Power options (a.k.a. did we really need to buff wind further in GP?)

[YertyL]

So, like the farming thread, I would like to start this discussion because the game nominally offers you several options, but some seem severely more powerful than others after some experience and/or math. So, in my list from subjectively least problematic to most:

• Artificial Sun: 1000 energy for a wonder. Not so relevant because late game, but I would still buff either the base output to 1500 - 2000, or reduce the cost, and/or buff solar panels and its radius for them, because this wonder competes with the mohole mine, the king of wonders, and at that point of the game, even 1000 power do not feel so significant if you have scrubbed stirlings+windmills. Fun fact: Solar panels close to this wonder do not suffer an atmosphere penalty, so this is basically their only late game niche either way.
  
• Stirling Generator: 10 power closed for 10 polymer, 5 electronics and no maintenance, 20 opened for 1 polymer maintenance. I'm actually pretty fine with these. Yes, they are very powerful, especially the scrubbed clusters, but you won't get there until you have 1-2 mid to late techs and a very solid polymer and electronics production, at which point you can spam most buildings anyways. I would maybe change open generators to produce 15 energy instead of 20 to make cold waves more interesting and nerf scrubbed stirlings, but they're IMO relatively fine. I would also nerf them indirectly by making scrubbers unable to scrub other scrubbers, but that's another discussion.
  
• Fusion Generators: 200 power for 24 concrete and 15 poly + electronics. Maint. 3 electronics and 24 engineers. I had honestly forgotten that these exist. At 24 workers and its own mid game tech, this is comparable to a hawking institute, except it is also out-of-dome and you will want to run night shifts, so you will eat massive sanity penalties for a long time. With food + medics + some comfort, this power source will roughly eat a basic dome by itself, and you get it at a time where you likely have scrubbers and stirlings. I really love the idea of this building, but it will only ever be worth it if it really feels like you can forget about power worries for the next hour of expansion. I would double the output to 400 for a start.
• Wind: 5 power for 4 concrete, 1 machine part and 0.5 machine parts upkeep without a tech already seems good. But then you have a very early tech that boosts production by 33%. And then you get a boost of up to 100% in elevated positions. And then you get a boost of up to 100% for the presence of an atmosphere. At this point, two wind turbines can easily outperform an opened stirling generator, while being a lot more affordable in initial cost and maintenance (1 machine part vs 1 poly). And then you get a significant power boost during dust storms. Wind ranges from convenient to excellent as soon as it has at least one buff, with basically no drawbacks.
• Solar: A large solar panel costs 3 metals + 1 metal upkeep and will produce 5 power for roughly 2/3 of all time. So for 20 power on average, you need 6 solar panels or 4 unbuffed wind turbines, at an upkeep of 6 metal vs 2 machine parts. But then, almost all of your power draw will be continuous, for which you will need to invest in a battery for solar, so we are at 6 metal + 1 polymer vs 2 machine parts. With poly blades, we are at 3 turbines with 1.5 machine parts vs the 6 metal and 1 poly upkeep of solar. With all the other wind buffs this gap widens further. And you are basically screwed during dust storms if you heavily relied on solar. Yes, in the beginning you have free metal, but that is limited. An iron mine is arguably harder to set up than a machine parts factory, and metals cost almost as much as, and weigh more than, machine parts when importing. So I would argue that even if you need power only for part of the day, it's wiser to use wind instead of solar, because even for daytime power you pay at least twice as much upkeep in metals for solar power vs wind. Basically, even in the early game I would just import a few more machine parts. The dust repulsion tech cuts solar upkeep in half, which however means you will still spend at least twice as much metal per power compared to upgraded wind turbines, and the tech (usually) comes after stirling generators, so there is little incentive either way. And lastly, you're also screwed as soon as you terraform.

I actually tried a solar + battery only game with spaceY (solar array + free atomic accumulator), and at some point stopped after eating through my starting metal, some imports, and a complete iron mine just to power my first 4-5 domes, losing half my people twice in a dust storm despite 4 batteries + accumulator, and then getting finished by two unlucky meteor storms and an import embargo from a mystery. This is obviously just one example, but still, wind only for a long time is basically standard.

So, to fix the last imbalance, I have a few ideas... you could change low-g-turbines from buffing wind power to enabling it at all, though that would make the early game a bit more annoying. Altermatively, switch the positions of the dust repulsion tech with poly blades while significantly buffing its effect, so that a large solar panel's upkeep drops to 0.25 metals. This would mean that solar panels would have the upkeep of buffed wind turbines in metal (1.5 metal/machine parts for 20 continuous power). An over-reliance on solar would still mean significantly more batteries and thus polymer, no elevation bonuses, bigger dust storm risks, and an atmosphere malus, so it seems balanced. Basically, I would love it if solar panels (and fusion generators) at least extend to the mid game instead of suffering from the same fate as hydro farms, i.e. build a few of them if you absolutely have to in the early game, then forget them forever. Thoughts?

 

[Xeorm]

The sun wonder I'd consider the solar panels added onto the sides as being like the Mohole's upgrades. Part of the package that makes it even better, and which it does a fairly good job. Not sure I'd buff it as outside of the Mohole I consider the wonders as something extraneous that's not worth the cost but still fun to build.

Solar in general could really use a buff. Though consider too that not all buildings function all day. Solar's really cheap for handling buildings that you don't have working as night. Similarly can do the same for buildings that you're not worrying about running continuously like concrete extractors. If anything I'd go for large solar panels starting at .5 metal maintenance. That way it keeps being cheap even as metal gets scarcer. .1 metal maybe for after the tech upgrade.

Could do too with a breakthrough or deep terraforming tech that reduces/eliminates the solar panel's atmospheric reduction. That'd help too to extend to late game and keep them relevant.

 

[Mauer]

Even with the solar panels breakthrough, solar ends up being too costly in maintenance for the power you get from them, even more so with terraforming, and I don't think it should be completely obsolete by the mid-game.

 

[SillySMS]

Hey, fusion plants are great!

With the Eternal Fusion breakthrough that basically turns them into oversized Stirling generators.

Otherwise they're hilariously useless. 24 workers can run most of a machine parts factory and metals mine to supply dozens of non-scrubbed turbines. The number of workers needs to plummet and/or the power output soar.

One plausible way of nerfing turbines is to reduce their output when clustered, meaning you can't just put 100 turbines onto a plateau and then abuse the landscaping mechanics to extend the plateau and build even more..

EDIT: There is one minor mid game niche for solar panels, though. Emergency power, especially for cold waves. Shut them down at the end, and dust repulsion will make them nice and clean for the next emergency.

 

[Foefaller]

Fusion Power feels like it's for when your population issues have gone from, "I'm running out of applicants to keep the colony growing" to "I've just had to build a Medium Dome with nothing but playgrounds, schools, and nurseries."

At least, that's how it is for me w/o Green Planet, so long as I'm not exploiting elevation bonuses. Doesn't surprise me that double strength Wind Turbines make all other power options moot.

One plausible way of nerfing turbines is to reduce their output when clustered, meaning you can't just put 100 turbines onto a plateau and then abuse the landscaping mechanics to extend the plateau and build even more..

EDIT: There is one minor mid game niche for solar panels, though. Emergency power, especially for cold waves. Shut them down at the end, and dust repulsion will make them nice and clean for the next emergency.

I could see that, though realistically IIRC you don't have a meaningful drop-off in wind power until you've placed so many turbines next to each other that they actually change local weather patterns, and that usually doesn't come into play unless you're thinking of powering a major city.

Since the imbalance really goes into overdrive with terraforming, I could also see adding disasters that reduce or even disable wind power for a time. Hurricane-force winds that rip your turbines to shreds and prevent their replacement until it's all over, or aggressive vegetation jamming up the works of something that was designed for a desert, not a jungle.

...And Stirling Generators are much better at emergency power for cold waves than solar, no downtim, still contribute maintenance-free power when they aren't opened and you can order all the prefabs you need once you have the rare metal export business in place. What solar really needs is to be cheap enough power to provide the extra juice needed for daytime until/unless you have everywhere working night shifts.

 

[Xeorm]

Another option that might be good is to have wind power's generation vary randomly. Like if all wind farms generated somewhere between 50-150% of their regular power then that'd make them less desirable. Still strong, but less so.

 

[Major Malfunction]

For me its always stirlings, because you can pack them around scrubber. Fusion reactor without Eternal Fusion is garbage, which could drive your colony into disaster because workforce flow.
Wind all the way because, once again, you can pack a lot of them abound scrubbers.

 

[sterrius]

on my games where i have coldwaves with +200% power demand due to rules i go for a mix of Wind + Solar. For most of the game.

having a +200% powerspike is no joke. So im going for....

Enough windturbines to keep me safe from a dust storm.
Enough Solar Panels to fuel me through a cold wave.

That means for every 100 energy i need.
-> around 5-7 wind turbines. (Don´t remember if dust storm bonus is 150 or 200% now ).
-> 60 Solar Panels + 10 batterys. (for cold wave only).

During a normal day i keep the wind turbines working and reinforce with solar panels. Extra batterys and solar are offline to save maintance and can stay that way for weeks.

The reason i don´t just go full Wind is because by the time a cold wave is aproaching, i don´t want to spend dozens of machine parts to repair dozens of turbines that stayed offline for weeks. Metal is easy to have in hundreds instead and easy to import without going broke.



Sure i will try to replace for stirling generators later.
But even they will need some solar panels as backups during a coldwave.


Fusion generator: 3 Options where you can use them. One is rather silly but hey, it will work ^^.

1-> Automated fusion -> Luck. No job requirement and your energy demand is now fixed forever. but does need to use 100% of its power to make the cost of 3 eletronics worth it.

2-> Solar + Fusion -> 24 Jobs is too much, 6 is not. If you keep fusion at night you can disable/destroy your batterys and save quite a bit of polymer upkeep. Big domes can have quite a big demand for batterys so this does work.

3-> Cold wave/duststorm safe mechanism -> Can be used to replace the solar panels lategame. Useful on Megadomes.

 

[Major Malfunction]

From my experience, every session have some power-related breakthrough, so depending on that your options could vary but wind and stirling always come on top, because scrub maintenance..

 

[MarQan]

I was also surprised by the buff to wind and nerf to solar in GP, but that won't stop me from using mostly solar early-game (unless I'm really high), and using wind where I need continuous, relatively small amount of power.

The problem I think is with those other 3.

Stirling is not much good before Tribo, and not necessary after. Closed up it produces equal or less than a large wind Turbine, but it's much more expensive. Having no maintenance doesn't justify the mid-level research cost and the high price of the actual building. Occasionally I still use it, and it's good for cold waves, but not a main source of power, ever.
Even when you open it up, it won't produce much more than a Large Wind with polymer blades.

Fusion is kinda meh. The price is justified, but the workforce needed is too much. Given how much workers you need for an Electronics Factory, and how slow it produces Electronics, it just doesn't seem worth it. With all the free real estate I usually go for large wind or solar farms. Even for emergencies I'd rather keep nuclear batteries.

Artificial sun by itself is in a decent spot, but if it were more expensive, produced less, or cost more research, then I would consider building mroe Stirling and Fusion.

I'd also add that when you can just spam any kind of power building around Triboelectric Scrubbers, then the balancing question makes no sense to me, because you already won the game.

 

[YertyL]

So, I tried another game without wind or opened stirlings, which went considerably better thanks to a lot more starting metal and the eternal fusion breakthrough. But it also served as a nice illustration for two things: First, even in a game that was mostly solar for a long time, I regretted getting dust repulsion, because I ended up switching to fusion shortly afterwards anyways. That tech is just too little too late for such an early, and bad, power source.

And secondly, how manpower is really, really expensive. In the end game, my first/main base hosts about 500 people in 8 basic/barrel domes and 1 medium. But the "producer" population of this boils down to 3 factories, 2 hawking institutes, and 6 research labs, all fully staffed, and 3 people in a drone assembler. So the total worker count is 3 + 3*(5 + 10 +6) =66 for the factories, and 3*(2*8 + 6*3)=102 for research, 168 in total.
The rest is: 6 farms (and that's actually too little), 2 schools, 1 university, 2 medical centers, 2 clinics, 10 bigger comfort buildings (diner/bar/casino, so about 1 per dome/50 people), grocers, children, elderly, and a few (but not many) unemployed.

The whole base eats about 1300 power. Granted, that is with a mohole mine and 2 magnetic field generators, but it's otherwise not overly wasteful, e.g. only 4 appartments in total. If I wanted to power this with un-upgraded fusion generators, I would need 7 generators at 24 workers each, which is....168 total. So powering this base would take my entire working population in it.

That is just way too much just for power. At this point, I think you should actually at least triple fusion generator output, because it needs to be able to compete with instead building a mine and machine parts factory, or 1,5 polymer factories, and using that to spam regular power.

EDIT: The very rough math on that: 24 workers can either work a fusion generator, or a machine factory and 2 shifts in an iron mine. The latter cranks out 12 machine parts base production, which builds you 12 wind turbines (neglecting concrete cost), which give 60 power. So: After 1 sol the factory powers itself and the mine. After 4-5 sols, you have overtaken the fusion generator output, and you also have a machine parts factory, which will outproduce the turbine maintenance even without any upgrades. In my current game, 26 large wind turbines (which produce 260 power base, so 200 + machine parts factory) cost ~ 2 maint per sol (with reducing techs, but stil).

 

[knul]

Wind power is indeed overpowered. Solar is viable when you have surface metals, but once those run out, they're more expensive than wind.

Sterling is a very weak power source and its only advantage is that it is land efficient. Personally, I've never even covered the majority of the map, so in my games this land efficiency has never come up.

Stirlings take 15 advanced resources to build for 20 power. Wind turbines take 1 advanced resources per 5 power or 4 per 20 power. So even without any altitude bonusses, a wind turbine is about 4x less costly than stirlings (even better if you consider that electronics are harder to produce than polymers or machine parts).

Their low maintenance is just not that great compared to their very high cost. Compare a sterling vs 4 wind turbines. The first takes 1 advanced resource the second takes 2. But the sterling costs 11 more to start with. This means that only after 11 maintenance cycles, both setups have cost the same in advanced resources. Without tech, that means 77 sols.

You can easily get scrubbers in 77 sols, so there is basically no situation in which the low maintenance of sterlings ever pays off.

Closed sterlings are even worse. They are proof that people are overly sensitive to maintenance costs.

 

[jordanjay29]

Honestly, folks, I think solar is exactly as powered as it should be. This is surviving on Mars, not on the moon or Earth, and it's much farther from the sun. It makes a ton of sense that solar should be much less efficient over time.

I definitely agree with a buff for the artificial sun wonder and fusion generator, though. The fusion-based techs should really be a massive improvement in energy generation, and the generator needs a serious buff in either power or an upgrade to lower the colonist requirement.

 

[Foefaller]

Honestly, folks, I think solar is exactly as powered as it should be. This is surviving on Mars, not on the moon or Earth, and it's much farther from the sun. It makes a ton of sense that solar should be much less efficient over time.

I definitely agree with a buff for the artificial sun wonder and fusion generator, though. The fusion-based techs should really be a massive improvement in energy generation, and the generator needs a serious buff in either power or an upgrade to lower the colonist requirement.

Is it so much farther away from the sun that wind turbines beat it dispite Mars' atmosphere being 1/160 of Earth's though?

 

[sterrius]

Is it so much farther away from the sun that wind turbines beat it dispite Mars' atmosphere being 1/160 of Earth's though?

well for the poles they are planning wind powered drones. ^^. Its mostly possible now because we have new lighter materials that reduce the need for winds with the same amosphere as the earth.

but the real question is why we can´t use fuel to produce energy ^^.
likely because the game would become too easy if we go for that route ^^.


For me wind in surviving mars is more a problem of modifiers stacking too much together too early.

For solar the tech that clean dust should be moved to tier 2 instead of tier 3 to give it a better longevity so you can always get it way before the scrubbers and nuclear reactors. It will not save solar but will make you wonder if its worth removing them as soon you unlock better tech.

Also Wind Turbine buffs need to go to tier 2 together with solar dust tech. So they are equal to each other.

And finally altitude bonus could get a nerf. Its to easy to get a ton of free energy on a lot of maps just because you are in a high altitude.

Solar need to always be the cheapest one for small/medium requirements of energy. Just becoming expensive when you need absurd amounts of eletricity.

Wind is for medium/high demands that need 24h usage like domes.

Sterlings need either a nerf in cost or go to something like 15 energy closed/30 opened. As close to 100% of players agree its not worth using them.

Nuclear need a nerf in jobs needed to get working. (Around 50% current demand would make it viable to create "eletricity domes" ).


Also we can´t forget the impact of Dust Storms. Wind is the one most affected by them as even if you shut down 1/3 of the turbines you are still gonna pay a huge price to keep them working during a dust storm.

 

[Foefaller]

well for the poles they are planning wind powered drones. ^^. Its mostly possible now because we have new lighter materials that reduce the need for winds with the same amosphere as the earth.

but the real question is why we can´t use fuel to produce energy ^^.
likely because the game would become too easy if we go for that route ^^.

Because it would violate the laws of physics?

The fuel is created by separating water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis and refining it into making rocket fuel with oxidizer. Conservation of Energy states that you can not actually create energy, only change it into something else, and the Third Law of Thermodynamics state that you will always have entropy where energy is lost.

In short, no matter how efficient the system is, you will always get less electricity from fuel than you use to make said fuel in the first place.

 

[sterrius]

Because it would violate the laws of physics?

The fuel is created by separating water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis and refining it into making rocket fuel with oxidizer. Conservation of Energy states that you can not actually create energy, only change it into something else, and the Third Law of Thermodynamics state that you will always have entropy where energy is lost.

In short, no matter how efficient the system is, you will always get less electricity from fuel than you use to make said fuel in the first place.

still viable as a very stable power source. And one i can actually make a stockpile and import if they allows us to import fuel from earth in the future.

Also cheaper than a stirling generator as it works from the same infrastructure you need to fuel the rocket.

Oh and Surviving mars use Methane and O2 as fuel, not hydrogen . (its on their wiki).

Its basically the GHG factory. (That for me is spending too few fuel to work and it only needs 1/day).
Hope one day they make ghg factorys to actually burn 6-12 fuel/day.

 

[Foefaller]

still viable as a very stable power source. And one i can actually make a stockpile and import if they allows us to import fuel from earth in the future.

Also cheaper than a stirling generator as it works from the same infrastructure you need to fuel the rocket.

Oh and Surviving mars use Methane and O2 as fuel, not hydrogen . (its on their wiki).

Its basically the GHG factory. (That for me is spending too few fuel to work and it only needs 1/day).
Hope one day they make ghg factorys to actually burn 6-12 fuel/day.

Methane is CH4

So with a little carbon (probably from Mar's 96% CO2 atmosphere) it's making 1 mol of Methane and 2 mols of Oxygen for every 2 mols of water and 1 mol of CO2.

 

[wrnikolai]

I agree a lot with OP and his suggestions (early dust repulsion and others), but I have different ideas for balancing. First of all, without even touching anything, placing solar panels is annoying. They are very small (the 3 tile ones) and we dont have a 9 tile one like we have wind turbines. I only go solar panels when having the solar array.

For the balancing, I would make that they generate more energy, maybe 1,5 or twice as much (15 or 20), and that they dont suffer as much during dust storms, maybe that they produce half as much energy instead of shutting them down directly.

I also think of an indirect buff that is power management. This is, power (water and oxygen) is usually either green or red. It should be yellow if its being drawn during the night, but you have enough to survive until next day, and red even if you are positive but you dont have enough to recharge to surive the next night. I say this, cause its annoying to know, and you have to constantly check these things and making calculations. Same method would work for water and oxygen too.

Lastly, Id remove the atmosfere penalty completely. Its just another useless nerf of a very useless building.

PS: I dont agree with a tech to enable wind turbines, but i would agree with removing the 33% tech boost.

 

[makaramus]

while playing terraforming I had breakthrought that doubling wind turbines
...
it was fun game (still it was not easy game because at very start of game electronics price doubled so I had very hard time with economy early game)