This isn't really critical to gameplay, but it might end up changing it slightly. Does anyone know if there are any plans to make energy plants a little more believeable? Currently they have a little spinny bit on top, you build one wherever you like and it just "makes" a constant supply of energy. It may seem a little petty, but the fact that there's no indication of where the energy is coming from rather removes the immersion for me. I really enjoyed the variable wind and tidal farms of TA, and even the solar plants at least showed where they were getting the energy. I'd really like a similar system on PA, where you need a mix of all three in order to ensure a constant supply, and your supply depends upon the resources available to you (solar only works during the day, wind is useless on airless rocks, tidal cannot be built if there is no water). What do people think?
Other alternate sources of power are good too. Radiation sinks might work in heavily irradiated areas of space, such as in nebulas and around pulsars. Geothermal would be a T1 type thing if nature was the only source of energy. Even TA had Fusion Gens at Advanced Tech because of how unpredictable natural sources could be. Also fusing atoms tends to be a better source of power than mother nature's farts.
Geothermal makes a nice T2 though due to the fact that the locations are limited, so you need to control specific locations to build them and you don't have the danger of losing cost due to resource over-abundance. If people don't want the complication of lots of different types of generators I'd be fine with the generators being matter converters - it's a semi-plausible idea. By this I mean that energy plants require a constant small amount of metal - this metal is being converted directly into pure energy, and because E=mc^2 only a trickle is needed.
Would be nice if they indeed was like solar power, or wind power. That little spinny thing is a bit underwhelming but again i doubt the building is even close to final. It would be nice with spots that would give better energy.
The solar one would be an interesting game mechanic if it only worked during the time they are in the sun! You could make them really good (3 times better than wind ones for the same cost, say) but they only produce energy during the day so you need energy storage and/or a 'balanced' mix of generator types.
The way I always saw it, the 'fuel' is part of the Mass cost, and given the basic game length I've never had issues with being worried about the Generator running out of fuel. Mike
Start point being on the night area, so out of luck. (This isn't a new idea and why its not a good idea has been allready discussed to death.)
Hmm...ok I can see where you're coming from. I can buy that. I would still prefer something more dynamic, where you are harvesting your energy from the environment around you, but I'm not going to whine any further if the devs want to keep it simple. I can always mod it in.
It hasn't been discussed very thoroughly in my opinion, mostly because people think about it and discuss it, in a vacuum.
Well this is why if you were going for various sources of energy, you'd need to go the whole hog. All of them have their drawbacks and you need a selection of each to complement one another. If you start on the night side of the planet, you put up some wind and/or tidal generators to keep you going until day breaks. I'd find it a more immersive experience, but I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't need careful planning to pull off such a system.
Just make pretend that they are permanent magnet generators and dont look up how those work and youre golden lol
Actually, I've seen very little discussion of these kind of ideas. It's a topic brought up only in passing with little dissection or discussion. Furthermore, the concept of variable power supplies has a lot of interesting mechanics behind it. We all want things to be competitive and balanced, but there are far too many people who cry "It isn't flawlessly symmetrical and is therefore unbalanced" at the first sight of an idea which promises to generate situational strategy. The same kind of people who have decried procedurally generated maps as unplayable because they aren't flawless. I think that concept is steadily having nails driven into it's coffin, and I see no reason why more situational power can't balance relatively easily as well. For a start in PA you can choose where you start. If you want to go for a risky rush that relies heavily on solar power, then make sure you pick a spot on the lightside of a planetary body. If you don't want to, thats fine too. Defenses allow a player to trade initiative for efficiency, allowing them to temporarily stand up to a more aggressive player (as long as they don't go full turtle), and come back with something clever once the initial rush is defeated. Adapting one's strategies to fit the current situation is a huge part of differentiating a strategy game from a tactical clickfest. Furthermore, planetary rotation at the moment completes a cycle every couple of minutes. It's pretty hard to build and stage an entire rush against a competent opponent in the time it takes for half a revolution. In fact, i've not seen a single match which is over in the first 5 minutes which doesn't involve com-bombing shenanigans. Finally, you seem to be assuming it's a T1 deal. Efficient, but situational and specialised sounds much more like what T2 is meant to be. So, solar could work well and can provide a contrast with conventional power. I'm assuming that conventional power is based upon nuclear technology of some description, and provides the baseline that other sources would be balanced around. To counteract the fact that solar is variable, It would make sense that it was a bit cheaper in terms of metal cost per energy production rate. What else can we glean from TA? Geothermal is obvious, particularly for lava planets, and the TA system of requiring specific points sounds sensible. Probably best as an efficient T1 plant, just to add a little variety to that level. Wind sounds reasonable. Perhaps the axial tilt of the planet could be the determining factor in how much it makes. I would expect it to be very variable and require lots of turbines, but cheap on a per unit basis. Tidal was also in TA. Perhaps it could be tied to the strength and size of any orbiting moons. Providing clues as to how good a particular source would be in a given location is a big part of removing that oh-so-dreaded "randomness", and allows players to make sensible plans as to how to the best use of available resources. T2 power plants at the moment are pretty much just bigger T1s. I would be tempted to make them more fragile, thus necessitating greater protection for their increased power capacity. We also have the gas-giant orbital fusion reactors that Jon Mavor has talked of. I imagine that these would be especially fragile if they are orbital structures. I don't know about the validity of power based on fossil fuels or biomass. However, i would be happy if some planets had sizable reclaimable resources of these resources. I imagine robots really aren't too fussy about where they get their power from, as long as there is plenty of it. Thus, i wouldn't have a problem if players might wander across oil spouts, coal seams or forests which can be reclaimed by engineers, producing a sizable quantity of power for a moderate length of time. Overall, i think that there are lots of different ways that power production can be made more interesting than T1 PP spam. Furthermore, by giving players the opportunity to recognise situational advantages for a more efficient particular power production method, we create granularity in terms of how players want to build their power. One player may be producing most of their power by way of an expensive jovian gas mine, and another player responds by covering the sunward side of a mercurial planet with photovoltaics, in order to keep up. This creates differentiation and points of weakness that the present system doesn't do a good job of creating. I also think that more efficient options may help with the fact that energy stalls are pretty common right now. In other words, gimme all the power options I can handle.
I agree MadScientist, the topic has not been touched on in any great depth. I was actually planning on doing a write up, but you've got it covered it seems. If you develop your thoughts any further, don't hesitate to share it with the forums. I for one, would love to read it.
Guess you cant read 'Battery backup' You do know how current solar setups work right? They charge batteries that release the power, storing the extra charge for night time usage. The numbers can always be subject to change. FWIW.
Thanks for the vote of interest, but I'm afraid I cannot think of too much more to say at the moment about power generation. I think the only form of power generation i've not touched on is hydroelectric. I'm not sure that dams would be well suited to PA, as we already have a "can only be built in special places" thing with the geothermal. I could possibly see them as a pre-built structure left over as the ruins of deceased industrial civilisations on some worlds, but i'm not really sure if that adds a lot to the game. Beyond that, we would enter the realms of exotic power-generation such as some sort of direct electromagnetic conversion of the electromagnetic fields of planets and stars, or super-sciencey dimensional energy extraction voodoo. However, i have been tempted to discuss the issues of "good" random/procedural features versus "bad" ones. Power generation does link in with this if the optimal conditions for certain power generation techniques are location based. It's probably a bit too abstract to interest some people. Maybe I will start a thread in the future. I haven't really been too active on the forums of late, as most of the key areas for discussion have stagnated a bit. Until we see more stuff implemented in the alpha, or get a bit more information from the devs, I may not have too much to talk about.
I've searched around a bit and haven't been able to find much about the plans for alternative energy sources. Have the devs stated how far they are planning to go beyond basic t1/t2 land/sea power gens? I know gas giants will have their own generator, but I would like to see the return of at least thermal and solar. Solar in particular seems like it could have a lot of interesting mechanics given we'll be fighting inside actual solar systems. I can see the mechanics of solar having issues if it takes into consideration day/night cycles, but I thought the more compelling use case was that they become more powerful the closer to the sun a planet is. Of coarse I also want them to function a lot like the TA version. Be very fragile when open, able to close and turtle up when attacked.
