I was watching some TA videos and saw that there where solar panels, wind turbines and even geothermal energy. I was wondering if PA was going to add these or are they just going to use the coventional power plant? If they did use the other forms, different energy buildings would probably work better onn certain planets than others. Geothermal energy plants would work best on lava planets for instance.
Yes a million times to environmental energy sources. Solar panels obviously shouldn't work at night, be more effective closer to the sun etc. Wind power needs atmosphere and certain kinds of planets could have more wind, desert planets for example could have a greater amount of wind than forested ones. And wave power obviously would need water. More water means more current? It's always nice to adapt your energy collection to the environment.
This honestly could be as easy as the game picking a visual representation of your power plant based on the planet you build it on (geothermal for lava, solar for asteroids, wind for deserts, etc) In the end there's a 99% chance that you can easily calculate which of the powerplants gives the most output for any given planet, so why even bother players with it? Unless they actually do something different (like the exploding fusion reactors that give high risk, high reward power output over their smaller cousins, or geothermals that can only be built in special spots), you can use visual distinction just because it looks cool.
Well, in TA you had solar, wind and tidal power plants at tier 1. The difference of those was in their cost and how much they've generated depending on the map settings. Solar was a fixed amount in any area, in a pretty durable building. Wind was only useful on certain maps with high wind, but when it was possible to use them they provided very cheap energy in a very fragile building. Tidal power was obviously only available in water but gave you more energy then the solar and could be built in a safe spot from land units. This gives a (arguably not the biggest) gameplay difference between those buildings on different maps. With high wind you could get energy cheaper and with water you could position your energy producers differently. This is imo much more interesting then just having cosmetic differences.
Wind power was also variable, not constant. Tidal power generated an amount that was dependant on the map. Geothermal was constant, as was fusion power.
PA is focusing on the macro, not the micro, so I'd expect one power structure, and a 2nd for when you are on a gas giant. You could obviously mod in additional ones, or plugins based on the biome, if you wanted more.
Biome-related power plants would be pretty sweet eye-candy, if the artists find themselves at a loose end while the rest of the game is finished. No performance difference, but it'd be cool to see solar collectors glinting, wind farms spinning and hydrocarbon plants belching away low-poly smoke blobs. No micro naturally, you just build "power plant" and the resulting model is dependent on the biome, and it produces +20 power.
Now that I think about it, what do PA power plants run on? I think their most probably nuclear fission plants since: 1. not likely oil, gas or coal since there's no smoke or fuel being put in. 2. not likely solar since... well does it look like a solar panel. 3. not likely wind since ^ same reason. 4. not likely geo since you gan place them on moons and asteroids. 5. it's not tidal since it's on land. 6. fusion is reserved for gas giants so it cant be them.
I'm not sure what part is "hard to see" or "inconsistent". Does a solar panel look like a wind turbine to you? Is it inconsistent that solar power works better with more sun and worse with no sun?
My bad, the thread is talking about both... the post before yours was about PA, so I assumed your were referring to that.
I want to re-open this discussion. I think the current tech 1 power generation is too 1 dimensional. I'd like to see geothermal spots, that's a nice and simple mechanic that people understand. It also opens the game to having more strategic locations on the map to fight over which is always a good thing. I also think you can differentiate two other types of t1 power generators: 1) Solar, for simplicity this will generate up to a fixed amount but will increase and decrease with the cycle of the day. That way solar in only 1 spot would require lots of energy storage to last the night or the player can spam solar all around the globe creating more consistent power generation. 2) Wind, wind can be build on planets with atmospheres and generate a consistent amount like current power generators do. Perhaps some planets are more windy than others, you could display a simple wind speed which equates to power generated per power generator at the start of the game and in the solar system view. Both can be build on land and in water. I'm less sold on solar and wind but I am completely sold on geothermal as the geographic strategic possibilities it opens are huge! Also, with geographic dependance introduced to power generation it allows metal extractors to be build anywhere on metal planets without sacrificing the geographically dependant interesting strategic gameplay. As for laval planets, I wouldn't necessarily allow you to build geothermal plants anywhere but just spawn more geothermal vents than other worlds.
