Shine Bug farms

[DimaB77]

We had a late night, so I couldn't answer you promptly...
Interesting location options worth testing. I'll try to do that today.

[DimaB77]

It went like this:

Power on the panels:

[LadenSwallow]

Given the vertical symmetry, if you cut out the 'even' bug columns entirely, and feed their bugs into the 'odd' columns, you get the same output, but significantly narrower design (2*15 < 4*8 +7), and fewer water locks to have to construct (in this case 8 vs 16). Given that increasing vertical size increases efficiency of each egg (the downward contribution), 2x8 panels would produce more than 4x4 panels (5876.66W using above figures, 2x10 panels = 7372.54W for 560 eggs).

Mathematically in the spreadsheet above, take panel column 1 and double it, subtract the initial value from panel column 3 (panel column 2 continues to receive the same number of bugs), take panel column 5 and add that to panel column 3, delete panel column 5 as it is now 0 (panel column 4 continues to receive the same number of bugs).

One further advantage that can be exploited is you could put beach chairs underneath the solar array . (Now I'm imagining also putting a mechanical airlock under there to simulate strobe lighting and turning it into some sort of nightclub too (dancing to the Woo WOOO s of the bugs).)

[DimaB77]

As far as I understand you, your calculations are based on this:

On 5/23/2021 at 10:20 PM, LadenSwallow said:

Panels at the side would also require more bugs...

?

[LadenSwallow]

That was for the staggered blueprint (1 panel beneath the gap between 2 panels, instead of the continuous gap with panels directly beneath panels).

When I ran the spreadsheet, the solver 'app' running inside the spreadsheet on the first (staggered) version would give many various bug numbers, with larger numbers at the edges as different panels would receive different ratios of light. In the 'uniform' version, the solver 'app' quickly identified that half the holes were unnecessary, and also gave uniform bug numbers.

[LadenSwallow]

So a modification to the 'staggered' blueprint can yield ~6.9kW for 462 eggs, 66 eggs per chute, just under 15W per egg (fixed regardless of scale):

 https://blueprintnotincluded.com/b/60ad175d36a98a71d7828038

The blueprint can be tessellated by ensuring there are 3 solar panels are constructed consecutively then a window tile with a chute above, then 3 more solar panels; for the 'next layer' put the window tile above a 'middle tile' of the 'middle' solar panel and repeat. Some panels may not get any light and so can be deleted. While theoretically a more compact design than the unstaggered one, it would need to be built on a massively impractical scale to actually achieve more panels in a confined area, each 22x8 (176) area would theoretically hold 6 solar panels in the 'centre' of a large array, compared with 15x12 (180) for the unstaggered array, the unstaggered array has no wasted space at the sides however, and achieves more panel utilisation, producing ~2.2kW unstaggered compared with ~1.9kW staggered (per 6 panels); as a result the power per area of the staggered design is lower. Furthermore, if desired, extracting eggs will be less efficient to set up as each chute would need its own conveyor loader (and rails) in the staggered design, whereas the unstaggered design can share a loader between 2 chutes; both requiring 1 auto-sweeper per chute (and given the relative lower egg count, it will produce less shells - average power lost extracting shells is going to be proportional to the egg count (can be reduced by activating the sweeper arms on a timed basis to extract 5kg of shells for instance)).

So not strictly speaking an 'upgrade' but might be useful knowledge if game performance is an issue.

Further testing on the unstaggered variety, if not utilising the light under the bottom layer of panels (for either another panel or for recreational use), then you can move the shine bug spot up a level by replacing the door with a single window tile. This will cause light 'bleed' to go up from the bottom layer to the layer above, but at a lesser lux than layer above bleeds to the bottom layer. This will alter the bug balance required, but for most of the array the downward 'bleed' is better, and a more vertical build is better with more downward bleed.

[DimaB77]

You gave birth to a monster
I'm scared to put it together, but I added a link to this thread. Thank you for your work. It would be great if others would join in as well. It would make the wiki even better.

[LadenSwallow]

Given my current non-dlc map is frozen everywhere, I came across the problem that the (water/salt water) liquid locks will actually freeze. Sandboxing has revealed that using crude/petroleum locks does not diminish watts per bug (I suspect the light absorption factor applies to sunlight only?), care must still be taken as the bugs can only survive temperatures as low as -20C.

[DimaB77]

You're right. Bugs' light are not weakened by water and crude oil. Crude oil blocks the sun completely.

[Craigjw]

Shine bug farms for power seem an awful lot of work for relatively low amount of power produced and also while having the overhead of processing extra critter AI pathing for so many shine bugs.

I guess I'd use a small farm, just for the sake of having a stable population of shine bugs and to stop them being extinct.  In that respect, having the solar panels give a slight bonus to power supply.  In reality, I'd rather have a small shine bug farm without solar panels and just build petrol or natural gas generators for power.

Overall, some nice designs if shine bug power generation is what one wants to have.

[DimaB77]

Different people set different goals for themselves. Some people like green energy.
There's not a lot of energy, without significant computer brakes. But there's no cost either. When you reach the right population, you tear down the right room and get 1.5...7 kW and some shells for free.