Idea on how to improve solar panels (make them less OP)

An alternative idea is to make them like nucular power, in some solar set ups teh suns energy is drected to heat steam to spin a turbine, maybe implmenting something like that would work. kinda liek componets into teh generator a "blank" gen wouldnt produce any power.

Quote from killerbeez

My recent idea was only allowing reactors to power mass fabs.

That would be ridiculously hard to code, and make mass fabs useless. If you have to spend uranium to get uum, then the entire mass fab is now pointless. The whole point is so you have something to do with your excess energy.

Quote from Shalashalska

That would be ridiculously hard to code, and make mass fabs useless. If you have to spend uranium to get uum, then the entire mass fab is now pointless. The whole point is so you have something to do with your excess energy.

What he means is, that no other forms of power could work for a mass fabricator - not the other way around. But still, I agree with you - it defeats the whole reason mass fabricators were created!

I like being able to turn sunlight into diamonds (or iridium), though it takes a long time. It's a mad scientist sort of thing to do.

Let's have a show of hands - who supplies power directly to their machines from a reactor? Anyone? No? Of course not - you generally have a transformer or MFE/MFSU along the wire. Beyond that point, I don't think the game has any way to "tell" what kind of power charged the battery - because electricity is all the same. It doesn't matter if they were created as a result of heating water by sunlight, or heating water in a nuclear reactor... it's all just moving electrons.

Quote from killerbeez

And place and forget solars creating free items is better?

What's it to ya? Is there something wrong with making materials out of "thin air" by spending excess energy? If so, then just take the bloody mass fab out of the game - because that's why it was created. I'm still not seeing why it's really an issue. It's not like it's destabilizing the global economy or something. So someone else has a cool, shiny toy that they made (in part) with raw matter created from pure energy. Sounds like fun - doesn't make the game worse for me in the least.

The world is composed of two types of people: One type wants to drag down those better off than they are, the other type would prefer to elevate the rest to be on the same level. I'll let you guess which type cries "nerf"

Quote from killerbeez

Don't start to turn this into a personal battle of bashing me for 'trying to drag the world down and make life worse for everyone'. You are getting too worked up about the fact I disagree with you.

It's called the desire for balance. Maybe mass fabs needing reactors is not the best idea. That does not mean though this needs to turn into a pissing contest about anyone who thinks different than you.

It's not a pissing contest and I'm not worked up. It's nothing personal, I'm merely trying to point out that there's no real underlying reason to want to hold everyone down for your own personal preferences. Server configs are fine - changing the game for everyone (even those who aren't on your server) so that you can have your server your way is not.

I've been trying to identify the real reason behind the calls to nerf solar, and it keeps changing. First it's performance related - until it's logically pointed out that lower output will mean more of them. Now it's about people uisng virtual energy to make virtual items for free? Again I have to ask - what's it matter what someone else on the server has? So what if they make a palace out of diamond blocks from UUM?

There are two play styles here that are coming into conflict.

1. The causal player. The casual player runs around collecting his resources and it takes him a while to create enough solar panels to run his base. These are the majority of players! Solars are balanced for the vast majority of players. You get .5 eu/t over a day. This is more than reasonable for the cost for the average player. Increase the cost to high and the average player may become discouraged as this is the only maintenance free method of power generation that isn't essentially useless (no one uses wind or water, maybe they should get BUFFED).

2. The hardcore player. The hardcore player will exploit the weakest link no matter what. xkillerbeez might think thousands of solars running mas fab is OP, but so what. Those are the hardcore players who will just find the next weakest link and then exploit that. Maybe you'll have massive quarries feeding an auto nuke plant or something like that. The point is nerfing solars to appease one server full of hardcore players may end up ruining the experience for the majority of us players who don't live on this game 24 hrs a day pumping out solar panels.

At the very least I would say make the power generated by solars CONFIGURABLE. That way the player or server owner can set how powerful solars are rather than a blanket nerf for everyone.

Edit: Just noticed Al's post above me. Yes, configurable generator values would be ideal.

Quote from killerbeez

You could have just suggested a server config option or user config. My reason for getting highly annoyed is 'One type wants to drag down those better off than they are' was uncalled for.

I've already stated that I am in favor of server/user configs. That doesn't change the fact that people who "cry nerf" want to bring everyone else down to their level. Those who aren't that way offer suggestions that allow each user to decide what works, rather than blanket "fixes" that affect even those who don't see it as a problem.

I hope you can see that I'm not trying to cast apsersions - merely shedding light on a mindset that doesn't help us find solutions.