Anyone else think wind power is OP?

[Beric]

Just a little background here - I've been playing on 535% difficulty today (44 degrees north, 112 degrees west, using paradox sponsor with futurist is 535). Made two saves - the first one I went pure solar power with batteries. I ultimately reached a "lose" condition on day 51 (there was literally no way for me to proceed). For my second game I did the same settings but with pure wind power. other than some initial solar to get concrete going, and I'm currently on day 93 and still going.

In my solar game my power network was constantly down due to dust storms which kill your solar panel production - they seem to operate at 40% capacity, for 2 whole days. That means you have to have a ridiculous amount of polymers, both for building and maintaining the batteries. My power network was constantly out in dust storms despite a massive solar array. The metal upkeep costs were not insignificant either. I was forced to prioritize a polymer factory for battery maintenance, yet I still needed a machine parts factory for maintaining extractors as well.

Meanwhile, in my second game after building 3 large panels to get concrete going, I built pure wind. I landed on high elevation, so my wind was already 2x production, and it increases still further in dust storms! I shipped an early machine parts factory over, and with that factory was able to keep my extractors supplied as well. Subsequently I shipped an electronics factory, and I waited forever to build the polymer one, because the main early consumer of polymer is batteries! By skipping solar you are giving yourself a huge leg up.

Ultimately I think either wind needs to be nerfed or solar needs to be buffed. The biggest weaknesses of solar are the polymer maintenance costs on batteries (far more painful than the 1-time build cost) and the massive amount of panels needed to match wind power output, as you can't run them at night. With wind you have no disasters you are weak to - on the contrary the dust storms help you. And the altitude bonus is incredible, plus the machine parts maintenance are something you need to get established early anyway.

 

[Chaon]

I think the wind generators are way too easy to maintain. A nerf in increasing the maintenance costs would probably be the at to go.

 

[grandad1982]

Part of it is the consistency of wind. There is no lull in the wind to power them and unlike in real life they they don't get shut down by high winds. Also with moving parts and lots of dust the maintenance should be a lot higher.

I haven't got atomic accumulators yet, what is needed to build and maintain them would that help the balance of solar?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I mean, you are pretty much using them in an ideal scenario here. On a more "normal" map they are far less impressive.

Which means maybe the bonus for Dust Storms should be reduced somewhat? Eh, hard to say, given that I mostly rely on my trusty Stirlings.

 

[Valfoutre]

Speaking about Stirling, wouldn't be great to have a toggle icon to close every stirling, in case of dust storm? (like the icon in the bottom left or right)

 

[grandad1982]

Speaking about Stirling, wouldn't be great to have a toggle icon to close every stirling, in case of dust storm? (like the icon in the bottom left or right)

Control click the open button.

 

[mhaell42]

My only run so far i had litteraly a forest of wind generator, probably 30 up a cliff, and 15 more down. Still not enought. I had to plop 2 nuclear reactor and was running out of power again as i keep expanding until i built the wonder (1k power oO)
Sure I never had any dust storm (easy start tutorial), but even with better blades the wind felt better than solar (mostly because they run at night) but far from OP.

 

[Holce]

Without any bonus from altitude they give twice as much power with the blade upgrade. So with the altitude bonus it is even better. But they cost machin parts. Late game it is better but at start it can be difficults for the hardest starts. You may want to use solar panel at first and add turbines later.

if you don't let people working at night, in mid game you may need more power at day than at night. Having the starting solar panels reduce the number of acumulators needed.

 

[Thorin]

Solar: 40% capacity during dust storm, 0% capacity at night, increased maintenance during dust storm (or closed for 0 capacity), needs only metal (1 per maintenance)
Wind: 100% up time, boost from elevation (always positive), extra boost from dust storm, needs refined products (0,5 machine part per maintenance)

So wind is better in every situation except at start (need concrete) and early game (machine part vs metal maintenance and build cost), wind should get random modifier (-50% to +50%, balanced out in a sol or two), and should get higher maintenance if works to well (over 100% total boost from elevation, random speed and dust storm) or you can stop them to prevent the extra maintenance like the solar panels in the storm.

 

[Beric]

Solar: 40% capacity during dust storm, 0% capacity at night, increased maintenance during dust storm (or closed for 0 capacity), needs only metal (1 per maintenance)
Wind: 100% up time, boost from elevation (always positive), extra boost from dust storm, needs refined products (0,5 machine part per maintenance)

So wind is better in every situation except at start (need concrete) and early game (machine part vs metal maintenance and build cost), wind should get random modifier (-50% to +50%, balanced out in a sol or two), and should get higher maintenance if works to well (over 100% total boost from elevation, random speed and dust storm) or you can stop them to prevent the extra maintenance like the solar panels in the storm.

Great summary.

And yes, I absolutely expected wind to have variable speed. Having it be 100% all the time is kind of odd.

 

[ShoGuL]

Interesting thread. In my only game so far, I thought Solar was clearly superior since it costs only metal, but shipping a machine parts factory solves that neatly. The consistency does seems a little odd.

 

[Beric]

I played another tough map today with wind and have to say, going wind allows you to completely ignore manufacturing polymers for the first 50 or so sols. From what you find on mars plus shipping over a little bit as well, you can focus on getting machine parts followed by electronics set up and skip polymer production for a long while. The first time you want to start manufacturing polymer is actually for the polymer blades of the windmills.

 

[scaper12123]

Ugh, I'm getting so tired of losing power every time night falls. I'll just build a few wind turbines.

*looks at low machine parts output*

oh... nvm.

but in all seriousness, I don't think it's that overpowered when you consider the trade-off: you can generate power at all times of the day, but you use a more hard-to-get resource to maintain it. If the issue really is a problem, then making their maintenance more frequent would probably address the issue pretty well

 

[Xeorm]

Wouldn't know about late game, but your analysis certainly seems accurate. Battery requirement is the killer. Polymers are less expensive than parts to ship, but only slightly, and the nature of early domes means you're limited in only one production building I'd think. Polymers otherwise aren't used for maintenance, so are much less needed, while are required for many of your early useful items. Considering you need electronics too and polymers are justifiably relegated to later on.

The dust storm issues only make things worse. Surprised the wind turbines get much of a bonus in wind storms anyway. On Earth they're typically shut down in such cases to prevent damaging the blades. It definitely needs some changing.

 

[mhaell42]

Late game only the fusion reactor is good.
1.5k people, even the wonder with 1k power is not enought. 3.5k power consuption at day.

 

[sterrius]

breakin down the cost of upkeep. While earlygame your choice need to be calculated by the amount of resources available (And funding) after the first dome and factories you can choose better the route.

Maintance = X resource every 150h = 5 days.
im gonna place the cost in Millions/Day. No matter if you are importing or making on house.
Manpower is also something you need to take into account. As a Machine Parts factory does demand people and your first dome need to survive 10 days with only 12 of them. (And rare minerals export being a priority).

cost of resoures (importing from earth) .


5 Metal = 50M = 10M each
5 Polymers = 70M = 14M each
5 M. Parts = 90M = 18M each
5 Eletronics = 100M = 20M each

PS: going to ignore concrete and metal for importing prices. rarely someone imports them.

Starting with the most easy of all.

Stirling Reactor.

Cost: 12 polymers / 6 eletronics or 240M if you import resources, 400M prefab
Maintance: 0 (closed) , 1 polymer (open).

Upkeep = 0 (closed) or 2,8M /day (open).

Output : 10 (Closed) / 20 (open).


Wind Turbine.

Cost: 4 Concrete +1 machine part = 18M to build 1. no prefab
Maintance: 1,8 Million/day

Output: 5 (0% wind bonus) to 10 (100% wind bonus).


Solar power. (only going to calculate the large one).

Cost: 4 metal
Maintance = 2 Million/day

Output = 5 (normal ) / 2 (dust storm).

Now things get interesting. I can´t take those costs without adding both batteries.

Battery = 3 Concrete + 2 polymers = 28M to build.
Maintance = 1 polymer = 2.8M / day

Night time = 8 hours.
That means for every 2 solar panels (10 energy). I need 1 extra to gather energy for the night.
Battery can hold 200 energy = 20 Energy output for 1 night.

That means the ratio is 6 Solar panels for 1 Battery on normal.

During a 57Hours duststorm. ( 2 days / 9 hours)

57 Hour energy demand = 20 Energy x 57 Hours = 1140 total energy needed to keep things working.

6 solar panels x 2 Energy for 45 Horus (Daytime) = 540 Energy.
1140 - 540 = 600Energy missing.

That means for every 6 Solar panels you need 3 Batterys to become Immune to almost any duststorm.


Now maintance price to produce 20 Energy with all buildings.

Stirling reactor = 0 (2 stirlings) or 2.8M/day.

Wind Turbine = 3,6M (2 wind full bonus) to 7,2M (4 turbines 0% bonus) / day.

Solar + batteries = 10.8M (no duststorm) or 16,4M to protect yourself from duststorms.

PS: Solar does become much more competitive once you unlock Atomic Acumulators as they can hold 2000 Energy each and cost very little to keep.
PS2: not counting fusion reactor, no contest here.



My opinion = I recommend reducing maintance from large solar panels to something like 0.5 metal and the small ones to 0.2.
Solar panel need to cost less to maintain and this is not true right now.

Also makes no sense Wind is cheaper on upkeep. Solar does not have moving parts and its a huge advantage solar have vs wind.

Also Batterys going to 0.5 polymers each. Outside of solar power there is little to no point having them. The ratio is already close to impossible to keep on a duststorm heavy map. And costly on a normal map. Reducing it will just keep solar a option.

Solar right now only works to fuel the first concrete extractor and become a "fuel station" for the explorer on the middle of the map. Outside of that don´t see reason to use solar.

 

[ShoGuL]

Hm.. interesting. That means it takes 143 Sols for a closed stirling reactor to earn back the price of another reactor compared to opening it, or 86 sols if you build them yourself.

I guess I will be opening mine in the future....

I think it should be noted that Solar is great for powering factories and other things you will only be running during the day -- no need for batteries. You can turn off your factory during a dust storm.

 

[Xeorm]

Hm.. interesting. That means it takes 143 Sols for a closed stirling reactor to earn back the price of another reactor compared to opening it, or 86 sols if you build them yourself.

I guess I will be opening mine in the future....

I think it should be noted that Solar is great for powering factories and other things you will only be running during the day -- no need for batteries. You can turn off your factory during a dust storm.

The stirlings are generally inefficient anyway, so it would be bad to compare their maintenance cost to their build cost. Better might be to compare the maintenance to other power options. Wind generators need a ~65% boost to be the better option over having opening the stirling looks like.

Yea, solar is great for day only production. Bad though if you're looking to maintain production during the storm though.

 

[sterrius]

and now i just found out a breaktrough that gives +100% production to solar panels .
Wind at only 6% bonus.

So now things got a lot more interesting. as the cost to keep 20 energy goes down from 6 solar panels to only 3.

battery is still a problem but after unlocking atomic batteries it really becomes competitive.