Alternative Energy Sources?

An option would be to have the solar work well at day and have wind turbines work well at night.

What if the very core of a planet could be harvested as a HUGE amount of energy and eventually doom the planet (but slowly). So maybe at one point both teams would be mining as fast as they could, while team A has just acquired a nuclear missile. So team A shoots over the missile and kills the entire mining team, however, when team B goes to assess the damage, they find team A has actually helped them by blowing a bigger hole in the world??? I'm just thinking out loud here, but it seems like a neat concept to me.

Does anyone remember geo power? No? Ok. :cry:

Geothermal power also has its limitations; It only is feasible in place where the earth's crust is thin. So it would cost more/less to build depending on the location.

Wind also is dependent on location; valleys and rivers tend to be more windy than other locations. As a result certain locations would provide more power than other locations. Also there is not always wind to collect. Oh no!

Nuclear power would be a good addition because you could regulate how much power you received from the plant. You could also "overclock" the reactor to receive far more energy; this however would cause the reactor to melt down and blow up if left alone. Pretty Mushroom!!!

While we are at it might as well throw hydroelectric dams; these also allow varied power production. At least while you have water behind the dam; use it to fast add you will be left with just trickle of water to power your army with.

This is the problem with "alternative" energy sources; you just can't use them anywhere.
However this "problem" creates strategic areas across the entire map, allows for many strategies, and choices of start areas.

Or we can just have a single source of energy, not ask how we get it and focuses =on obliterating each other and your respective planets to little bits... Yaaay!

I would like to play both of these ways. Maybe make them game types?

Id like asteroid impacts to reveal new geothermal locations!

That could be a cool map resource to fight over, very cheap energy in these locations.

Remove the dam, just use the tidal generator from TA. Much more space efficient.
To add to the idea of geothermal power, it would be a cool thing to use lava as an energy source, so lava planets would be your empire's main energy source.

Alternative energy solutions would certainly be cool. But if you do too many options it becomes redundant. There are not multiple factions like in Earth 2150 where each faction has a different way of gathering energy. I do believe development was fiddling with the idea of solar energy since planets will rotate. Though it would need more resource management because you would have to be able to store enough for the night or your whole economy would crash. Unlimited energy storage would solve this but also negate the idea of solar energy. At max two ways of gathering energy. Building energy generators, and then the natural energy, perhaps energy points like in SupCom there were the hydrogen generator resource points though severely limited.

The only thing I remember about it is loosing ******* ALL of it on Rougpelt.

DO NOT SPEAK OF THAT DEAMON PLANET!

Still pisses me off.

I liked Rougpelt. :3 The meteors always rained on my enemy.

Why do space based solar panels and wind farms have to be just passive collectors? Turn that maser beam that's pumping your energy (or if we're being very sciency, a zero width wormhole that just lets energy through) back down to your planetside base into a beamy weapon of beamy deathrays from space.

Use wind turbines to create and "blow" hurricanes and storms over enemy bases which could wreck anything not anchored down.

Why not even more exotic ways to collect energy? Heatpumps that work continually, so long as the ambient temperature is above the freezing point of the refrigerant, superconductive cables taking heat from geothermal sources without the need for water (just a heck of a lot of drilling). Spinny solar sails that sit in a Lagrange that work as a solar wind turbine, again, masering/wormholing energy back to the planet.

Zero point/exotic matter/black hole/magic energy generators should defo be a high tier energy resource, along with hydrocarbon coal/oil/gas stations. What do robots care about pollution?

Some cool ideas... but pollution causes corrosion - so your bots would have greater wear and tear

Can this be a major reason why everyone is fighting?

Commander! Enemy ships have arrived in orbit!
Commander: Friend or foe?
Ships: SURRENDER YOUR POLLUTANT-POWERED WARMACHINE OR BE DESTROED, YOU FOUL PLANET-MOLESTORS! THE WARRIORS OF GAIA HAVE COME TO SAVE THIS WORLD!
Commander: /facedesk

What is wrong with so many posters? Too much anime? So much is wrong with this post that I ... have you even gone to school, ever?

Something doesn't have to be scientifically accurate to be an interesting or fun addition.
It's a game

There is a difference between scientifically accurate and sciency. In the latter you play around with scientific principles in predictable and (hand-wavily) semi-realistic methods. Something like the teleportation gates in TA.

Wind turbines (or generators) are passive devices that have no internal power of their own. Their blades are moved by wind passing over them.

How the $(*$* does someone get that that would be able to generate a wind blast, or even a hurricane?

Yeah, and they also should make the lasers invisible. Also, small planets should have such a low gravity that anything that shoots will fly backwards from the recoil. :roll:

Calm down seriously.


As you seem to know how a turbine work, you can easily convert a generator into an electrical motor. They'd obviously draw energy instead of creating it (oh no, energy doesn't gets created, it can only get converted, oh my, I should go to school again, poor me).

Do you have any idea as to the difference between those two operations? The amount of power generated by the wind turbine is very poor with present human technology. Even if you assume that in the universe of PA you can get 100% efficiency with wind turbines, you still can not assume that pushing the blades via electrical power would produce even .01% of the total wind that flows above, below and around the turbine. Planetary weather is a complex and powerful phenomenon that is a result of interactions between oceans, air pressure, solar power, etc. Assuming you can create a hurricane with a field of wind turbines set to "reverse" is absolutely moronic. It doesn't make sense even from a science fiction hand-waving standpoint. The idea sounds like the ridiculously stupid, idiotic cr*p that anime is filled with.

No, I am tired of seeing quality, well thought out suggestions that contribute to the discussion of this game being pushed down in the boards by this junk.

Wind turbines contain dynamos, dynamos can act as electric engines.. Add some form of capacity battery and bob's your uncle.

I was thinking along these lines when he mentioned his maser with some kind of orbital solar collector.. Launch.. charge.. when full it acts as a cyclable laser on some ground target..

Could be interesting..

Might make a nice mod!