Mirror

[gabberworld]

would love if game have mirrors or some metallic plate what reflects the light , then we could transfer sun light for example left to right. like it was done very old age

it would be useful then for multi resources like food farm what needs light or solar panels

that is example for one use if we would have those

 

 

[Sasza22]

It would have to be at 45 degrees so it works like that. IMO you should need at least 2 of them to power the panels (so it still goes vertical). A 1x1 structure made out of glass would work fine but might take a lot of room to achieve what you want.

[Onidotmoe]

A reflector that can go all 360 degrees could be cool, you'd set it like a valve and it'll point in any direction.

[gabberworld]

1 hour ago, VampireMonkey said:

A reflector that can go all 360 degrees could be cool, you'd set it like a valve and it'll point in any direction.

yeah,something  like the radbolt devices work

[NeoDeusMachina]

First, let me say that I like the idea of having some kind of reflector/solar concentrator. Could be nice to redirect sunlight, would be even nicer if they one day added radiative heat transfer (not the nuclear radiation, the one from electromagnetic waves/photons). Could make for nice builds where solar energy is used to concentrate light and boil water to turn it into power via steam turbines, for example.

In any case, I am not convinced by your drawing. Are you suggesting that the light intensity would decrease as it moves further away from the mirror as it goes through solar panels? How does that work? Solar panels are not transparent, they don't let light pass through them, which means only the 1st panel would get light. Am I missing something (very possible)?

That being said, we have just undergone a phase of whining about how solar panels are apparently too strong at the moment in Spaced Out, and the devs are currently implementing a new mechanic to effectively "nerf" solar which might push it to late game viability once again, and only on the furthest planets. Your suggestion as it is would make solar stronger, as you could stack solar panels on top of each other just like in your screenshot. So, overall, I am unsure if this is counter productive and goes against the direction solar is going to take in the next patch.

 

[Onidotmoe]

I'm thinking instead of stacking solar panels ontop of each other, you could concentrate the light from shine bugs into a single point.

[gabberworld]

On 7/29/2021 at 8:11 AM, NeoDeusMachina said:

 So, overall, I am unsure if this is counter productive and goes against the direction solar is going to take in the next patch.

 

well, i could just make a mod and 1 solar starts produce the 100MW power, it not about solars in general but about reflect the light  to other direction

[NeoDeusMachina]

1 hour ago, gabberworld said:

well, i could just make a mod and 1 solar starts produce the 100MW power, it not about solars in general but about reflect the light  to other direction

I mean, yes you could make that mod, go ahead if you want..?

You can't make a suggestion and disregard the consequences it has on the game mechanics. Your suggestion is about reflecting light and currently light is used -mainly- (yeah there are other uses but imo not the principal use of light) for two things: 1) solar power and 2) agriculture. For agriculture, normal lightbulbs are more than enough, solar light is only relevant for gas grass and that is so niche that it is not really worth considering in our discussion.

So, we are left with solar power and, funny enough, it is the example you gave in your initial post! And you even show a screenshot where you stack solar panels... which means we could literally make high density solar power farms if we could reflect light. Basically, the main application of your suggestion is solar power, or am I missing something? 

In other words, if this suggestion was implemented, it would allow us to use solar power more effectively and that goes against the efforts of the devs to nerf solar power (see test branch patch notes). How is this not relevant for your suggestion? Could you please shed some light on this for me (pun intended)?

Edit: In order to be a bit more constructive, let me try contributing some thoughts and ideas to your suggestion. Mirrors should not be transparent, i.e., they should reflect 100% of the incident light in the chosen direction. Solar panels should not be transparent either. You would get something like this:

- other options could be that if the mirror is semi-transparent, it should correctly split the light intensity. For example, if 50% is reflected and 50% is transmitted, then the intensity (amount of lux) should be split between what is reflected (50%) and transmitted (50%). 

- perhaps light intensity should also be allowed to add up. For example, if you combine different mirrors and they end up reflecting light on the same path, the intensity (in lux) should add up.

- a direction selection UI similar to the radbolt generators could be appropriate for mirrors

- light intensity should still decay in gases as it currently does.

 

[gabberworld]

31 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

I mean, yes you could make that mod, go ahead if you want..?

You can't make a suggestion and disregard the consequences it has on the game mechanics. Your suggestion is about reflecting light and currently light is used -mainly- (yeah there are other uses but imo not the principal use of light) for two things: 1) solar power and 2) agriculture. For agriculture, normal lightbulbs are more than enough, solar light is only relevant for gas grass and that is so niche that it is not really worth considering in our discussion.

So, we are left with solar power and, funny enough, it is the example you gave in your initial post! And you even show a screenshot where you stack solar panels... which means we could literally make high density solar power farms if we could reflect light. Basically, the main application of your suggestion is solar power, or am I missing something? 

In other words, if this suggestion was implemented, it would allow us to use solar power more effectively and that goes against the efforts of the devs to nerf solar power (see test branch patch notes). How is this not relevant for your suggestion? Could you please shed some light on this for me (pun intended)?

1 when using  reflector it lose some light power, its not same powerful like direct light

2. stack solar panels , for that there is even better solution in game atm

3. yes you are missing something ,some Food Farms need Light as well including some other stuff

4. that image is illustration (i could just remove that)