Lightning Collector vs. Lightning Rod

[J-H]

I think I saw some discussion of "Why upgrade?" early on, and no follow-up.

The lightning collector protects a larger area, so I started putting them out to protect robots traveling between islands.

However, upon observation, I think they're substantially better for power collection if you're having power problems.

The Lightning rod has an Efficiency of 20% and can hold only 500MJ of energy.
The Collector has an Efficiency of 40%, and can hold 1 GJ of energy.

I believe this means that the Collector will produce twice as much power from a given strike (Efficiency). I have observed both rods having a power bar that fills up after being struck and then rapidly drains into the accumulators. I suspect that any strikes over the 500MJ/1GJ cap are wasted; thus, the Collector can be struck more often without wasting potential power.

[BlakeMW]

Yup. Only really matters if you're space-constrained: if you find a big island / island chain to build on you can have a huge amount of accumulators and still plenty of empty land leftover to collect additional lightning from using a sparse grid of big poles and lightning rods should you have any problem filling the accumulators.

[waterBear]

Yes, all that you say is true, and the differences increase dramatically with quality. Legendary lightning rods have an efficiency of 50% which means that you only get half of that 500 MJ. A legendary lightning collector has an efficiency of 100%, so you get the entire GJ - that's 4x the output. Plus the range of a legendary collector is 62.5 (giving an area of 12,200) versus the range of a legendary rod being 37.5 (area of 4417). That's about 3x the coverage area. With legendary collectors you can cover your entire island on Fulgora just by lining the perimeter. This gives you maximum lightning collection and also maximum build area.

There were a lot of questions and confusions back from the release that were probably just ignorance. Now that we've all been playing for a while (and especially exploring quality) the different use of various new items in the expansion is becoming more apparent.

[uponmemorize]

Upgrading to Lightning Collectors is worth it due to their 40% efficiency (vs. 20% for rods) and 1 GJ capacity, minimizing wasted power and doubling energy collection from strikes.

[Daid]

Upgrading to Lightning Collectors is worth it due to their 40% efficiency (vs. 20% for rods) and 1 GJ capacity, minimizing wasted power and doubling energy collection from strikes.

I disagree. While being twice as efficient, and twice as much storage I have the following remarks:
- Efficiency isn't that important, because I've noticed that the strikes last long enough to always fill up my accumulators
- The storage actually a net loss. As it takes 1 accumulator to make, you lose 5MW storage in your accumulator network.
- The larger radius means you place less of them, so the total storage and collection is less. (and they are more awkward to tile due to the larger radius, and take up 4 tiles instead of 1)
- A rod takes 8 steel, 12 copper cables and 4 bricks. An collector takes an additional 13 batteries, 2 iron plates, 4 green circuits, 24 holmium plates, 8 copper plates, 8 plastic and some more electrolyte. For this additional cost it's way cheaper to make one more rod, especially with holmium being the rare resource and the rod requirements being in surplus.

With all that taken into account, it's much easier to aim for higher quality rods then going for collectors for bot protection.

[Neutronium]

Lightning rods may be much cheaper, but if you're making anything halfway functional on Fulgora you should be drowning in resources. Lightning strikes don't change in density depending on rods/collectors, each area gets a random range of strikes. By using collectors, you're getting a higher efficiency of power collection from each strike. Once you start growing into 100-200MW+ bases collectors almost become required to supply the demand.

[waterBear]

Agree with that. Collectors have 3x the coverage area of rods, as I said above. If you're trying to protect bots, they're much better. But you always want more coverage area on Fulgora since that gives you more build space.

By the time you're mass producing legendary, collectors is all you want.

[Daid]

Lightning rods may be much cheaper, but if you're making anything halfway functional on Fulgora you should be drowning in resources. Lightning strikes don't change in density depending on rods/collectors, each area gets a random range of strikes. By using collectors, you're getting a higher efficiency of power collection from each strike. Once you start growing into 100-200MW+ bases collectors almost become required to supply the demand.

In the late game when you are drowning in resources, holium is still a huge limiting factor. And all other resources are in surplus, so legendary rods are easy to make. And importing a small fusion reactor is a much simpler power solution then huge battery banks at that point, making lighting collection not important.

[waterBear]

Lightning rods may be much cheaper, but if you're making anything halfway functional on Fulgora you should be drowning in resources. Lightning strikes don't change in density depending on rods/collectors, each area gets a random range of strikes. By using collectors, you're getting a higher efficiency of power collection from each strike. Once you start growing into 100-200MW+ bases collectors almost become required to supply the demand.

In the late game when you are drowning in resources, holium is still a huge limiting factor. And all other resources are in surplus, so legendary rods are easy to make. And importing a small fusion reactor is a much simpler power solution then huge battery banks at that point, making lighting collection not important.

Late game on Fulgora there are no limiting factors. I'm thinking of legendary big mining drills, legendary beacons, legendary modules, mining productivity 500+. You can print anything and everything just by mining and processing scrap at a rate of thousands per second, instantly recycling anything you don't need.

The Fulgora base on our server produces way more holmium (ore, solution, plate) than it needs, and produces science at something like 10,000 packs per minute. I forget the exact rate since it hasn't run in a while.