[AddOn v1.15] Advanced Solar Panel 1.2

Name: Advanced Solar Panel
Summary: A 12 times more efficient solar panel that will deliver 11 EU/t in the sunlight and 1 EU/t in the moonlight. (These 2 values are configurable in the config file.)
Default Block ID: 221

Description: The tier 1 Solar Panels are horribly inefficient due to the poor quality materials used in construction. They are only able to transform sunlight into 1 EU/t. The Advanced Solar Panels are able to transform the very same sunlight into 11 EU/t. In fact they are so efficient they are even able to transform the full moons light into 1 EU/t.

The Advanced Solar Panel retains 1.6% of Lapotron Crystal’s EU storage capacity allowing each Advanced Solar Panel to store 16000 EU even when your energy storage unit is already full. That is 160 times increase in storage capacity over the Solar Panel. However in order to maintain top efficiency high voltage* is used to transfer power and therefore should only be attached to high voltage machines. It is also able to output any stored energy at 512 EU/t.

The high quality material means it is very sturdy and there is 0% chance that it will break when moved with a wrench. So say goodbye to huge solar flower farms and say hello to this new efficient renewable energy source. Disclaimer: Unfortunately this efficiency comes at the cost of requiring much higher grade components and you may have to sell a kidney to make an advanced solar flower array.

*Note: EU is a measurement of voltage and amperage combined. The engineers have simply designed the Advanced Solar Panel to output at a high voltage with little amperage. This why it needs high voltage lines even though normally it will only output at 11 or 1 EU/t.

Recipe:
R = Reinforced Glass, C = Carbon Plate, A = Advanced Machine, F = Glass Fiber Cable, L = Lapotron Crystal (fully charged or completely empty)

“RRR”
“CAC“
“FLF“

R = Reinforced Glass, S = Solar Panel, C = Carbon Plate, A = Advanced Machine, L = Lapotron Crystal (fully charged or completely empty)

“RSR”
“CAC“
“_L_“

Screenshots:

Installation:

• WARNING: If you have had a version before 1.2 installed you MUST delete the IC2AdvancedSolarPanel.cfg file in the %appdata%/.minecraft/config/ directory.
  

  
  

• Make sure you go here and grab the latest version of Java.
• Then either put the attached zip file in your mods folder or unzip and put the contents directly into your minecraft.jar file.
• If there is a Block ID conflict with another add on or mod you can change it by going to %appdata%/.minecraft/config/ and changing the ID in the IC2AdvancedSolarPanel.cfg file (open it with notepad).
• If you think the EU generation is too high or too low the day and night output can be changed in the config file as well. Note: The maximum power that can be set for daytime generations is 16 EU/t. The max power generation for night time is 8 EU/t. Using values higher then these will result in these max values.

Version History:

Known Bugs:

Credits:
Code & Sprite – icedfire

I would also like to thank the IC2 team for making the original mod. I would like to thank Nargon for making the MCP patch file for IC2. If anyone else is interested in making IC2 mods with MCP he provided it for download here. I would also like to thank Drashian for making his Charging Bench mod. Once I decompiled that I used it as template to see the hooks in IC2.

Which one to Download?
mod_AdvancedSolarPanel_v1.0.1.1 – Is for IC2 Version 1.0
mod_AdvancedSolarPanel_v1.15.1.2 – Is for IC2 version v1.15

Thanks guys for the comments. Please keep them coming.

ultimate_omega,
I don't have any plans for a higher tiered watermill or windmill. Right now I m just focusing on finishing and fixing the exploits in this addon.

nathan,
I did think about using a tier 1 solar panel instead of the generator in the recipe. However having to craft (and remember the recipes for) 10 different machines in order to build just one gets old really fast. So I didn't want to add another layer with people having to craft a solar panel too. I also don't have any good ideas for making a unique tier 2 solar panel. Tier 3 solar panels output a lot and because of that they also have a cool capability of using moonlight to make a small amount of energy. The only thing I could do with tier 2 would be make it produce maybe 5 EU/t but that is kinda of boring.

I have also made a minor update and changed the default Block ID. There is no easy way to go through and look at every add on and mod out there. This is why I included the code so that the user can change the Block ID manually. However since I have the feeling that many people will be wanting more power after install the Rotary Macerator and because his mod was posted first I ll change my Block ID this time.

Ah yes one can never have enough power. Thanks for posting the pics of the advanced solar flowers.

cvl4317,
Please let me know how you think it breaks the game. Does it cost to little or does it output to much? Oh and I never liked tin cable any way. It was shockingly bad (like my pun) in the first place.

Quote from dezuman

Quite horribly game-breaking. 3 of these will produce about as much as a mk.1 2-chamber nuclear reactor, and guess which is cheaper?

Edit: Really, why make the simplest renewable energy source both 12x as compact AND *much* cheaper?

I m not really into the whole nuclear reactor thing however I m pretty sure you can make a mark I 0 chamber reactor with just 2 uranium next to each and 6 integrated heat dispensers around them and then surrounded by a 3x3x3 water block minus the reactor in the middle and the power cable leading out. Of course to some that many heat dispensers may seem a little expensive if you are having a hard time finding lapis. So you could reduce the costs and only use 2 integrated heat dispensers, 4 integrated reactor plating and 4 coolant cells, which should work just as well and be cheaper. It will generate 20 EU/t night and day for 8 days straight and you will only ever need to replace the uranium. Doing a little math and that is 200,000*20 which is 4,000,000 EU in total. The advanced solar panel will produce 11 EU for 100,000t (the day cycle) and 1 EU for 100,000t over that same 8 days. That is only 1,200,000 EU. That means you would need 3 of these panels and you will still be 400,000 EU off. I pretty sure that 3 panels are much more expensive than 1 reactor. I know that next thing your going to tell me is yes but you need to feed the reactor and to that I say so what. I find way more than 2 uranium every 8 days (and I m not even going to get into breeding here.) I can't do anything with uranium other than feed a reactor. So to me that is a moot point.

So lets recap. A simple nuclear reactor costs less, works underground, and generates more EU in total than 3 advanced solar panels. The only downside is that you have to spend 2 seconds refilling it every 8 days. You nuclear guys just get to caught up in efficiency so you throw resources at you reactors and then complain they cost to much.

Though I think in the next version I will switch out the generator for a lapotron crystal.

Quote from legomaniack

Suggestions:
Dont have glass fibers in recipe. HV cables make more sense.
have a ALTERNANT recipe for people who want to upgrade existing solar panels:
CAC
RSR
R=Refined iron
C=carbon (plate or fiber, idk)
S=solar panel
A=Advanced alloy.

Change id to work with R. macerator.

Other than this, AWESOME!

Display More

Well the reason I went with glass fiber cables is because it means the recipe requires that you can spare a diamond to make this. Also since solar panels transform the sunlight in to energy and glass fiber cables transmit energy through light I thought it was fitting.

I do like the idea of having an alternate recipe that uses a tier 1 solar panel. It probably wont be that recipe though. I will have to see how I could come close to (or make it just by a little cheaper) than the original recipe.

I already did change the ID to work with rotary macerator add on. Make sure you are using the latest version of this add on.

New version available 0.92.

I Was able to fix the title entity not deleting bug. I changed the recipe to require a Lapotron Crystal instead of a generator. I also added a recipe to recycle old Solar Panels.

I also added to more questions in the developers comments: "Also how much energy do you think the Advanced Solar Panel should be able to store since a Lapotron Crystal did go into the making of it? Do you think the Advanced Solar Panel should be a Low Voltage (batbox), Medium Voltage (MFS), or High Voltage Device (MFSU)?"

I m thinking about making it produce 16 EU/t but making it a high voltage device to were you could only use an MFSU with it. Either that or it will remain at 11 EU/t but it will become a medium voltage device requiring a MFS or MFSU. Thoughts or comments on this?

Blueblade11,
I m pretty sure you need at least Java 6. So you can try it with Java 6 and if it doesn't work it doesn't work. I m not going to provide any help if your not running the latest version of Java. Unless there is some specific reason why you can't you really should upgrade to Java 7.

dezuman,
I mainly only concerned with the hardest items to find in a recipe. The top three things in my experience is Diamonds, iron (because IC is very iron oriented), and coal (because it can either be turned into diamonds or it is needed for fuel, breeding, carbon plate, etc) in that order. So if I counted everything right for my low cost 0 chamber mark I you need 20 iron and 20 advanced alloy for the reactor. You then need 6 iron and 6 advanced alloy total for the 4 dispensers and the 4 platings. So in total for the whole thing including the advanced alloy that is 56 iron or if you have a macerator that is 28 iron ore. For a single advanced solar panel you need .5 advanced alloy (or 1.5 iron), 24 coal, 1.125 diamond, and 2 iron. For three of them and rounding up that is 12 iron (6 iron ore), 72 coal, and 4 diamond. Not to mention with the reactor you will still get an addition 400,000 EU over the same time. So yes in my opinion the reactor is cheaper. My mark I reactor also requires no maintenance (no component degradation) so all you have to do is send 2 seconds every 8 days to put fuel in, hardly a big issue.

I do concede the point that it takes up more room. However it generates power underground and it can be upgraded to make even more power since the water tank and power lines are already set up. Like I said I m not getting into the whole advanced nuclear reactors and breeder thing. If you have that kind of a setup A) you should be getting a lot of power (unless you designed your reactor wrong) and B) should have an almost infinite supply of fuel with breeders (which means efficiency no longer matters and your reactor can go for more power). The only downside is that you have to play switch the cells around every 8 days, but the power should more than make up for that.

I m not going to get into SMP.

RE: Edit: The conversion recipe costs 5 less coal, something like and .125 less diamond however making the cheapest solar panel still adds and additional 6 iron to the cost not mention the extra pain of making those 4 extra recipes (battery, furnace, iron furnace, generator, solar panel, vs just making glass fiber cable)

RE: Edit 2: The more EU/t would come at a cost of having a HV infrastructural. It would generate 16 EU/t but then even one advanced solar panel would require that you attach it to a MFSU (the batbox or MFS would blow up if attached). This means you have to add the cost of making an MFSU and using either HV cable or glass fiber cable to use advanced solar panels. This is actually the way I m leaning if there isn't an out cry of comments against it.

As far as 11 solar panels vs. 1 advanced solar panel: 11 solar panels would cost 66 iron (33 iron ore) and 33 coal, 1 advanced requires only 4 iron, and 24 coal (however you have to do a lot of processing on the coal and iron which means you will be spending a lot of EUs and a lot of time on them), and also you will need 2 diamonds. I think it works however again I m open to comments and if the majority want it to be a higher cost then post and let me know. I m not out to break the game. I just don't want to have to craft hundreds of solar panels.