I also added a roboport version, with some logistic chest filling the center spots, just as filler. The next has a pole surrounded by acumulators/betteries around it, the whole thing!Īnd last has 50/50 solar panels and accumulators. it will all be conected.įirst pole has a row of batteries/acumulators around it, surrounded by solar panels. That way i can stack them on top and side, etc. It's entire affected area is my size (all within blue) Keep any eye on the power at night, if gets low by morning, slap a bunch more batteries on it. Wow that is some mumbo jumbo i'll never understand. The main reason why space is rarely a concern is simply because there is plenty of it to use once you reach a certain tech stage (for clearing biters, mostly). So apart from updating your mining posts every now and then (rarely, since consumption is really not that high) space consumption is constant for all power sources and I bet it is by far the highest for solar. Even just intuitively, most people don't instantly replace their steam setup with all-solar once available, since fuel is not that hard to get while all that iron and copper kind of is.įor space, the space requirement for steam,nuclear is simply ActualPowerSetup(constant) + PreparationOfResources(constant) + MiningSpace(constant but needs to be relocated every now and then) + traffic(technically infinite but shouldn't be a limiting factor and you need a good traffic network anyways). Now calculate InitialCost(solar), InitialCost(steam,nuclear) and RunningCost(steam,nuclear) and you can see how long it takes for solar to pay off. Accumulators less so but they still make a dent. I cannot really contribute if we're talking about Mega factories since that's outside my experience.įor resources, solar panels are Very expensive, even compared to steam. In the long run, for Mega (capital M) factories, that is true. Which is usually the killer argument for mega factories. The other aspect is that solar costs no CPU. Everything else it's M + X * time.Īnd I would even argue solar needs less space as well since solar needs only a fixed amount of space initially while steam and nuclear need an unlimited area because you constantly have to find new coal or uranium to mine. The overall cost in resources for solar is N. Steam power needs coal, nuclear needs uranium (which also means sulfur and iron and maybe more I can't think of). Every other power source requires a constant influx of resources to produce power. You see with solar there is some initial investment but after that power is simply free. Solar is the ultimate in resource to power ratio: In the 'perfect' ratio it gives you 42kW per solar cell for 0 resources (amortized over time). I'm also fairly certain that solar is not the way to go for a good resource to power ratio. Space optimization is kind of whatever, since if you need high power per space, you simply don't use solar. Meh, ratios in the honor they deserve but on the solar panel/accumulator ratio I've kinda given up. Or when I build a large-scale production facility to increase SPM. The accumulators are used to absorb spikes in power requirements such as large-scale attacks like when the outposts get a boost to artillery range.

The Solar panels, like the steam engines, are no longer relied upon to power the factory. The role of the accumulators changes to indicate when I need to feed the reactors.

Once I get nuclear power going, this is when the ratio starts not being important. The ratio at this point could be considered the most accumulator heavy, but frankly I just keep using my one solar blueprint which provides the 1:1 ratio. Here I could have been into nuclear already but other techs take precedence (I haven't started skimming off the kovarex process yet). As the factory grows and I no longer add steam engines, the role of the accumulator is more important overnight when the solar panels are dark. The role of the accumulator is to supply enough power along with steam engines when solar isn't powered on. For me it is 1:1 mainly because of the spatial design, easily tile-able and low-supply for the slow conbots out of the mk1 personal roboport, not because of any other reason. When accumulator (and solar) tech is first obtained, I establish the ratio on a blueprint. But for me, it doesn't really change at all: The Accumulator / Solar panel ratio theoretically changes during factory development.

Factorio solar panel ratio