I'm not sure this kind of balancing makes sense for solar panels; solar panels require so much area and have such low power density that they are already self-limiting from a practical perspective. However, I'm guessing the concern is something to do with keeping server load low (due to the calculations required for each panel)? If you were really getting 510 kW excess production, that should have charged the battery (800 kWh) in just under 4 game days (~1.5 hours realtime); the charging calculation might have a bug in it. Yes, it would be great if ventilators drew power proportional to the volume they served. This would not only reduce overall power consumption, but would allow for redundancy at relatively low additional power consumption. As for the lights, we'll have to wait for the base power unit to change before anything can be done about their power consumption.
OK... so not as good at judging the equator on the planet... Turns out I was 400 units Z-. Using setposition to move the station up gained @ 70 Kwh and eliminated the angle offset from the visible sun. That's a pretty sharp cone of effect from the light "origin". I don't know if it's possible to do in code, but in space you don't have to simulate the curvature of a planet. All light (at least within the bounds of a relatively tiny playfield) "should" be parallel to the Z axis centerline, regardless if you're at -800 or +5000. The only impact should be from the panel's X and Y rotations to the source direction
Other soft balancing ideas that arguably have more of a basis in reality- taken all together or singly. Making solar panels stop working if they take a few hit points of damage. Reduce solar panels hit-points further. Add a reduction in solar panel efficiency based on distance to capacitor. Make it so the capacitor charge is used much faster than it charges. - (first review the code and make sure its not dumping all charge on to the capacitor and then taking it off which is what i suspect is going on - instead it should put on the cap any EXCESS of current usage and then take off what ever is needed to meet demand) This code change could allow the use of solar panels without a capacitor? Lower the max charge on the capacitor by alot. Make the capacitor optional and Add a power drain on the capacitor itself, perhaps one that starts at 0 and increases the more power it is holding. Add a regulator device that takes 0 power but stores no power but does everything else the capacitor does. Limit the max output of the capacitor to match the smallest generator - or even much smaller, with high penalties to overdraw. - maybe even taking damage. (may require additional code to allow using of generator for when there is a high draw on power). Make it so the capacitor spawns in BP with 0 charge (spawning with several hundred charge might be a bug?)
@Atola , that would be nerfing them to oblivion. I'll advocate for solars, if I may RL panels are made of several cells, make a hole in them - only broken cell won't work. So gradual loss in performance maybe, yet they are already fragile enough to blast them completely with ease (and thus stop the energy flow). Seriously, 150 hp is nothing, we have windows sturdier than solars. 250 blocks (maximum distance from the core) is like 500 meters. Make it double, 1 km. So what kind of loss happens on a 1 km distance in transition of what power, 1 MW maximum? Completely negligible, in my opinion, with the level of technology we already have in a sci-fi game. There is no "speed of discharge", it stores energy units. Both generator and capacitor meet power demands immediately with oversupplying (redlining). Plug in the repair bay - it sucks energy at 500% with a percent per second speed and is probably overspending the charge (like 100 units of energy drained for 25-50 really used), just like the generator overspends the fuel. What we need is more capacitors for the load balancing, not some fixed "speed" that people would tweak in config file anyway. It may go along with lowering max charge, but either both or none. Making two devices do what one is doing already is counter-productive. Why should capacitor have an energy drain? I can have as much AA-batteries as I want packed in any shape I want, and they don't need power to store. Doesn't look like RL arguments. Why do you hate free energy with such passion? You're protecting the galaxy from interplanetary communism?
LOL I was thinking One or two of these ideas might do the trick. Its a laundry list of ideas to choose from. Lets NOT implement all of these. And remember its a way for the game designers to implement a soft stop instead of the current hard stop. I'm not advocating for a stop. Its already there I assume for game design reasons . I'm playing around with ideas to make it feel more natural. Assume for a moment that you might be able to convince the game designers to replace their hard stop with a soft one - what do you propose? But to reply to a few specifics: The power transmission loss is a very real thing, especially when dealing with the low voltages that solar arrays produce. I think dealing with it would feel more natural than a hard 20 device count limit. However the most magical and advanced thing is the "capacitor". If in real life we had something that could store such a huge amount of energy and so efficiently and safely (explode the "capacitor" and see what it does) the worlds energy problems would be solved. Which is why most of my "fixes" are centered around that. One of the most funny things is the name "capacitor". The voltage levels necessary to store that much power in such a small space on a capacitor would be incredibly extreme, and such a cap - due to its high voltages - can explode in a most spectacular fashion. Actually that would be cool to add to the game. Probably easier though just to rename the device "Power Converter" and leave the specifics of how the device works to the imagination. Perhaps its mostly made of some sort of magical batteries instead.
I think, the right question in this case is "Why?". Why do we need soft stop? Why do developers need hard stop? Why bothering if SP players will just edit the config? Actually, we know nothing about voltage and current. Maybe we really shouldn't, this is not a game for electricians If W's are Watts, all we have is capacitance in terms of kilowatt*seconds, I guess. If a cannon pulls 5 kw/s wherever it is without further losses, why a solar panel can't push the same or greater amount via the same techno-magic? Yet I'm all for the cable blocks that we'd need to connect (and disrupt ) modular structures, by the way. It is them which would draw power and emit heat for the detectors, not the panels themselves. That way there will be no need for overhauling the consumption mechanic based on distance. I'd still like several tiers of wires with better properties for rare materials. "Tires of wires", hmm. Sounds like a name for a heavy metal band Capacity is tricky - even if you imply that the energy is stored in chemical cells, like in an electrocar, it can be stored in several ways, even lifting heavy weight or separating hydrogen from atmosphere to burn it later is saving energy. One of the best ways is the use of a flywheel with magnetic bearings, saving rotation. IRL achieved flywheel energy density can be as much as 1,8MW*s per 1 kg(!). It is also rather safe (that is "doesn't explode violently when shot" ). Maybe the capacitor should be bigger, like 2*2*2, and the rotational nature would clearly restrict it to stable ground platform (as it already is, just without handwaving), and one capacitor would govern not more than 5-10 panels for the space concerns.. I still don't see why solars are not bad enough
I just concluded a small play session where I tried relying on solar and it was a disaster. Akua's sun is not bright enough maybe? 1 plant light, 4 slanted solar panels, set to point to the East and to the West. 1 capacitor (we used to be able to add more then one in the last build, and that helped). It doesn't hold more then a few minutes of charge. I think we need bigger or more batteries. We cannot go by todays's equations, because we're not in space yet and by the time we are, I'd think we'd have better panels and batteries. It's got to be nerfed somewhere.
I left the complete log in this thread. https://empyriononline.com/threads/scenario-feedback-default-singleplayer-scenario.21942/page-2 Hope it helps.
I held my base against PV with a single cannon and about 6 working panels. East and west directions are total crap considering energy output when not exactly on equator. Better turn everything south for the nothern hemisphere and south for northern; I have 4 by 4 during the day on Omicron near the north pole (I can see the red barrier clearly) with south-bound panels.
Tested it in survival. Popped up my starter Concrete Bunker (with all basic craft stations) near the [0,0] coordinates and granted it 4 panels, 2 east and 2 west. The result at 4 minutes before sunset - west panels at full power, east panels at 2/4. 255 Kw surplus, could run a large constructor..
Spirit_OK, look at your power left time. Mine never makes it through the night. New question? If I add solar to a base with a generator and run out of fuel, does the solar take over for a while, since the capacitor battery should be fully charged. btw, I'm no expert. Just started messing with these, this week.
I'll copy for you guys what I sent with a save to Pantera... it started when I found that my base- built from the "Destroyed Farm" POI and located on Mato in the IvD scenario- suddenly had its battery wiped after the last patch. Base has 12 panels avg 310Kwh, peak 980Kwh, avg consumption 128Kwh. Once I was full up on panels, it never dropped below 85% charge overnight. First session after patch, I found out at sunset that I somehow only had 2% charge. But it was watching the power the next day that things got weird:
A bunch of disconnected solar panel thoughts and comments: To keep things reliably ON when located on Aku or Omicron I've found that I need about one solar plate per every 6kW of continuous usage. This covers days of foggy/cloudy weather etc which can happen. For my "Old time smelter" with 4x large constructors and 19 solar panels and basically nothing else using power I tried to keep then running until power ran out but never quite succeed - I just kept running out of ore to feed em. In this case even if it did run out of power I think it would be fine cause the production would just start up again were it left off? Because I want my buildings to just work when spawned without messing with them, I've stopped messing with slanted solar panels entirely and just use flat panels. Bases in space will be a very different experience.
Evidently you can turn Off the battery now. I haven't played with it much, still not at a total energy surplus, But I'll let you know how it works when I find out.
Suppose this flywheel does have an energy density of 1.8 MJ/kg. If it has a radius of 1 m, then it needs to be spinning at about 300 Hz, or 18000 rpm (the edge of the flywheel is traveling at about 1.8 km/s). If a stray bullet punctures the flywheel's vacuum chamber and damages the outer edge of the flywheel, it could catastrophically shatter into supersonic fragments that might in turn puncture the vacuum chamber and damage nearby people/devices. Now, modern flywheel energy storage systems are usually designed with hardened vacuum chambers to mitigate this, but most users still bury them underground or embed them in concrete just in case. TL;DR: flywheel energy storage systems can still explode violently when shot .
