[Suggestion]: Compact Solar Panel Arrays for performance.

Wiring solar is simple as it gets. And trust me if people can afford 512 solar panels they probably aren't going to be confused about laying tin cables enough to make this overpowered.
Add it.

Quote from bbqroast

Wiring solar is simple as it gets. And trust me if people can afford 512 solar panels they probably aren't going to be confused about laying tin cables enough to make this overpowered.
Add it.

Its not about the confusion of placing it, Its the complexity of wiring 512 blocks+Tin cables in a ordely manner and with sufficient space if you are building a solar flower. and for the record 512 blocks area its about 2 chunks wide.

Quote from Alblaka

Already discussed in betatester section.
Implementing compacted solar panels would make solar panels even more overpowered, by nullifying their space requirements.

I tinker with the idea of altering the way solarpanels work (one main panel, to which you attach a set of smaller "panels" (flat)) to make them use less CPU while still requiring (Even more) space.

Isnt it possible to make a special kind of cable, that only works with Solar Panels but links all connected Solar panels to it and make it act like a Big Solar panel or something? (Cable would only work with solar panels of course), also the whole structure of solar panels must be exposed to light, even a single block being cut off from direct skylight would make the structure inactive. (Something to make it less stressful on having every solar panel to still check for Direct sunlight connection)

The example came to mind with the way Railcraft make their Coke Oven (and i think BTW does something similar with the anvil)

I also remember reading in the RP thread about some kind of Solar towers in real life, that uses huge amounts of mirrors to redirect the sunlight to a specific spot of these towers and would make use of the heat to evaporate water that would move some internal turbines or something similar.

Oh well it was just an idea.

I also did not know sky checking wasnt a problem either.

Quote from FenixR

I also remember reading in the RP thread about some kind of Solar towers in real life, that uses huge amounts of mirrors to redirect the sunlight to a specific spot of these towers and would make use of the heat to evaporate water that would move some internal turbines or something similar.

that is correct, that might have been my post you read, they use mirrors in a huge U shape to redirct sun onto a black pipe filled with high-temp oil, and the oil is pumped through a loop, this oil is taken back to a generator room and fed into boilers to evaporate the water to make steam for steam turbines. they are making these alot over in india at the moment.

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Quoted from "Kane Hart"

In compact size is only thing I can see some people having an issue with. I for one and my users have no issue with that but I could see others having it. But any server admin who actually runs a server of more then 2 people will all beg for the compact solar panels period. I'm sure xKillerbees been driving you guys crazy in the test forums for such a thing hehe.

I mean the only thing I can see is adding new chips into the game that are costly making having them compact really really costly and having them disabled by default in the config as well. Idk I just feel like its a needed thing but your other idea sort of sounds neat but will see. Most my players have already 4-8+ of the 512 compact Solar Panels. They know SP are to powerful and its all they make. So my whole world would be like covered 100% in solar panels lmao

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you are correct, i currently host a server from my house that has 4 constant players and sometimes up to 8 in the evenings, the server recently has died off ALOT because of the server issues and crashes my server is having with all the solar panels and wind turbines and my server is a beast of a server. although they might be doing something wrong cause i think we only have a total of about 600 solar panels and 200 wind turbines, and it's starting to cause issues even with 8 gigs of ram on a Linux Server OS.

i don't recal anyone wanting to place 512 solar panels into a single block, however, you can fit alittle over 5625 solar panels in range of an MFE using tin cables. so piling them "into" an MFE simple saves you some stacks of tin cables and ALOT of server strain. how about just making a box, similar to a nuclear reactor (Solar Array for now) that you have to fit "solar assemblies" into. 1 assembly would be 8 solor panels and an MFE which could be placed as an "advanced solar panel, or placed inside the Solar Array which could hold 9by7. the solar array would be 8 assemblies and an MFS. so if you completely filled this assembly it would cost you 63 MFEs instead of like 8 stacks of tin worth of cables. then this 1 complex Solar Array would generate 504 eu/t and output 512EU packets. this would cause it to be significantly more expensive but much more compact and significantly less server strain.

Quote from Snoochy

i don't recal anyone wanting to place 512 solar panels into a single block, however, you can fit alittle over 5625 solar panels in range of an MFE using tin cables. so piling them "into" an MFE simple saves you some stacks of tin cables and ALOT of server strain. how about just making a box, similar to a nuclear reactor (Solar Array for now) that you have to fit "solar assemblies" into. 1 assembly would be 8 solor panels and an MFE which could be placed as an "advanced solar panel, or placed inside the Solar Array which could hold 9by7. the solar array would be 8 assemblies and an MFS. so if you completely filled this assembly it would cost you 63 MFEs instead of like 8 stacks of tin worth of cables. then this 1 complex Solar Array would generate 504 eu/t and output 512EU packets. this would cause it to be significantly more expensive but much more compact and significantly less server strain.

"Nobody" wants to, but its the most "Easy" solution (*cough*Kinda like stacking overclokers in machines*cough*) to the problem of several Solar panels causing extreme lag to servers.

Necessity trumped over the need for balance (Especially because people mostly stubbornly kept stacking those damn solar panels instead to upgrading to nuclear or something less laggy >.>).

Also 3 post really? theres a goddamn Edit botton for f*** sakes.

Quote from FenixR

"Nobody" wants to, but its the most "Easy" solution (*cough*Kinda like stacking overclokers in machines*cough*) to the problem of several Solar panels causing extreme lag to servers.

Necessity trumped over the need for balance (Especially because people mostly stubbornly kept stacking those damn solar panels instead to upgrading to nuclear or something less laggy >.>).

Also 3 post really? theres a goddamn Edit botton for f*** sakes.

lol, yeah sorry for the triple post, i had actually got distracted and didn;t realize i was over-posting. i'm at work and people keep harrassing me for help.

yeah i also need to update my server to the newest version if IC2 SMP but BC isn;t up to date yet for SMP so i'm kinda hosed on the "not being able to upgrade machine" problem, for example my cactus scrapping facility is 32 recyclers with usually about 24 of them running non-stop pumping into a 512X6 Mass Fabricator. i'm sure that's causing quite a bit of strain as well, luckily my cactus farms are really quick on the transport section of the design.

i hear ya loud an clear about the whole people stubbornly stacking solar panels instead of upgrading to nuclear, i actually started stealing and collecting the solar panels on my server and building reactor FOR people because of that, then set it up for them and all they have to do is insert 12 cells once a day, i'm the only person on my server that really uses fabricators luckily and i usually have the solar panel array turned off entirely untill like 11pm, then i activate the solar panels when no one is on and AFK Fabricate Matter over night. sometimes people get on at like 3-4 am though when i have my solar farm going and they complain. but i'd like to be able to compress all my solar panels and simply use my Reactors as a really heavy energy Booster for when i need to fill up my central energy storage chamber. because it takes forever to fill up again for my burst fabrication room when i actually have to drain 1mill a second.

in short, i'd like to be able to leave my solar panels running 24/7 to recharge my MFS chambers and not be considered a douche on my server. lol

Quote from Kane Hart

plus 512 sp near a MFSU is very simple and not uncommon. Most don't go past about 800-900 because the MFSU will cap out and not be able to output the energy through its day and night cycles anyways lol...

i currently have all my solar pannels feeding 4 MFSUs with electrolizers, close to each other. then those each branch off and feed 4 more each, those split, 1 goes to my house, 3 go to my central energy storage facility for 4 mass fabricators running at 6X so capping them out is rarely a problem. thats why i use my reactors for burst energy as well with EV and transformers, so i usually have about 2,000/t at 512 going through a line at all times, burst close to 5,000/t.

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Quoted from "Alblaka"

Already discussed in betatester section.
Implementing compacted solar panels would make solar panels even more overpowered, by nullifying their space requirements.

I tinker with the idea of altering the way solarpanels work (one main panel, to which you attach a set of smaller "panels" (flat)) to make them use less CPU while still requiring (Even more) space.

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i suppose i don't really care or mind if they comepletely block out my sky, i'll just take black wool, torches, and glowstone and create an artificial night time sky, lol. however. i have a similar solution to what seems like you have started running with. is there a way to make "attachable / modular" solar panels? for exacmple, make a recipie that requires 1 solar panel and 2 tin wires that attaches to the side of a regular Solar Panel and increases it's power by 1 per attached panel to to a max of 35 blocks from the original Solar Panel, but no more then 511 Attached Solar Panels to regular Solar Panel, this would still use the same materials, actually even alittle extra tin cable, still take up the same amount of space, and would cause a plain regular Solar Panel to output singular packets of 512EU/t. i'd imagine it would stack against each other very similarly to scaffolding.

Quote from Alblaka

Already discussed in betatester section.
Implementing compacted solar panels would make solar panels even more overpowered, by nullifying their space requirements.

I tinker with the idea of altering the way solarpanels work (one main panel, to which you attach a set of smaller "panels" (flat)) to make them use less CPU while still requiring (Even more) space.

Aaaaand I wait for Advanced Machines.

And i post this here because CPW butthurting about threadjacking may delete this post in there, so might as well put it here unless theres is another solar array discussion thread im not aware of:

@Raa: Nobody cares about advanced machines :P. Solar arrays are an option because it reduces the server stress of having a infinity number of solar generators because people are dumb enough to not go nuclear.

Quote from FenixR

@Raa: Nobody cares about advanced machines :P. Solar arrays are an option because it reduces the server stress of having a infinity number of solar generators because people are dumb enough to not go nuclear.

Currently they're the same mod, so by saying no one cares about them, you're saying no one cares for the Arrays.

Anyways. Al said it's by design to make Server Providers suffer, and to force them to toggle back their players.

So again. I wait for Advanced Machines.

Quote from raa1337

Currently they're the same mod, so by saying no one cares about them, you're saying no one cares for the Arrays.

Anyways. Al said it's by design to make Server Providers suffer, and to force them to toggle back their players.

So again. I wait for Advanced Machines.

Ehhhh CPW just released solar arrays as a stand alone, so that logic is invalid. And you missunderstand al words, its not to make sever providers "Suffer", its to limit the amount of space people have to set up these big amounts of solar panels in a decent manner. Solar panel chugging CPU like mad its just a highly undesirable side effect of dumb people clogging their servers with solar panels instead of updating themselves.

Why does a the current HV solar panel have to produce 512eu/tick? It would be better to make them produce 20% less per tier to compensate for the fact it uses less space (and name will have to be changed accordingly).

Quote from Rick

Why does a the current HV solar panel have to produce 512eu/tick? It would be better to make them produce 20% less per tier to compensate for the fact it uses less space (and name will have to be changed accordingly).

Because then people would complain that the recipe its too expensive for the amount of Solar panels they are investing in, and instead would keep building more regular solar panels like morons to not lose any energy. This is a war that regular people cant win against with the use of submods for ic2.

Quote from FenixR

morons to not lose any energy.

100% efficiency makes you a moron. Got it.