I've been watching Aavak, Quill, and Skye Storm stream/videos in anticipation of this game, really hyped up now. So after watching all these people play I noticed a pattern.
Most of these streamers mixed solar and wind power in the early game which I think is what was intended, but solar power just drops from the game later (not sure if that was intended given the new power plants). The streamers mentioned in passing the maintenance of the solar panels being just metal and the batteries being polymers, but they strongly favored wind. Wind at base is just barely better than solar, but requires machine parts (none of the streamers really had too much difficulty acquiring or maintaining a healthy supply). So my concern is that solar power is too weak on the base level to be enticing.
I think the idea that you can take in a bunch of power during the day and ration it at night is meant to be an exciting mechanic but it doesn't seem to play out because the guys above generally pack a stirling generator and plop more than sufficient wind power without concern--using solar to boost daytime power for the factories only. While this works and is efficient, I feel it means you would have to purposefully limit yourself to play that way. Not sure if anyone agrees or not, but it looks like solar is obsolete quick.
Something else I really think would be neat is an additional quirk: Night Owl/Nocturnal. Some people really do enjoy being up a night. Sure it's really rare, but it may be neat to have the exceptional person who loses sanity for working in the day instead LOL.
One last thing is I'm hoping for an expansion that could be harder to play, as others suggested too, the Moon or Phobos. It would require new tech trees and would play into the solar power game above, and getting oxygen would be more difficult b/c it's tied up in water and balancing how you use water as drinking water, field water, fuel (hydrogen) and oxygen just sounds like fun in this environment.
Most of these streamers mixed solar and wind power in the early game which I think is what was intended, but solar power just drops from the game later (not sure if that was intended given the new power plants). The streamers mentioned in passing the maintenance of the solar panels being just metal and the batteries being polymers, but they strongly favored wind. Wind at base is just barely better than solar, but requires machine parts (none of the streamers really had too much difficulty acquiring or maintaining a healthy supply). So my concern is that solar power is too weak on the base level to be enticing.
I think the idea that you can take in a bunch of power during the day and ration it at night is meant to be an exciting mechanic but it doesn't seem to play out because the guys above generally pack a stirling generator and plop more than sufficient wind power without concern--using solar to boost daytime power for the factories only. While this works and is efficient, I feel it means you would have to purposefully limit yourself to play that way. Not sure if anyone agrees or not, but it looks like solar is obsolete quick.
Something else I really think would be neat is an additional quirk: Night Owl/Nocturnal. Some people really do enjoy being up a night. Sure it's really rare, but it may be neat to have the exceptional person who loses sanity for working in the day instead LOL.
One last thing is I'm hoping for an expansion that could be harder to play, as others suggested too, the Moon or Phobos. It would require new tech trees and would play into the solar power game above, and getting oxygen would be more difficult b/c it's tied up in water and balancing how you use water as drinking water, field water, fuel (hydrogen) and oxygen just sounds like fun in this environment.
