Solar power/panel ideas, possible bug?

Hi,

When i use a solar panel and connect it to the grid, it only works if you put a power node right next to it, attached, not even 1 block away, at least, it says it generates power to the node than, but, to my surrise, when you don't have a generator, that solar panel isn't making power, even though it says it's generating at 59%, it should therefore make power right? I don't know how you think solar panels work but if they are at 59% power output, they should be outputting power and sending it but it doesn't seem to do that. Maybe do an overhaul on the solar panel and make it so you can connect it to any powernode in range and send power to it no matter the distance because hey, it's electricity going through a line, it should work no matter the distance, at least for short distances like this. And also, make it so it does send out power when a generator is not connected to it so it can really power stuff in the ships we build, that's what it should be here for right? backup for incase we get low on energy rods for the generator so we can at least power up the food bays for instance so the plants don't die and power up the recycler so we can at least recycle energy scrap to get more energy rods... because right now, if the power dies out, that solar panel isn't giving out power, even at 59% power generation....

Great game though, keep going what you do. Hope to see it finished soon. ^.^

hi, its funny you just posted this, because I was just messing with my solar farm this morning and came here to post something I figured out.

I was having similar issues with my solar panels not outputting any power. here is what I figured out and now they are outputting pretty constant.

1. you can link to a power node further from you solar panel as long as the solar panel is inside the area of influence of the power node (4 or 5 depending on power node)
2. the percentage you see when you click on the solar panel is not power its generating, its potential power it can be generating out of 3 based on how close that sector is to the system's star. when you have the power grid view up, the panels will show either nothing, 1, 2, or 3 for power generation. if a sector has 75% solar energy, each panel can output at most 2.25 but the tooltip does not show decimals so it will show 2. (I have 10 panels so I can tell its more then 2 because my total power generation is 22 not 20)
3. solar panels will ONLY generate power when their own power store (max 50) is down. if its at 50/50 it will NOT generate any power.
**4. create ONE WAY links away from your solar panels. this was my issue. I had made 2 way links from my solar panels to the rest of the grid, so my power grid was filling up the solar panel stores to 50 and they didn't need to make any power of their own. if the links are only away power will only flow to the rest of the grid and they will keep producing.
5. if you daisy chain a few solar panels together, make sure the link flow 1 way to the rest of the grid.
6. add a few batteries to store power for when industry machinery runs in case it pulls more power then you panels can generate in the sector you are in.

7. I think if you want to be full solar you have to stop your generator. I haven't tested much yet but I don't think the generator will ever ramp down to 0 as long as its on. turn it off and turn it back on as needed.

Aha, i had 2 way delivery aswell, still weird that it didn't start generating power tho when my engine died, everything was red so i would assume the solar panel would then be drained of the power it has stored in itself than.... that would have been my idea at least.... Still think they need updating to working a bit more as expected like in real life solar panels, just provide power and not store it in themselves, just always provide power out when they have light/sunlight to do so. Would make things a lot easier with those things.

I've had a lot of issues with keeping solar panels active to charge up batteries. All too frequently I've seen batteries dip to ~500 when the solar panels are sitting around half idle, and I've seen a bug where the batteries lock at 150 energy because the nearby nodes have 150 max. The directional arrows don't seem to help force energy around the ship, but at least they stop the batteries from flowing back into the panels. I don't know why they'd ever choose to do that, panels should strive to empty themselves and full nodes should be dunking into batteries.

Sometimes things work fine and the panels work at full tilt until the batteries are fully charged. I don't know what's up with that.

Glad I saw this thread. I am still figuring out how best to use solar given it's behaviour. At the moment something I like doing is having a separate circuit on solar disconnected from the generator and parking up near a star to just refine stuff on solar to save energy rods.