Factorio Forums

I'm not sure this is possible..and I've been tempted to look into modding myself....not a request, just something I think would be interesting...if anything to see how it'd mesh with Vanilla as an alternative to solar panels.

The idea is simple...introduce 2 new buildings.

Solar Collectors
Solar Water Reservoir (feel free to find a better name).

Each reservoir heats up water at a set rate during the day, that rate based on the amount of Solar Collectors in the reservoirs area (if you can make it so a reservoir can 'claim' a collector so no other reservoir can count it..that'd be good).

Otherwise it heats up water to be used in steam engines. A different way to leave behind coal. I would prefer if it needed a lot of Panels to be useful, though I think testing would be needed to figure out the exact ratio. Hmm compared to 14 coal boilers (since that's the going rate). I'd guess around..50 panels to replace 14 boilers during the day?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

as far as i know it is not possible at this time.

Yes that is where I draw the idea from..plus some comments on a solar panel discussion thread..made me suggest this as an idea in the end.

I really should look at the api sometime.

I figure keep it with heating up water for existing engines...would be a better gameplay mechanic than something else you just feed water to and let it make electricity. Or else I would have suggested a turbine with solar collector heaters .

You maybe could build it as a single (HUGE) building....but I like the piecemeal idea...oh well if not possible then not possible.

I still need to look at the API anyway <.<