I prefer either solar, or wind, because of water's low power output.
What makes you think that ? Have you actually calculated it or you just think so ? I agree that wind is probably most productive of all three, but why are solars better than water ?
What makes you think that ? Have you actually calculated it or you just think so ? I agree that wind is probably most productive of all three, but why are solars better than water ?
It's a bias assumption because you can gimmick the uptime of solars to work constantly if you don't leave home very often. Bed+solar combo is a bit of a broken mechanic, but then again, I think Alba rejected most of the 'solar energy variances' to implement into IC to 'break' this ability. Which somewhat makes this the 'Lay on Hands' move of the mod as a whole, lol....
A Tin cable Water tower can, ironically, be much more reliable in EU production than solar because you can basically ignore any weather conditions and still have power. Hence, from a balance perspective, why they have such a low output. But quite frankly they are so cheap, idk why anyone would disregard investing into them in mass in late game...
QuoteIf we're not talking vanilla IC2, Power Converters has generators called Water Strainers, which are like watermills that take water from BC pipes instead of buckets. They produce 4-5x as much EU/t/iron ingot as solar, but actually pumping the water causes plenty of lag with my Intel graphics
Might need to try this out as well, seeing as how on my current world I'm lacking lava, and the staggering amount of water available is starting to annoy me, lol...
But quite frankly they are so cheap, idk why anyone would disregard investing into them in mass in late game...
Reactor seems much more viable in late game to me. 120EU/t is fine, safe and similar to 480 water generators(not that cheap in high numbers).
I prefer either solar, or wind, because of water's low power output.
Erm, I'll try being a bit more concise this time.
If I’m not mistaken, solars and water mills produce roughly the same eu/t. You have to factor in that you get TWO watermills for the materials and solars are off half of the time. Solars just trade their expense for ease of use.
But if you believe the fancy computations in other threads, then wind blows them both out of the water.
If I’m not mistaken, solars and water mills produce roughly the same eu/t. You have to factor in that you get TWO watermills for the materials and solars are off half of the time.
Hmm, I thought water mills made up to 0.025 EU/t unmanned, meaning you'd need 10x the materials as for solars. Did it change in IC2?
Solars just trade their expense for ease of use.
Ease of use seems to be highly underrated.
But if you believe the fancy computations in other threads, then wind blows them both out of the water.[/align]
No fancy computations involved. At level 126, with two cable blocks underneath, the effective level is 124.
124 blocks * 250 eu/day/block (from the wiki page) / 24000 ticks/day = 1.29167 eu/t.
That's 5.167 unmanned watermills, or 2.583 solars (assuming 50% uptime). It's much lower than manned watermills or water strainers though, but as I said, the continuous pumping causes me graphical lag.
Hmm, I thought water mills made up to 0.025 EU/t unmanned, meaning you'd need 10x the materials as for solars. Did it change in IC2?
If you want to check the wiki, you are almost correct. 0.010EU/t per block of adjacent water. 3*3*3 minus the watermill and one block of cable equals 25*.010 = 0.25Eu/t per water mill.
So from that you get 24/7 production from each watermill of .25. Because you get 2 per generator that makes .5EU/t.
The efficiency of solar panels before their nerf was more like .64Eu/t/day as the day (solar energy production time) lasted longer than the night.
However with the lack of production in the rain this would decrease (go to the desert to ignore this 
) Considering that, the production in a temperate climate of solar panels would be fast decreasing towards the 0.5Eu/t/day that two water mills produce. Also, with the increase in cost of solars, back to 2 circuits it is a lot cheaper for power production to use water mills. The only issue is the fiddling with making sure each mill is surrounded with water. I have tried, and it is a pain. easily doable, but fiddly when you are trying to do it for 20+
(Edited for spelling and grammar)
Ease of use seems to be highly underrated.
Omg omg you have to surround it with water zomg thats too difficult, i'll rather use solars. <- Do you mean something like this ? I know setting 40 water mills takes more time than setting up 20 solars (30 sec), but making 40 additional circuits is quite a lot too. I like to invest few minutes into digging, than investing more time to find materials needed to craft solars instead of water mills. If it was 2 copper cables like before, i'd definitely go for solars, but now, i'm not sure.
heh, yeah, exactly.
Gotta love solar power, with the cells ontop of my powerplant i already produce over 9000 EU/t which is just insane, with the reactors on, i can power a whole city 
i am working on a 50000 eu per tick power plant currently on 15000 and i am not using solar power 80% of that power is made by wind! 
i am working on a 50000 eu per tick power plant
What possibly can be that good for.
look again
i am working on a 50000 eu per tick power plant currently on 15000 and i am not using solar power 80% of that power is made by wind!
wind power is awesome
This is my SMP wind farm
Each Wind Tower has 32 wind mills with glass fiber cables
Wind towers are connected to Reversed MV transformers which sends energy directly to a massfab/mfsu, using 1.337 EU-Splitter cables
Each tower has 4 block spacing between to avoid lots of obstructions.
My setup Has 1600 Wind mills [50 Wind Towers] Each tower gives about 40-120 EU/t Edit
Outputs from 2000-6000 EU/t
[Edit2] output is without thunderstorms/rain [Add 50%/20% if thundering/raining]
Space used 64X10X32
Pro Tip: 1.337 Special cables carry up to Extreme Voltage and has EU distance loss equal to tin cables [39 cable length for no EU loss]
[Edit] on 1.43 Special cables carry only up to HV.
[Edit2]: 1.6 made special cables conductivity bad, so use glass fiber instead.
This was taken from my other post on How to setup a wind farm?
And i am a big fan of wind power, except for the wind mill breaking part. [i have to repair a wind mill every hour or so.]
not the most effecent design and not cheap is it legit
Ease of use seems to be highly underrated.
Heyy! I never said that! That was Immibis who quoted me.
Quote from raGanDerp
Oh and spwnX, why do you have 8 stacks of wind gens in each tower? Is it a computational thing or did it just seem like a good round number?
not the most effecent design and not cheap is it legit
it is not most EU/t per wind mill efficient but it is very space efficient (used low space for tons of wind mills) and it is legit.
Built on version 1.8.1/IC 1.337b
Edit: 32 wind mills per tower is a good number.
64 wind mills per tower is also good, if you have even more limited space.
Actually I would like Generators as an option. Using biofuel actually is a green alternative, but basically I just dump planks into them. They give 750EU each, which means 3000 per piece of wood, which is quite nice compared to 4000EU of coal. I don't get why plain wood only gives 750, but Rubberwood (RP2) gives 3000^^ (at least it burns longer). Shouldn't vanilla-wood give 3000 too?
They don't give 3000 because rubber wood contains highly flammable resins which we can't quite extract yet with current technologies. They burn quite nicely though.
Heyy! I never said that! That was Immibis who quoted me.
Oh and spwnX, why do you have 8 stacks of wind gens in each tower? Is it a computational thing or did it just seem like a good round number?
Haha sorry bro, i accidentally whole quote...
I deserve golden Derp.
But seriously now, fixed.
I personally think a combination of solar,wind,water and nuclear power is the best.
Late-game,of course.
