Feel the Power of the Sun (Solar Power)

[Proxy_PlayerHD]

There are only 6 threads about Solar panels... so here is another one!
Solar panels could be single blocks with only one side that must face the sun, but they could also be stackable like weapons. and they need something that makes them better/different than Power reactors: they must allways face the sun (which is easy with ships), a energy multiplier (20 Solar panels attached to eachother will produce more energy than 20 single standing Solar panels), one Solar panel will produce (with full visible sunlight) twice the amount of Energy than a Power reactor, Crafting: 20 Alloyed Metal Mesh + 10 Crystal Composite (this shouldn't be to expensive), available for Ships and Space Stations.
while writing this Thread... this comes in my head for some reason.
any questions?

p.s.: pls make Heat Shields! (i want a Space Station orbiting a Star... with Solar Power!)

 

[Keptick]

There are only 6 threads about Solar panels... so here is another one!

You recognized this fact. And yet, you decided to make a pretty much identical thread anyways.... Why?

 

[Proxy_PlayerHD]

You recognized this fact. And yet, you decided to make a pretty much identical thread anyways.... Why?

because... reasons... i guess.

 

[Monchoman45]

I feel like I should point out that solar panels > reactors is the exact opposite of realistic. I mean, granted, we live in a cubic universe where stars are only like 32km apart, everyone and their mother has a jump drive, shields grow on trees, there is literally no iron anywhere, and all energy is free energy - but still.

On one hand, this would lead to interesting ship design. On the other hand, if solar panels underneath armor actually worked, I would be pretty annoyed; that has the implication that you would have to maximize surface area in order to get anything useful out of solar panels. You just know someone is going to build a titan solar sailor, and when they do, it's gonna be BIG.

We should probably stick with reactors.

 

[Lecic]

Solar Panels aren't going to be useful unless a fuel system is implemented. So, for just plain solar panels, I'm going to say no support.

 

[CaptainTaz]

I made a suggestion a while ago that made solar panels Station-only that gave an extended boost to power regen as long as you were in a system with a sun and had the panels not be covered by other objects.

 

[Monchoman45]

As a way to get past the 1m regen soft cap, they'd at least be useful, but you'll never beat docked reactors.

I should also point out that "not covered by other objects" is computationally intensive.

 

[Proxy_PlayerHD]

Solar Panels aren't going to be useful unless a fuel system is implemented.

ok, thats true. solar energy would be useless until we don't longer have blocks that magical produce energy. but, whenever you play a future update, and you are like: "oh, i'm running out of fuel..." and then you are looking back to this thread and will say to yourself: "why did i not agree?!". well, but when limited energy is planned, i hope solar panels will be planned too.

p.s.: i saw your thread GeneralEagleEye it was somekind of inspiration for this thread.

 

[lazarus78]

ok, thats true. solar energy would be useless until we don't longer have blocks that magical produce energy. but, whenever you play a future update, and you are like: "oh, i'm running out of fuel..." and then you are looking back to this thread and will say to yourself: "why did i not agree?!". well, but when limited energy is planned, i hope solar panels will be planned too.

p.s.: i saw your thread GeneralEagleEye it was somekind of inspiration for this thread.

Who says its magically making energy? They could be mini fusion reactors, which would account for their scalability, and near infinite power generation.

 

[EtherEel]

Well, I'm gunna guess that the Solar-panel/Solar-sail afficionadoes are Battlefleet-Gothic buffs.... (Am I right?)

There are major reasons why sole (and partial) dependence on Solar-power/Solar-wind isn't viable. First is that there are many "systems" with no stars; no star means no power. Second is that not all stars are created equal -- diversity is planned last I heard -- many stars in the real universe are incredibly undesirable to be near; they are violent and unpredictable. Solar power is also much less efficient and slow to be gathered in sufficient quantities to compete with (albeit fictional) "generated" power. As an addition on a station, sure I guess -- but it's just not really useful to ships, and Starmade is about ships. So: looks cool -- not really useful.

[I liked the look of Eldar ships but in common-sense terms solar-sails were counter-intuitive, an ill-conceived shortcut from that company's seagoing ships game (I won't elucidate the finer points of some other game here, though.)]

 

[Snk]

I do like the idea of solar panels, but I think current power generation needs to be looked at before anything else happens.