What the hell happened to solar arrays?

I dont remember how much energy solar arrays outputed, i think it was around 20,000
But now they only put 4000 energy. There is so many problems with this.
Compare this to T2

Sollar Arrays output 4000 energy
T2 energy ouputs 5000 energy

Sollar Arrays cost 3000 mass and 375,000 energy
T2 energy costs 2700 mass and 270,000 energy (or 329,940 if you do it with air)

Sollar Arrays have 2500 health
T2 energy has 4500 health

and lets not mention the fact at how much it is to go orbital and getting orbital fabbers compared to planet-based T2 fabbers

Seriously, this needs to change, T2 is better in every way, this really should change, i mean cmon....solar arrays directly harness the power of the sun!

Yeah they are basically a waste of resources right now.

On the other hand, solar arrays + 1 anchor = very well protected power with very little the enemy will be able to do to deny you that power. Also not to mention that if you are going for early orbital solar arrays make more sense than separately teching to t2 and t2 fabbers are used for an array of other stuff so they may not always be available to build power while you can almost always spare an orbital fabber for some power.

Fusions plants basically simulate the sun

You can technically defend them easier. If you opt for mostly orbital power, you can simply not have such a thing as a power crash. The building power that way is the problem, its a slower of a creep up.

Also, it is a way to go orbital and still get t2 power. Too bad there is no t2 metal variant. Because sometimes you go orbital now without going t2 yet, so you can't get t2 power and orbital at same time. Now, you kinda sorta can.

Bring on the orbital mining satellite. Also we need gas giants for that.

What if you could build a receiving station on the ground, which gives you a power boost when your solar arrays hover over it?

Probably too much micro.

Not really, all you have to do is tell you arrays to hover over the receiver. We don't need giant concentrating mirrors or anything like that.

What he means, is how do I easily place 50 of them in less then, say 6 clicks?

Place what?

What micro? Build a ground station, move the mirrors overhead, and let them assist automatically. It's not very different from assisting a factory.

50 of these assisting solar arrays.

Technically not a mirror. They take in the sunlight, and basically convert it to microwaves which are then beamed down.

These what?

How do I build 50 of:

this, in less then 6 clicks?

The same way you build a bunch of power generators or storage units.

(with t1 & t2 ground based, you can click-drag to draw a line of em to be built - w/ solars you have to click for each one?)

But we're talking about a building on the ground.

Right?

The two-stage solar generator really isn't a bad idea. There are a few reasons it can work very well:

1) High initial cost, low scaling cost. The ground station, ground tier, and orbital tier requirements are expensive, but each individual satellite is cheap. This 2-step system creates a powerful late game resource that can't be rushed.

2) The ground station is the most important and weakest link in the chain. Encouraging ground warfare is very good.

3) Even if you can't kill the ground bit, you can still cause severe damage by attacking the orbital bits. Extra weaknesses on high tier equipment is also very good.

4) When the planet is destroyed, orbital resources go away. Dead space stays dead, which is very important for keeping battles focused on the last remaining bits of map.

Overall it's probably the best idea for a high tier generator yet. It will take some extra effort to overcome the UI issues, but IMO it's well worth the hassle for what it gives.

Do the details really matter? Light comes in, light goes out. Energy is made. They could be beaming down alpha radiation directly for use as fusion fuel, for all that it matters.

I think there cost to output ratio needs to be tweaked a bit. They really aren't that safe, just in another layer.