Can we talk about Solar Panels?

[goboking]

I understand that they're is unlikely to change this close to Spaced Out's release, but I'd like to talk about solar panels.  "Why would we talk about solar panels?" I hear you ask.  It's true that the recent changes to variable sunlight seem to have quelled the calls for solar panel nerfs, but I'm off the belief that they're still too good.  Even in a diminished capacity, there's no downside to building as as many panels as you can fit onto the surface of your asteroid, and all that free power adds up.  Ergo, I think there should be a cost to operating solar panels. 

What would be an appropriate cost?  Here are a few options.

1. Meteors.  No, not meteor showers (a mechanic from the base game that I abhor).  I'm talking an occasional, stray meteor whose impact could wreck a solar panel, meaning a dupe would need to foot it to the surface with glass in hand to do repairs.
2.   Solar Dust.  Regolith could slowly accumulate on solar panels, diminishing their effectiveness to the point where they no longer function.  Like oil wells, a slider could be used to tell dupes when to head to the surface to clean the panels.  This would eliminates the randomness of an errant meteor strike, which might miss all your panels, and gives us a renewable source of regolith in exchange for the time required to maintain the panels.
3. Steel Costs.  Solar panels could cost steel in addition to glass.  This wouldn't be much of a deterrent to spamming them in the mid-game, but it would mean additional infrastructure would need to be in place before doing so.

Are there any other viable ways to address solar panels?  Or are you happy with them they way they are?

[SharraShimada]

In my playstyle... i dont even like the recent nerf with variable light intensity. I like to play fire and forget. Place something, make it work, forget about it and let it run for eternity.

Let me say it this way: Its just another variable i´d like to see as a selectable on world start, like many other things too, i use mods to make possible, because KLEI forgot (or denied) to use switches.

[Gurgel]

I see absolutely no problem with solar panels as they are now. Of course I am not against an optional "I want everything harder with solar panels" switch, but I would not use it.

[NewWorldDan]

I'm satisfied that solar panels have been sufficiently nerfed.  I don't use them that much.  Especially when there are so many volcanoes to work with.  As soon as I have some plastic and steel, I put those volcanoes to work.  For a smaller colony, 2 minor volcanoes produce way more power than we need.  In my current game, I've got only 5 solar panels - across 4 different asteroids.  I get more power from the excess hydrogen in the SPOM.

[Gurgel]

6 hours ago, NewWorldDan said:

I'm satisfied that solar panels have been sufficiently nerfed.  I don't use them that much.  Especially when there are so many volcanoes to work with.  As soon as I have some plastic and steel, I put those volcanoes to work.  For a smaller colony, 2 minor volcanoes produce way more power than we need.  In my current game, I've got only 5 solar panels - across 4 different asteroids.  I get more power from the excess hydrogen in the SPOM.

Solar is nice, but only for a time. I routinely exceed what it can deliver after a while, at least in my main colony. It is just one element of the mix and you cannot activate it on demand. You also need lots of batteries and cooling for those batteries, hence I think it is sufficiently limited.

[SharraShimada]

2 hours ago, NewWorldDan said:

I'm satisfied that solar panels have been sufficiently nerfed.  I don't use them that much. 

And thats exactly the problem here. "i dont mind nerfs, i havent used it either!" What about "hey, wtf? I liked `free power`!, I do not like the nerf at all. It ruins it for me!"? Yeah, you dont mind.

@Klei. Yeah i know, some "screamers" wanted the big nerf, because they where not able to just... build less solar panels?  But you have a VERY wide range of players with ONI. Please consider this fact.

[Sasza22]

My only issue with solar panels is the miniscule setup they need. It`s just set and forget. It`s not a bad thing. But all other generators need either more resources or dupe time to work. The solar panels just need to be exposed to light and protected from rocket exhaust.

I mean i`m ok with their current state but i wouldn`t oppose if we got occasional mini meteors once per 5-10 cycles that could damage them so that there is something interesting i could do to protect them or just ignore that and send a dupe to fix it.

[hackcasual]

I like having a power source I can use to make undupped outposts, like running 3 pumps + rocket fluid loaders for water haulers. Power is so trivial in general that I don't see an issue with a very modest amount of free power that's locked behind 2 higher tier techs, requires some thought in terms of power routing and maximizing your consumeable efficiency, adds challenge around rockets and interplanetary launchers, and in the current build exposes your duplicants to a large amount of radiation.

[SharraShimada]

7 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

My only issue with solar panels is the miniscule setup they need. It`s just set and forget. It`s not a bad thing. But all other generators need either more resources or dupe time to work. The solar panels just need to be exposed to light and protected from rocket exhaust.

Nat gas and hydrogen generators are also fire and forget. Sure, they need ressources but once set up, they will run, when fuel is availlable, even at night, when solar power is off.

[goboking]

59 minutes ago, SharraShimada said:

Nat gas and hydrogen generators are also fire and forget. Sure, they need ressources but once set up, they will run, when fuel is availlable, even at night, when solar power is off.

You’re glossing over the “minuscule setup” part.  And both of those generators not only consume fuel, they also produce waste heat, and in the natural generator’s case, byproducts that must be managed.

[SharraShimada]

7 minutes ago, goboking said:

You’re glossing over the “minuscule setup” part.  And both of those generators not only consume fuel, they also produce waste heat, and in the natural generator’s case, byproducts that must be managed.

Also one time setup. If done right, it will run forever. Yeah sure, solar panels are much easier, but they require glass, which you dont have when you set up nat gas or hydrogen.

[cpy]

Right now solar panels are borderline useless on cold planets. I think making them worse there is not really needed. But some hotter planets with lot of solar power, why not? Free regolith here we go!

[Gurgel]

6 hours ago, goboking said:

You’re glossing over the “minuscule setup” part.  And both of those generators not only consume fuel, they also produce waste heat, and in the natural generator’s case, byproducts that must be managed.

Pretty simple. I use an integrated, no maintenance nat-gas generator approach were it is fully encapsulated. Only needs steel.

[TeDeum]

Solar power is fine now. It needs a lot of accumulators and cooling for them. Even on remote asteroids i build aquatuner and steam turbine for that. And what are other options? Coal generators or wood burners, which are simpler to setup, but require coal/wood. Geothermal power, if asteroid has magma, or volcano, it's the same AT+ST for me.

[Sasza22]

10 hours ago, SharraShimada said:

Also one time setup. If done right, it will run forever. Yeah sure, solar panels are much easier, but they require glass, which you dont have when you set up nat gas or hydrogen.

The genrators progress form requiring little setup and high maintainance to requiring high amounts of setup and almost no maintainance. The solar panels require miniscule setup and no maintainance. Glass is the only thing gating them. Now with the radiation changes setting them up might cause some sickness. They are ok i just miss when they required meteor protection.

[ZombieDupe]

Outputting heat (need for cooling) as well as requiring refined metal to build (copper, iron or steel etc.) plus maybe some plastic seems fine enough and would make sense. Don't have to associate solar panels with meteors at all, in retrospect that's such a weird and very specific type of problem to have. It's also still one of a few if not the only building that generates power but zero heat for some reason.

[AndreyKl]

On 11/9/2021 at 6:49 PM, Gurgel said:

Solar is nice, but only for a time. I routinely exceed what it can deliver after a while, at least in my main colony. It is just one element of the mix and you cannot activate it on demand. You also need lots of batteries and cooling for those batteries, hence I think it is sufficiently limited.

I'm of similar opinion. They are a good starter to supply your rocket with electricity on new asteroids, solars prevent you from needing to bother to setup complex power again and again everywhere, yet they are easy to 'exceed', so for larger colonies you will need to dive into other power options eventually.

I'm completely fine with current state of solars. I like idea of having solars that need some form of maintenance/setup, but only if such solars will also provide more power and will be independent from current ones.

[helium3]

With the upcoming changes to radiation won't constructing tons of solars panels in space be pretty dangerous without first building a bunch of infrastructure to handle all the radiation your dupes are going to absorb?

[NeoDeusMachina]

14 minutes ago, helium3 said:

With the upcoming changes to radiation won't constructing tons of solars panels in space be pretty dangerous without first building a bunch of infrastructure to handle all the radiation your dupes are going to absorb?

Not really, it's not severe enough and it takes quite a while to accumulate enough rads for your dupes to be in any immediate danger, especially on asteroids with low space radiation (like the starting asteroid). Rad pills are pretty easy to make, only need coal and a tier 1 skill. Then there's also the possibility to rotate dupes who work in space to let them pee out the rads until they can go out again.

It can be more problematic on planets with 375rads/cycle space radiation, but if you get there, you would hopefully be at a point in your game where you can manage it.

[goboking]

Now that Space Scanners have been added to Spaced Out!, I wouldn't mind the errant meteor approach.  We already have buncker tiles and doors, but they could also add a radbolt cannon to the game.  The scanner could detect an incoming meteor, and the cannon could blow it up before it impacts the surface (or bunker doors could be closed, for players wishing to go that route).

[NeoDeusMachina]

51 minutes ago, goboking said:

Now that Space Scanners have been added to Spaced Out!, I wouldn't mind the errant meteor approach.  We already have buncker tiles and doors, but they could also add a radbolt cannon to the game.  The scanner could detect an incoming meteor, and the cannon could blow it up before it impacts the surface (or bunker doors could be closed, for players wishing to go that route).

I find the idea of a giant space canon shooting radbolts at incoming meteors quite entertaining, but I would personally not want to see meteors back on the starting asteroid or on every asteroid (in errant form) for that matter. I think having to manage and set up automated bunker doors or having to play space invaders on every asteroid in a cluster "just in case" would get very old very fast.

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

 I think having to manage and set up automated bunker doors or having to play space invaders on every asteroid in a cluster "just in case" would get very old very fast.

It did get old. Sure, 1st, 2nd and maybe 3rd time was a nice challenge, but then it is too much effort because it never really worked well. Dupes getting on top of the opened doors, cooling auto-miners, tons and tons of hot Regolith to deal with, etc. All manageable somehow, but lots of effort and you just replicate the solution you had before, i.e. very little freedom in dealing with the problem. 

And as always: I am not opposed to a "make everything harder and torture me with meteors everywhere again" world-gen switch, but I would not use it.

[goboking]

3 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

I find the idea of a giant space canon shooting radbolts at incoming meteors quite entertaining, but I would personally not want to see meteors back on the starting asteroid or on every asteroid (in errant form) for that matter. I think having to manage and set up automated bunker doors or having to play space invaders on every asteroid in a cluster "just in case" would get very old very fast.

I loathed meteor showers as they were implemented in the base game.  But my thinking here is a single meteor once in a while isn't so great a threat that you have to go through the tedium of setting up bunkers if you don't want to.  An occasional meteor that might damage a single solar panel, so eating the repair costs (resources and dupe labor) isn't too steep a cost for those who want to eschew bunker tiles and doors.

[WhiteWind36]

I find solar not as useful as they might seem... Even with lot's of batteries and lot's of panel it's barely possible to have enough power until morning. I see solar power as an additional power supply which definitely needs lot's of setup for your wiring, batteries, transformers etc. For this reason I mainly use them on rockets and in new asteroids, where energy consumption is very low. It's a mid-game bonus for all the research and setup made for making glass - to have easy sustainable power source without the need for dupes maintenance or some pumps which requires power to deliver resources to other generators.

I think solar is good as it is. Although making them require some maintenance could be more logical and realistic.

I found second option - space dust - most appealing, cleaning solar panels let's say every 10 - 50 cycles, and it could even count like overpressure in oil well, with percentage. Also it could produce less power if not cleaned for example starting from 10 cycles operation it will produce 10% less power, and by cycle 50 it will become 100% dust covered and will stop producing any power until cleaned. That would make it more realistic and add some additional dupe labor.

[LadenSwallow]

As a follow up thought, how about letting sweepy automate the task?