:

1) You feel it is overpowered ? As in the definitive best power solution by far. So much so that you feel like a cheater by using them and therefor you are willing to go out of your way to avoid using them.

2) You feel they are boring to use and play with. It's not really about overall efficiency, upfront cost, footprint or whatever. It is just that you are playing this game to have fun and solar (good or bad) is not doing it for you.

Zhab wrote:I would like to clarify your stand on this. are you not using solar because:

1) You feel it is overpowered ? As in the definitive best power solution by far. So much so that you feel like a cheater by using them and therefor you are willing to go out of your way to avoid using them.

2) You feel they are boring to use and play with. It's not really about overall efficiency, upfront cost, footprint or whatever. It is just that you are playing this game to have fun and solar (good or bad) is not doing it for you.

Simply put: Both.



1) "You feel it is overpowered ? As in the definitive best power solution by far. So much so that you feel like a cheater by using them and therefor you are willing to go out of your way to avoid using them."

If there is a choice between two or more alternative routes providing the same output (in this matter: Solar Power vs Steam Power, both providing Energy) and one of the available approaches is lacking downsides then I eventually consider that approach overpowered compared to the alternatives.

That said Solar Power doesn't have any downsides I know of:

1. Increased initial need for resources is not really a downside in a game providing infinite resources (going extreme and creating an island with limited resources is probably not the way most people play the game)
2. Increased need for space is not really a downside in a game providing infinite space to build upon (limiting the map size is probably also not a setting most people will play with)
3. They don't cause pollution, which is okay, but there is no serious downside to compensate for "Solar Power = Biters gone vs Steam Power = More Biters".
4. They aren't location bound. Stamp them everywhere. Steam Power requires at least some lakes nearby.
5. The efficiency of a Solar Power plant is not layout bound, while a Steam Power Plant layout largely depends on Pipe/Liquid Mechanics and on the oil refinery stuff if one is using Solid Fuel.
6. The efficiency of a Solar Power plant is not size bound, while a Steam Power Plant eventually becomes a logistics problem either because there's no coal anywhere nearby or you don't have enough Oil Wells around

The above stated facts/problems need to be considered somehow when trying to make Solar Power less overpowered.

If nuclear power plants (which is probably the only other type of power plant we might get in the main game at some point in the future) ever become a thing they probably will have downsides attached to them. Probably finding the radioactive resource will be one problem (which may be compared to ssilk's randomizing idea), but at least the radioactivity will probably annoy the Biters a hell of a lot too like pollution does currently. Probably it will cause even more side effects like faster evolution and even stronger and/or mutated enemies compared to the current maximum evolution. And on top of that there will probably be a production cycle based around getting the Uran or whatever into the plant as well as processing the waste material (who knows what problems the waste causes) and probably even pipe mechanics with heat exchangers being involved and eventually getting hot Water to the Steam Power Plant to finally generate electricity from the heat.

If the Photovoltaic stuff would be Solar-Thermal instead like Phoenix suggested it would fit better with above in mind and also there would be some downsides to Solar Power already, because then there would be at least a production cycle (like Heat Exchangers etc) and some layout problems to solve beyond just cluttering the landscape with the same 2 items over and over. If combined with the deterioration effect of accumulators (or to be specific the Batteries inside them) like I suggested it might be a contraption deep enough to balance out the ecological benefit of Solar Power. And all that without having to roll the dice with a chance based system.

The problem would turn into:

• Steam Power with Solid Fuel/Coal -> Average Power Density, easy/average build complexity, but attracts loads of Biters due to Pollution from the Boilers
• Steam Power with Solar-Thermal and deteriorating Accumulators -> Low Power Density, high build complexity, but eco-friendly with (almost) no Biter attacks.
• (Future) Steam Power with Nuclear Reactor -> High Power Density, average/high build complexity, but Biters don't react well to radioactivity and it may cause even stronger or mutated enemies.

Exact balancing of Power Density is then of course up to debate, but at least there would be no clear winners or losers. All have their ups and downs in layout complexity and how the Biters react to it.



2) "You feel they are boring to use and play with. It's not really about overall efficiency, upfront cost, footprint or whatever. It is just that you are playing this game to have fun and solar (good or bad) is not doing it for you."

Even without the Solar Power Plants being overpowered/lacking downsides I think that currently they add little gameplay value and are therefore boring.

To explain I only really need to say two words: Plop & Forget.

Well yeah, to build accumulators/solar panels you need to implement a sophisticated production cycle, but the ingredients are something you need to automate anyways in order to advance in research, like for example Steel Bars for Solar Panels or building Batteries for Accumulators. Both are needed for Science Pack 3 anyways. So Solar Panels and Accumulators are nothing but a byproduct on the way of automating Science Pack 3.

That said the bigger problem for me is that once you placed the Solar Plant down you are done with it. There is no more puzzle solving or efficiency problems to consider, nothing more to optimize. If you need more power: Make a blueprint of your favorite pattern and stamp it all over the place. As easy as that.

With Steam Engines based on Solid Fuel you at least have to consider some layout problems or how to maintain the efficiency (Amount of Oil Wells, Refinieries, Stall Resistance/Priorities, Cracking, Solid Fuel creation and how to get the Fuel to the Plant) the bigger you make your power plant. So there is more long term gameplay and problem solving involved even after you automated the process of creating the items needed for building the plant.

And that long term problem solving is what I miss the most about Solar Power. Even if it weren't overpowered it would still be somewhat boring because of how it doesn't involve the player anymore once it is placed, hence the term "plop & forget".

MeduSalem wrote:[*]They don't cause pollution, which is okay, but there is no serious downside to compensate for "Solar Power = Biters gone vs Steam Power = More Biters".

That is a fallacy that I have already addressed in a previous post.

Solar is not equal to zero pollution. The pollution produced by boilers is slight in comparison to the pollution of what you are powering. Especially a mega base that make liberal use of speed and production modules. Solar is a pollution discount. Not a free pass with bitters. For example, electric mining drills and pumpjack produce 9 units of pollution each and a single boilers (6 pollution) can produce enough power to feed several of them. You will also need several panels/accumulators to save just 6 points of pollution.

MeduSalem wrote:

1. Increased initial need for resources is not really a downside in a game providing infinite resources (going extreme and creating an island with limited resources is probably not the way most people play the game)

I have a hard time acknowledging this point because then nothing actually matter. Why build efficient layouts ? Why use ratios ? Why productivity modules ? Why limit production to prevent overproducing ? Ressource are infinite... and so is your time for that matter... who cares if it takes you 1000 hours to do what others achieve in 30 ? Same result in the end am I right ? Why even bother replaying the game to "improve your setup" if none of it matters because infinity ? But ok... let's roll with this point for the sake of it.

Mining all those extra resources will require power and create pollution on top of taking significantly more time. The oil needed to produce enough accumulator to replace your steam setup alone can very much drain your starting supply of oil. Forcing you to adventure out and fight bitters sooner then you would have otherwise.

Electric mining drills and pumpjack produce 9 units of pollution each and a single boilers (6 pollution) can produce enough power to feed several of them. Needing more and/or working them overtime will aggravate bitters... and between you and me aliens are at their most troublesome early on in the game. Let's face it, once you have your defense perimeter up and running the natives can almost be ignored at that point.

Distant mining outposts might still be vulnerable, however how you chose to produce power all the way back at main base have nothing to do with how much pollution your mining outposts are producing.

Going solar early slows you down drastically and likely will make you face extra alien harassment early on then sticking to steam. Going solar later on is very likely not worth it at that point unless you are planing to play 200+ hours (mega base) which is only one playing style. And no I'm not hinting at speed running here. The value of solar increase with how much time you plan on spending within a single map. It goes from absolute crap to awesome. It is my position that only mega builders player will play (and mine/produce stuff) for long enough within the same map for solar power to become truly worthwhile.

Many people have mentioned that the devs should not balance the game around speed runners. That is fine and dandy, but devs should not balance the game around mega base builders either.

Zhab wrote:Solar is not equal to zero pollution. The pollution produced by boilers is slight in comparison to the pollution of what you are powering. Especially a mega base that make liberal use of speed and production modules. Solar is a pollution discount. Not a free pass with bitters.

Your math here is disingenuous. You need pumpjacks/chemical plants or electric mining drills to fuel the boilers, which produce lots of pollution in addition to the boilers themselves. This easily outweighs any pollution from solar production. In addition, once the initial pollution is paid for solar, it's free. The pollution from mining or oil pumping for boilers is in perpetuity, as boilers require constant fuel to provide electricity. So boilers produce infinitely more pollution than solar, over a long time horizon.

Afforess wrote:

Zhab wrote:Solar is not equal to zero pollution. The pollution produced by boilers is slight in comparison to the pollution of what you are powering. Especially a mega base that make liberal use of speed and production modules. Solar is a pollution discount. Not a free pass with bitters.

Your math here is disingenuous. You need pumpjacks/chemical plants or electric mining drills to fuel the boilers, which produce lots of pollution in addition to the boilers themselves. This easily outweighs any pollution from solar production. In addition, once the initial pollution is paid for solar, it's free. The pollution from mining or oil pumping for boilers is in perpetuity, as boilers require constant fuel to provide electricity. So boilers produce infinitely more pollution than solar, over a long time horizon.

You completely misunderstood what I'm saying here. I'm saying that just using power creates pollution. I'm saying that powering your factory, your science setup or your mining outposts create pollution regardless of if that power was steam or solar generated. I'm saying that your factory that is pumping out a 1001 components generate a lot of pollution. I'm saying that removing boilers in favor of solar panels will not eliminate all pollution. Because the rest of your base is still making just as much pollution as ever. As such, solar power is a discount on pollution. Your base wont be 100% pollution free just because you are using solar like some people seem to be claiming around here. I was not actually talking about pollution cost associated with building solar.

As for what you are saying here. Are you aware that a single mining drill or single pumpjack is enough to feed several boillers ? I have a feeling that you are greatly overestimating the amount of energy needed to feed boilers and overestimating the pollution that this bring about. Furthermore, using depleted oil well is also an infinite source of power. But it does create some extra pollution.

I did talk about the pollution and extra weight on your scarce early game resources that the creation of solar power have in the early game. But that was in response to the "resources are infinite so who cares if solar is bloody expensive ?" argument. Which should not be confused with my reply to "solar power makes your base 100% pollution free" statement. I was also careful to mention and properly credit that solar is indeed worthwhile if you play for a very long time.

Afforess wrote:So boilers produce infinitely more pollution than solar, over a long time horizon.

Now that is disingenuous. To produce infinitely more pollution you would need to play an infinite amount of time. That will definitively not happen. You will play a finit amount of hours. How many hours ? I'm saying that this is a key factor in determining the worth of solar. The more time you intend on spending within a single save file the more worthwhile solar becomes. But I'm claiming that the turning point is further than most people think.

I'm sure if I wasn't so lazy (and tbh more overworked IRL than lazy), I could calculate a break-even point below which steam is cheaper in overall pollution over time (power supply building and running added) than solar.
And I'm almost sure it takes literally hours (and many of them) to get to tht point solar is cheaper pollution wise than steam engines.

Additional fact : steam engines + boilers is less dangerous than solar+accus : if you donn't pay attention when using solar, and your solar farm +accus becomes undersized, at one moment, you switck from full power to nibs, so your laser defended factory (or even the turret defended factory with turrets reloaded by robots or inserters) becomes undefended until sun is back up, and you plant a new array of panels+accus. With steam, you just notice that you're saturating, your factory just turns a slight little bit slower, but your defenses are totally operational, and you just have to plop down a few boilers and steam engines. risk = 0.

Forgetting to upgrade your power supply is very forgiving with steam, not forgiving at all with solar.

[Edited for awful typos, thanks Ssilk ]

Koub wrote: bread-even point bolow

And when I'm on it: Guys, don't you think this is discussed to death? My grandma said to such discussions: "Man discuss a problem, even if women have already found a solution...".

Well Ssilk, past a point, I know it is impossible to make all people agree, I just argue for the love of arguing ^^. And even, who knows, it might be possible somebody finds a new idea that could be useful.