Solar Setup

[Enthropy]

My current  base is past 2500 cycles and I am considering sharing some highlights of my setup. This here is my solar panel setup that requires no maintenance after its build. I have it built across the whole map with only a small gap for my rocket and observatory. Enjoy:

To explain a little of whats happening(i overestimated upload limit, so no other images), i discovered a very convenient thing. Sideways dig area of a robo-miner is exactly the length of a solar panel. Robo-miners have to be made from either niobium or thermium as the temperature of  meteor regolith is 300C. Meteors falling on the bunker doors knock regolith on the ariflow tiles around. Eventually it falls down to the robo-miners. After that this regolith would act as a veeeery beefy heatsink, preventing miners from overheating. Petroleum is there to facilitate heat transfer as solid-to-structure doesnt work in vaccuum.

 

P.S. Even though im at 2500+ cycles, this setup is buildable by cycles 100-200. After that your energy problems go down tremendously as you can just keep extending the solar panels when you get enough materials.

[OxCD]

Buildable by cycles 100-200, but needs niobium. So you have to rush rockets. There's a bunch of similar setup with steel only (the same steel you would have used to build rockets).

And getting to the use of niobium/thermium, there's also a simple way to get 100% mining coverage without blocking solar panel.

[Enthropy]

Steel is also possible, i agree. Its just a hassle to cool it. You only need niobium for 1 thermium. Then you can crush it back into niobum and get more and more of thermium. I have thought about the setup you show:) It didnt occur to me that i can do this in the beginning, since i have first done my setup with steel.

[nakomaru]

Just now, Enthropy said:

crush

Also refine for double the niobium.

[Enthropy]

7 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Also refine for double the niobium.

yeah, forgot

[psusi]

1 hour ago, Enthropy said:

You only need niobium for 1 thermium. Then you can crush it back into niobum and get more and more of thermium.

Yea, at the cost of tungsten, which can be quite rare on many maps.

2 hours ago, Enthropy said:

Even though im at 2500+ cycles, this setup is buildable by cycles 100-200

Waaaaa?  It usually takes me about until cycle 200 to get a proper self cooling SPOM set up and start thinking about steel production before I ever think of going to space.  I don't think there's any way I could get niobium before cycle 500.

[TheMule]

13 minutes ago, psusi said:

I don't think there's any way I could get niobium before cycle 500.

Well I don't rush space, usually. But that's only because I like to separate cold regolith from hot regolith.

I do rush steel. I usually have a refinery up before cycle 100. Or even 50 if there's a nearby swamp biome. Continous operation involves oil/petroleum as coolant and a steam turbine, and that happen at around c100, depending on the map. Once I have steel on tho, I don't rush neither industry nor space, so steel builds up slowly. I break into space only when I have 32t, of steel and immediately place a full bunker door shield, to prevent heating up of the upper layer of regolith. This way I can strip mine the space biome w/o worrying too much of the temperatures.

In the past I've tried rushing space, you can comfortably have thermium by cycle 250/300 w/o any major effort. Of course you take shortcuts, meaning maybe taming only one water source, no petroleum boiler (you refine a lot, which is a waste of course), etc. I find it annoying to have hot regolith mixed up with cold one, so I don't like it overall. And somehow unfortunately there's no real need for space. You can go a long way with colony development (taming all geysers, geothermal power, petroleum boiler, etc.) w/o space materials.

In short, yeah, it makes perfect sense to spend 500 cycles in developing your colony w/o space and once you're done, going full on rockets. Anyway in my current playthrough I've build the space shield in cycle 300.

Another major thing is how hard your start is and how much time you spend in achievements and such. If max difficulty on a hard map it may take 200-250c only to reach a decent population and a decent stability. I had an easy but slow start because I'm confining myself to dups +6 science at least (allowing exceptions for +7 husbandry only because it's incredibly slow to train).
 

[Angpaur]

I'm curious about below marked areas:

Why did you build it like this? Don't you think this is redundant and a pure waste of steel?

[psusi]

3 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

I'm curious about below marked areas:

Why did you build it like this? Don't you think this is redundant and a pure waste of steel?

Because otherwise regolith will fall onto the robo miner, entombing it so it can't work.  Also it would destroy the petrol keeping it cool.  Could have used airflow tile instead though.

[Enthropy]

1 hour ago, psusi said:

Because otherwise regolith will fall onto the robo miner, entombing it so it can't work.  Also it would destroy the petrol keeping it cool.  Could have used airflow tile instead though.

could i? I remember having them break?...I think

[TheMule]

5 minutes ago, Enthropy said:

I remember having them break?...I think

Possibly. When meteors hits sometimes tiles immediately behind bunker doors/tiles receive damage.
But you can move them one tile lower.
But like @OxCDsaid, there are better ways. You can achieve 100% unblocked sky.

And better energy production if you stack panels a bit on top of each other (3 tiles IIRC).

[psusi]

14 minutes ago, Enthropy said:

could i? I remember having them break?...I think

Ohh, you're right... the meteor impact damage travels through one tile and into the one behind.

[Enthropy]

13 minutes ago, TheMule said:

Possibly. When meteors hits sometimes tiles immediately behind bunker doors/tiles receive damage.
But you can move them one tile lower.
But like @OxCDsaid, there are better ways. You can achieve 100% unblocked sky.

And better energy production if you stack panels a bit on top of each other (3 tiles IIRC).

could you elaborate on stacking?

 

[nakomaru]

2 hours ago, Enthropy said:

could you elaborate on stacking?

Solar panels exposed to open sky take in far more light than they need to reach 100%. So a pattern like this (overlap 3 tiles on one side) recovers more wattage per tile.

The fewer times you go up and down the fewer times you have to leave a fully exposed panel. But most people probably don't go this far.

[Angpaur]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

Because otherwise regolith will fall onto the robo miner, entombing it so it can't work.  Also it would destroy the petrol keeping it cool.  Could have used airflow tile instead though.

You still don't see an obvious flaw there? Why overlap bunker tiles and bunker doors? There could be just bunker tiles on same level as doors.

[Enthropy]

2 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Solar panels exposed to open sky take in far more light than they need to reach 100%. So a pattern like this (overlap 3 tiles on one side) recovers more wattage per tile.

The fewer times you go up and down the fewer times you have to leave a fully exposed panel. But most people probably don't go this far.

I knew the solar panels could have full power without being fully exposed... However it did not occur to me to stack them this way. Holy moly this is something im doing next game:)

 

 

[psusi]

2 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

You still don't see an obvious flaw there? Why overlap bunker tiles and bunker doors? There could be just bunker tiles on same level as doors.

Ahh, because then the regolith will pile up on top of the tiles.  With the doors there, when the doors close, they crush any regolith sitting on top of the tile.

[Enthropy]

2 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

You still don't see an obvious flaw there? Why overlap bunker tiles and bunker doors? There could be just bunker tiles on same level as doors.

easier to postion everything and move it around. Also easier to upgrade later

 

 

[Angpaur]

5 minutes ago, Enthropy said:

easier to postion everything and move it around. Also easier to upgrade later

 

 

It is better to have robominers closer to each other to faster clear regolith and regain solar light quicker. So in my opinion it would be better to place 3 bunker doors and then 2 bunker tiles, instead of 4 doors and overlapping tiles. But on the other hand you will have less clear sky. So probably the best in this situation would be to replace bunker tiles with airflow ones and move it one row lower and make sure robominers can clear regolith from them.

[Enthropy]

Just now, Angpaur said:

It is better to have robominers closer to each other to faster clear regolith and regain solar light quicker. So in my opinion it would be better to place 3 bunker doors and then 2 bunker tiles, instead of 4 doors and overlapping tiles.

mmmm, no regaining it quicker is not a problem. Stacking as many solar panels as you can is better

[Gurgel]

On 5/18/2020 at 1:42 PM, OxCD said:

there's also a simple way to get 100% mining coverage without blocking solar panel.

Interesting approach. 

[Gurgel]

Also, lamp-light gets completely blocked by airflow tiles and mesh tiles. Is that somehow different for sunlight?

[psusi]

7 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Also, lamp-light gets completely blocked by airflow tiles and mesh tiles. Is that somehow different for sunlight?

Are you sure about that?  I don't see why sunlight would be any different.  It certainly does pass through airflow and mesh tiles since they count as whatever gas or vacuum is inside them.

[beowulf2010]

9 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Also, lamp-light gets completely blocked by airflow tiles and mesh tiles. Is that somehow different for sunlight?

I think it has to do with how much the airflow and mesh tiles block. Sunlight is ridiculously bright while normal lights are comparably dim. 

[Gurgel]

3 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

I think it has to do with how much the airflow and mesh tiles block. Sunlight is ridiculously bright while normal lights are comparably dim. 

But mesh and airflow do not weaken sunlight either, unlike glass or diamond window tiles. Sounds like a bug to me...

5 minutes ago, psusi said:

Are you sure about that?  I don't see why sunlight would be any different.  It certainly does pass through airflow and mesh tiles since they count as whatever gas or vacuum is inside them.

Not really. They block decor. Here is a screenshot for lamp-light (current stable version):