Solar power, a complaint...

    Sorry, but my posts can never drop to your level. For one, my spelling and grammar are far above your own. Any errors are due to the fact that I'm a clumsy typist.
    Getting through to you means banging my head on the keyboard - not merely out of frustration, but also to inflict the requisite amount of brain damage to "dumb myself down" to your level - and also because then my posts will look like yours!


    I'm not trolling you, I'm simply wondering why you're so reluctant to accept the challenge. I have no personal stake in the outcome and I have my own opinion on the issue. But you're making a lot of claims and then evading substantiation. I've stood up for you when I feel you are in the right (for instance, regarding your budget reactor design), but here I feel you are making claims you are unwilling to back up.


    Please do not mistake my utter lack of academic regard for "trolling". My scorn for you is purely intellectual.
    Well, that's not entirely true. Your abominable personality is also distasteful to me. And by "me", I mean "everyone else here".

    Rick... You are only thinking about the difference in resource costs. I am thinking about both the difference in resource cost and time to set up as well as how tedious+difficult it is.
    My point isn't that solars are cheaper to build in resources. my point is that in the time it takes to make an equally well performing wind farm to my solar farm you are going to spend MUCH MORE time building and crafting and walking/climbing. You would do well with a jet pack but then you have to build that. You would do well with a water hole to fall into, each time you do you still have to climb back up there.


    In the time it takes you to finish your wind farm, i able to finish my solar farm AND resume looking for resources. Can your resources comparisons match some diamonds, a few stacks of iron ore, copper ore, tin ore and redstone dust as well as some stacks of cobble to run through a recycler etc etc?
    You would still be building after i have gathered enough resources to build another solar farm!

    I also see need for that challenge. Why? Because if you start a new world, don´t have anything, you need a lot of time to make a startup. You need the resources and the time to gether it for around 3 Maceratore/extractores, the electric furnances and a startup generator. Here it is equal for Wind/Solar-setup. But then you must gather alot of resources for the Solarsetup and only around 1/3 for the Windfarm. in the time you need alone to get the resources for the solarfarm i build you the hole 52 windgems + the plattform. We don´t want to talk about the time you need ti macerate and smelt the iron/glass/copper/tin/etc for the solarfarm and how much more energy you wasted therfor. Another thing is that windgems don´t have to be at the max hight-level for optimal engergy-production see here http://forum.industrial-craft.…ad&threadID=3077&pageNo=3
    Now we come to the server part. Do you thing every of our 10 people on the server goes to bed only you have solar-energy? What is if i want to hunt monsters at night or when i am in a cave? Even if one person is afk you didn´t produce energy. So you still need around 2-3 solargenerators for the output of 1 windgem you have to look for wether-effects, day-night-cycle and so on.
    I was using solars in my starting-times of IC but since i tested windgens i see no need in solarfarms.


    By the way, i can build a house or some farms under my windfarm...what can you build over your solarfarm ?


    (Sorry for grammar mistakes, english isn´t my main language so please no trolling on this)

    There is still the 'luck' aspect of where and how you mine, as well as how you protect your self and your investments from creepers.


    One of the major drawbacks of using any kind of scaffolding other than glass for wind-gens is the 'local life' that it can cause to pop up. That's exactly one of the major benefits to denser solar-panel construction (less ground area to have as a base or otherwise lit).


    If you do decide to play out the test enjoy it. If you decide for a time-attack, the Q-boots are the easiest way of showing off that you had enough energy production capacity to create a discernible goal.

    Quote from Cadde

    Rick... You are only thinking about the difference in resource costs. I am thinking about both the difference in resource cost and time to set up as well as how tedious+difficult it is.
    My point isn't that solars are cheaper to build in resources. my point is that in the time it takes to make an equally well performing wind farm to my solar farm you are going to spend MUCH MORE time building and crafting and walking/climbing. You would do well with a jet pack but then you have to build that. You would do well with a water hole to fall into, each time you do you still have to climb back up there.


    In the time it takes you to finish your wind farm, i able to finish my solar farm AND resume looking for resources. Can your resources comparisons match some diamonds, a few stacks of iron ore, copper ore, tin ore and redstone dust as well as some stacks of cobble to run through a recycler etc etc?
    You would still be building after i have gathered enough resources to build another solar farm!

    Hm... I think I'd have to respectfully disagree on this one, actually. If you take the 128EU/t average as a target, it means you'd need 256 solar panels, and I'd need about 100-110 wind gens at high altitude.


    If I'm building a farm that big, I'm not going to space them out for absolute max efficiency (for exactly the reasons you cite). Now that we can use tin cables, I'd build 8 or 9 stacks of 12 mills each (4 at 127, 4 at 124, 4 at 121). That would only take about 10x24 or 17x17 depending on how you set it up - almost exactly the same as the 16x16 required for 256 solars.


    Still ugly, but at least it's smaller, so there's not as much ugly. :)


    EDIT: another consideration... for 256 solar panels, you'll need over 3,000 rubber with the new recipe. You'd either need to spend time setting up a large rubber tree farm, or be limited by the tap respawn rate. :(

    Quote from Gimgork

    By the way, i can build a house or some farms under my windfarm...what can you build over your solarfarm ?


    Eh, i can build my solar farm on my house... a 16x16 tile house is pretty small to my standards.

    Quote from Gimgork

    By the way, i can build a house or some farms under my windfarm...what can you build over your solarfarm ?


    My answer would be: A wind farm.
    Yes, it's possible! You just need to use glass wherever you can.

    1 Huge thing i forgot here is that solars dont work at night and neither will they work with rain and thunderstorm. So to get the 128eu/tick average output you would need like 256 solars instead of only 128 doubling the costs for a solarfarm. This makes the solars so much more expensive that a competition would be completely pointless.

    Quote from Rick


    1 Huge thing i forgot here is that solars dont work at night and neither will they work with rain and thunderstorm. So to get the 128eu/tick average output you would need like 256 solars instead of only 128 doubling the costs for a solarfarm. This makes the solars so much more expensive that a competition would be completely pointless.

    Speaking of storms; what happens when a nice big storm or two rolls through and your generators have a chance of popping? Murphy's law does tend to strike at the worst moments.

    This whole thread is pointless until someone wants to compare the two alternatives in a REAL LIVE situation.
    You can pull all the numbers you want out of your hole but that doesn't compare to what happens in a game.


    I shall start a new world using only IC2, give myself the starting resources suggested and build a solar farm which i will then use to UU-M myself some Q-boots. Using any resources i have to spare to make scraps to speed up the process.
    Then i shall start another world (new random one as to not use my familiarity with the first and build a wind farm with the same goal as the solar one.


    Results will not be 100% accurate since there are so many randoms to deal with (ore distribution being the major one) but they will give me a guideline as to which is the best after all is said and done.
    The moment i have Q-boots in my hand i will stop the timer and close the world.
    Then, the world that was the fastest will be played until both worlds have been played equally long. Any extra resources i have over on the fastest world after i have matched them in time spent will be taken into consideration as to which wins in resources in the end.


    Unless someone throws himself at me saying he wants to do the competiton after all...


    EDIT: If it turns out (during my personal testing) that i am right and Rick is wrong, i would have him leave these forums for all eternity because he is a troll.

    Just FYI, it took 1 hour just to get the first generator and macerator going... Redstone is the problem. I dug for a very long time just to find enough to make the battery for the generator and the 3 circuitits for two macerators and one electro furnace.
    Then i had to dig for some more to make a drill, chainsaw and a bat box.


    I also had to start off the first minecraft day with cutting down trees to make a shelter, as well as a few fences to plant melon seeds without them being trampled. I had to gather some food and kill 3 sheep to make a bed. I also had to make ladders so i could go down a cave that had a straight vertical drop. Among all the other bits and pieces like 3 stone furnaces, a chest (because i forgot to give myself chests, so i made some so i didn't have to start over just to add some chests to my character.


    ...


    May i suggest we simply compare build times instead?
    We are given the resources needed to build the stuff. The competiton ends when both have Q-Boots. If one has his Q-boots before the other he will simply focus on mining as much materials as he can to show the difference in time spent vs resources mined between the two.
    If wind power (which is cheaper, i don't argue that) takes longer to build and thus solar power manages to gain a lot of resources in the mean time, enough to offset the costs of solar power then resources are not important in the end. What's important is the time it takes to set them up.


    On a side note, before i had found some redstone (i did gather other ores while i was looking for it) i managed to find 143 copper, 131 iron, 56 tin, 4 gold and 86 coal. That's what i returned home with after having found ~4 redstone blocks, a total of 13 redstone dust.
    I spent roughly 15 minutes on the surface to build my base. I then spent ~35 minutes gathering ores in the underground. So in 35 minutes, that's what i managed to find using a diamond pickaxe. Though, much of that time was also spent walking around a cave system placing torches to stop those pesky skeletors, spiders and creepers for sneaking up on me while i cut stuff out of the walls.
    I would think it's actually faster to find resources by digging 1x2 tunnels instead because you don't have to fight off mobs.. Skeletons have aimbot as well, killing one means you are likely to get hit once. Killing 2 of them at the same time means you are getting hit up to 3 times.
    Thus you have to wait for your health to go back up slowly. (That i had to do a few times during those 35 minutes)


    Still, i am certain that since a solar array is so easy (and thus fast) to build. The time saved is worth A LOT in resources as that time can be spent looking for resources.


    EDIT:


    Oh and i am taking a break now, my friends woke up and they want to play Battlefield 3.

    You should /really/ run a local server so you have /give or /i (via that admin pack that compliments ModloaderMP; MPUtils). Then you will want to make the same contents as the chest I had above. That should be more than enough to jumpstart you to an automated miner which is what you really need to level the field; otherwise interacting with cave-dwellers will skew results too much.

    Quote from MJEvans

    You should /really/ run a local server so you have /give or /i (via that admin pack that compliments ModloaderMP; MPUtils). Then you will want to make the same contents as the chest I had above. That should be more than enough to jumpstart you to an automated miner which is what you really need to level the field; otherwise interacting with cave-dwellers will skew results too much.


    nitpick alert: /give can handle damage values now
    also: TMI (Too Many Items) works just as well as /give for Single player.
    The only reason I have MPUitls installed on my 1.0.1 server (just waiting for IC2) is the /weather command... turn off that *bleep*ing annoying rain.

    geez, do we still talking about Solar Panel or what? it's seem OP gone from his own topic like 2-3 pages now.


    you guy keep drag up your own logic and try to make other people accept your logic while they not accept it and want you to accept them too.
    if OP doesn't happy about SPanel being nerf in this patch, can't we point him to how to fix the file so he can edit his own output to his pleasure?

    Quote from MJEvans

    You should /really/ run a local server so you have /give or /i (via that admin pack that compliments ModloaderMP; MPUtils). Then you will want to make the same contents as the chest I had above. That should be more than enough to jumpstart you to an automated miner which is what you really need to level the field; otherwise interacting with cave-dwellers will skew results too much.


    Well, i have TMI installed. I was using it to give myself the IC2 specific items such as rub saplings and copper / tin ores. I then used INV edit and saved my loadout and started a new map.
    What i ran into was the issue with finding redstone without running into lots of mobs. Plus mining for the stuff will take a long time no matter which side you are playing. Since both side will need redstone more often than say Iron and copper. (Tin is also pretty rare considering the batteries you need to make to make bat boxes and generators.)


    So in that regard, both players will find MORE than enough of the other resources before they have the redstone they need.
    And what really matters in the end is if it takes longer to set up a wind farm than it does to set up a solar farm. Will the solar farmer have enough time to mine more resources to make the resource requirement of solar panels moot?

    The redstone and rubber requirements of the circuit based solar panels /are/ probably quite intense. I suspect that I'll be taking a hybrid approach on the next world I make; the fact that a wind-gen is only ever so slightly more costly than a normal generator means I probably /will/ start with that instead of even a generator (esp while up an RP2 rubber tree).