[Solar panel usefull or just pretty?]

Hello,

After you have installed more than 10 solar panels, I just realized that it did not seem Strictly nothing.
At first I was hoping to make an end station without refinery or craft (light and gravity only) turn
And, I perceive that not only I can not do ANYTHING without turning Uranium, but also that despite the exorbitant cost of 10 panels, they do not even cut a small can in the very long term consomation Uranium .
Not to mention the huge area they occupy.

In short, they will be revisited? or did I just not understand their purpose?
I just request help or advice, because I'm annoyed.


Thanks a lot for reading, sorry for my bad English :/

 

If you play realistic mode you will need cca 800 solar panels = 1 small 5MW generator on big ship and its not bug, we all tryed tell you before update that solar panels are useless and work only like decoration in realistic mode, becose you dont have enought energy from sun on 1m2 + this solar panels still work beter then excepted with 100% energy colected from 1m2. Solutions:

Play survival * 3/10/atc... ( only option you can do now )
Find stronger Sun
Get near sun, but dont start overheat or energy colecting will slow down

 

Indeed, just like in real life, you need a ton of solar panels for the energy output to be even noticeable.

Really they'll only be useful if we're allowed to route how energy flows inside ships and stations. This way we can dedicate solar panels for small things such as lights.

 

I'm still constructing my first solar panel, and reading this forum I'm wondering if I shouldn't just take it apart again... Can you guys tell me what the output of a solar panel is on a big ship?

 

IMO solar panels are very useful, just need to know hot to use them effectively.
If you want to power a thrusters or an industrial complex, good luck cause it will require silly amounts of solar panels.
However, Solar panels can cover small power demands on a large ship or station. Lights, spot-lights, assembler/refinery on standby, medical bays, and gravity generators all require energy to tun. A ship or station could potentially avoid wasting precocious Uranium on these if it uses solar panels, using nuclear power only when real work begins.

Basically use them to run your base when you are not refining, building, or moving a large ship. I do need to test the potential of beacons still.

 

In that case I'll carry on That was what I wanted them for. Been looking at the wiki, but couldn't find the power usage of a spotlight on a large ship. Any ideas how many I could power with a solar panel in optimal conditions?

 

its always funny to watch ppl learning stuff the hard way

 

I made some solar panels at my base in realistic mode.

Figured they would;
1. Make the station look like a space station.
2. Be my backup in case I play the game drunk and burn all my uranium after I fall asleep in the chair. At least the solar panels will allow me to run the refinery to get more uranium... or will it ?

Anyways, they look pretty.

 

They're great with small ship beacon satelites for marking places :}

 

I accidently found them VERY useful when we ran out of uranium (we forgot to keep checking fuel levels). Having a solar panel meant we could at least still refine some uranium (albeit very slowly) to bring the reactor back online.

That alone IMO is worth the cost, even for a single panel like we had. They make a great emergency backup, despite not delivering much power at all. At least you're not stuck in a perpetual cycle of no fuel to power the refinery to make fuel (once you have solar power).

 

I think solar panels can be useful with some bateries, energy cells, mechanical rotating bateries ( i forget name of it ) so energy can be saved and used later, but when you creating energy and consume at same time its problem even with rafireny creating uran rod.

But for now: all can see how much energy solar panels creating :rof:

 

who told you that that shinny star you see there is the SUN? our Sun? that can be whatever star, bigger and more powerful than our Sun
1 solar panel can delivery enough energy for a medical bay.
Batteries would be a very nice addition to the survival game, I hope they hear us, I know they (Devs) do, but... who knows

 

The technology in-game does not seem very interstellar-capable. Given there are no FTL engines available, and the year is 2077, leading me to conclude that the solar system must be our own, because it'd take way more than 50-ish years to reach the nearest star at sublight speeds.
Plus I also doubt it due to the semi-realistic direction the devs want the game to go.

Although, the star does seem quite large. The sun would be a lot smaller when looked at from the asteroid belt.
Furthermore, asteroids aren't as close together as they're in the game. The average distance between them does not go into the hundreds of meters. And not even thousands or hundred thousands. It goes to the millions of kilometers.

But I take that more as a gameplay thing than an actual hint towards the setting of the game world.

 

The panels -are- useful. I use them to run my station, it's just that you have to turn on a generator if you are going to do something like, Run your assembler or a refinery. If your station is just a beacon and a few grav generators, by all means add a few solar panels, and you don't run down any of your uranium. It's just like IRL: you can use them to run small things, like beacons or individual systems, but you need a massive array to run a facility.

Working as intended.

I would like to see, as SaturaxCZ mentions uptop, something like batteries being introduced to the game, so we can make charging stations. That would be really useful, and would be a form of energy production that people could do. You could make energy cells or something to trade.

 

I'm finding the solar panels extremely useful in survival. Check creative for my first solar panel creation and you know why. Its just a matter of figuring out what to do with them. But I had foreseen the usefulness of them. Solar Panel is the perfect backup energy source.

 

I thought I read on somewhere that SE is supposed to be based in the asteroid belt in our solar system. That is what the Devs intended, at any rate.

So they did set it so that the refinery can run (slowly) in an underpowered state to create uranium in an emergency? That's excellent and exactly what I was hoping solar panels would do for us.

That's a very cool idea. I've been doing alot of mining in the middle of an asteroid but it's currently out of range of my station's grav generator. Didn't even think of setting up a "station" on the other side of the asteroid with just a grav generator. I'll definitely have to give that a try.

 

Actually, with a so small map, Becon Station is just for "Fun", but if Dev'do speedly an infinite universe, it can be great.


Well, i'll build 50/100 or more Solar panel, but it's not really usefull :/

 

I love my solar panels.

I installed 4 on the roof of my station, with 3/4 solar coverage. They power grav-gen, refinery, assembler and a couple dozen lights. Grav-gen is always on, refinery and assembler run on their own, at different times. (I tend to work it that way on purpose.... Not because of power issues). Lights are always on.

I really enjoy the solar panels. They look super cool, and power my entire station so far.... I definitely plan on building more if my station requires more power. I prefer them over reactors for this purpose.....

I wouldn't put them on a ship though..... Personal preference. To me, ship needs fuel = uranium. A station should be self sufficient = solar panels.

 

I am working towards a station running only on solar power, in 3x mode.
I currently have 15 solar panels, generating 61kW of power.
It's not enough for the refinery to run. Current station power usage is a bit over 500kW.
Based on that, I only need another 120-130 panels.
By the time I am finished, this asteroid is going to look pretty...

 

Solar panels are good for satelites or other build and forget type of stuff(like decorations, roadmarks, interior lighting), powering a refinery/assembler on them however would require an ISS sized space station..

 

Now i realy want asteroids be moveable and block sunlight of every base with solar panels. For now i will creat some bigship. Of course i can move it, but it will have price :rof:

Last picture before atack on base :rof:

 

Yeah, but on a Small map who build this type of station? It can be INCREDIBLE on an infinite world sure...

 

I am working on a solar refinery complex/space station... wish me luck ^^

 

Solar powered beacons and small ships are much more effective than I thought they would be...

Too fragile for mining and too weak for industry but awesome everywhere else.

 

Useful even for industry, I'd say. Especially if you don't want to waste power during idle time. My station can keep the lights and gravity on while running one refinery/assembler, which is fine for long processing loads. I often leave it running for large times to process large ore loads.

Linky: http://forums.keenswh.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1282057891&postcount=509

 

I just loaded my 16 refineries with ore and there's enough uranium in my reactor for 12 hours of operation. I can't imagine waiting long enough to refine large quantities with one solar-powered refinery.

What I could visualize is making a backup refining setup that has enough solar power to refine an ingot of uranium in case I run out. But I have my extra ingot in a separate ship just in case, so even that seems like a waste of time.

But my beacons here-and-there, that never turn off... me like...

 

you could just change the power output yourself just open the Cubeblocks.sbc in the content\data folder with a text editor search for LargeBlockSolarPanel go down to the value <MaxPowerOutput> change the value to wahtever you like.

 

the solar panels are ok, dont cry, in the reality the solar panels arent too powerful, so, i think they are ok, they CANT be as powerfull as a reactor because they DONT requires fuel to work.

 

as powerfull as a reactor no but not 1 to 800. also the game sems to prefer the reactor because if you have solars and a reactor the solars wil not work at full capacity.

 

Lol this solar panes work on 110%, only problem why they dont creat more energy is becose you dont have more energy on 1m2 so if you want easy mode play survival x3 x10, but have 800 soalr panels is still unrealistic few. Throught creat energy bateries, will alowe us store energy and us in right moment.