Solar Energy Thoughts

In Total Annihilation, solar energy was one of the three energy types that could be harvested immediately (the others were wind and tidal). Solar collectors produced a small but constant amount of power in any environment, basking in the light of eternal day.

Things have the potential to change in Planetary Annihilation because of the solar system-wide scale of the game. There are night and day cycles, the planets are round, and there will be objects in orbit with varying rates of rotation (with the possibility of seasons).

Complexity Level 1
At this level we have the old TA solar collectors. Build them and they make a constant amount of energy no matter what.

Complexity Level 2
At this level, solar collectors are capable of producing energy at 2 different rates.
The solar collector produces a high amount of energy if it can see the sun, and a low (possibly, but not necessarily 0) amount of energy if it can not.

This level of complexity allows interesting strategies to occur that were not possible in previous iterations such as TA. The player would like to maximize the time that their solar collectors could see the sun.

Good places to put these structures would be at the polls of a planet where, depending on the axial tilt of the planet, it may always be possible to see the sun. If the planet is tilted in space with respect to it's orbital plane, there would be seasons where the player would receive more (summer) or less (winter) solar energy. Another good place to put a solar collecting structure would be in orbit around the planet. In certain orbits (ex. polar orbit) the structure would see the sun nearly 100% of the time. One of the best places to put a solar collector would be on an object that is tidally locked to the sun. Tidal lock is a condition where an object's rotational period exactly matches its' orbital period (like the Moon is to Earth). Solar collectors placed on the sunny side of such a body would forever be in the sun's light.

Complexity Level 3
At this level, distance to the system's star counts. Imagine Object A and Object B. If Object B is half the distance from the sun as Object A, it will receive 4 times as much energy as an identical Object A. This is called an inverse square law and is very common in physics. Basically, solar collectors on the inner planets will receive much more energy than those on outer planets. All of the Complexity Level 2 strategies still apply too.

Other Thoughts
It is possible to think of other mechanics for implementing solar energy in PA, like weather and atmospheric effects. Maybe you can come up with something good. It would also be cool to have the solar collectors have animations that follow the sun through the sky, but probably too much to ask for the angle of incidence to be taken into account by the game.

Thanks for reading. Vote in the poll if you wish.

I like the third choice, but it has issues. What about the player that spawns in the outer planetoids? Our solar system is the reverse of the norm, gas giants are usually nearer to the sun while solid, rocky planets are farther away. Gas giants would otherwise be an excellent source of wind power. Aside from copious amounts of space radiation (which isn't nearly enough to power an army), you can't really harvest much energy directly from the environment far away from the sun, aside from fusion, fission, and antimatter-matter annihilation, which are always existent sources of energy unless you don't have matter.

Unless we're going to go into multidimensional/zero-point energy/alternate universe bullcrap.

Yes, player positioning would affect energy output with level 3, so there would be balance issues if players could spawn at different distances. Uber would have to balance it somehow. As for most gas planets being near their star, I'm not so sure of that. The current detection methods have sampling bias toward close in planets with quick orbits. Detecting a planet usually takes at least 2 orbits of that planet around its' star to observe 3 dimming events. To detect a gas giant in Jupiter's orbit using that method would take over 22 years and ain't nobody got time for that.

You can also convert mass to energy via Hawking radiation from singularities.

You know, just feed the thing a stream of mass to balance radiation outgoing and you have your own sun in a pocket.

Whoops! Poured too much in, now I've turned it off.

The level 2 (and 3) are interesting. Unfortunately it will bring a lot of balance issue.

Balance issues can be solved by giving players alternatives.
Besides, if you choose to not start in a position with good solar output then you must take the consequences along with that choice. Picking a start location (with the proposed in mind) just makes picking your start location require some more thought.

As long as this doesn't end up as a "Challenge of Calculation", rather than an actual choice...

Sign me up for Complexity Level 3. The increased strategic depth of that option is more than worth the complexity level in my opinion.

Complexity level 3 for me. Currently the only things I really think about when choosing spawn is proximity to metal and defensible terrain. It would be nice to have other things to consider, like proximity to the sun and geolocation.

viewtopic.php?p=760456#p760456

Although i personally find polls a bit overused or misused, my support for this lies with option 3. However, i really think this idea can only really shine if used in the context of even more energy sources, as discussed elsewhere.

By itself, solar would be a simple calculation. If i'm close to the sun, I have cheaper energy, if i'm farther away, I do not. pretty shallow.

However if part of a diverse system of possible energy sources including nuclear, wind, tidal, He3-fusion and geothermal, there are suddenly a lot more options as to how we power our war machines. Although the act of finding out where the best place is for a given power supply is a calculation, the externalities arising from it are important choices. It's no longer a simple calculation as to "does solar outcompete conventional or not", but a deep choice where players strategies interact with the energy landscape they have available.

Thus my support for solar would be conditional on it being just one option among many. If not, then i would rather save time and stick with the simple (if a little dull) two generator system that we have now.

A good point. I can see us ending up modding in this new economic system xD

I don't mean to imply that the other energy sources should be removed. I'm just noting that solar energy will be fundamentally different, while others, like geothermal, will likely be much the same. Issues like map balance could solved by symmetrical maps, by having other satisfactory energy generation methods, or by simply moving solar power out of T1.

Perhaps solar power could fill the low-metal medium-output niche in the late game, where you would just cover asteroids and inner planets with them. Obviously solar would not be the most area-efficient generation method because there is a set amount of sunlight that each square area receives.

There's little reason to use solar power when all forms of nuclear and fusion power are readily available. So, when are nuclear/fusion power unavailable?

Perhaps asteroids have the answer. Their meager surface bears few resources needed for power generation. There is no deep crust heat sink, nor any viable methods of removing large amounts of heat. It seems that solar power would be the most effective!

It is much easier to control day/night cycle on an asteroid, and it may prove necessary to limit resource generation on asteroids. Solar power works well with both.

Don't worry, I know you're not suggesting that solar should be by itself. I'm merely pointing out that solar only truly works with all the options. I hope that if multiple forms of energy generation are included, they will all have different factors in leading to their function. For example:

Solar: Proximity and LOS to the sun.
Wind: Planetary axial tilt and height of the turbine.
Tidal: Proximity and size of orbiting moons.
Geothermal: Requires a fixed hotspot.
T1 Nuclear: Standard, tough and reliable if there are no environmental resources to make use of.
T2 Nuclear: Reliable and very high performance, but fragile.
Orbital Fusion Reactor: Must be built around a gas giant. Ludicrous power output but difficult to defend.

The idea is to create lots of variety, making the choice of how to power our war-machines an interesting one. The reason is that although on a case by case basis, the calculation of which power-plant to build is potentially quite simple, the whole ensemble of options in conjunction with the strategy required to support them is an interesting choice. Do I focus my efforts on capturing that gas giant, or go for the mercurial hell-hole that's close to the sun? That lava world looks tempting on the metal and geothermal front, but if i go for the oceanic world with the giant orbiting moon, I can make use of naval units and tidal power. Or I can stick with good old-fashioned reliable nuclear, and make use of their compact nature to hide them out on tiny asteroids in the dim reaches of the solar system.

Without the whole ensemble of choices, I'm not confident solar could work as competing purely against nuclear, simply because the choice would end up being quite simple.

I'm pleasantly surprised with the level of support for the more complex options. I think there are a lot of mechanics we can explore if we want to head down the route of a more dynamic economy system for PA

btw, It make more sense to build fusion reactors on moon.


Having several way to produce energy is an interesting idea. But it should not become over complex, just for the beauty of the complexity. Keep in mind that PA is a game, so the game components should have a reason to exist, they have to bring something interesting in the rule of the game.

Actually, the He3 content of a gas giant is significantly greater than lunar-regolith. The only reason a lot of science fiction authors posit lunar mining is that the moon is a lot closer to earth than jupiter.

The H3 of jupiter is contained into its atmosphere. Atmosphere is not accessible from an orbital level, or maybe with a giant sucker machine... *start to make the blueprints*

Wasn't the idea of a gigantic satellite with a hose and a pump for Gas Giants tossed around?

Yes it was, by Jon himself.
The idea of a giant orbital hose pipe being fed from the upper atmosphere of a gas-giant is so epic in its foolishness that it wraps around and becomes awesome. It's so silly that I just find myself giggling at the prospect.