#The energy generation problem on Mars.

64 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

dreamy dust
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Hello developers, thank you for the Mars update. However, you went overboard with the complexity of power generation on the planet. Everything is overly convoluted, irrational, and inefficient. Looking at the big picture, almost all the energy produced on Mars is used for nothing but creating the fuel needed to generate that very energy. This makes you wonder what the point is of developing Mars at all, given this absurd energy production system.

I don't understand the reasoning behind having only one type of turbine for power generation. In fact, Mars is a planet with sunlight, where solar energy could be harnessed. Why not allow the Large Solar Array MK II to generate power there, just like it does on the Moon?

Considering the alternative of constantly shipping energy storage units to Mars, that also sounds ridiculous. Mars is on the EV tier, but in HV, mechs and production chains aren't developed enough to easily produce large amounts of fuel for every flight. Furthermore, there simply isn't enough surplus energy to be shipping it to Mars in the first place.

In summary, my suggestion is to increase the variety of energy production methods on Mars, as the current mechanics are simply unplayable for a planet at this stage.

vital granite
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almost all the energy produced on Mars is used for nothing but creating the fuel needed to generate that very energy. This makes you wonder what the point is of developing Mars at all, given this absurd energy production system.
only the thorium - the uranium and plutonium rods are much more energy positive
Why not allow the Large Solar Array MK II to generate power there, just like it does on the Moon?
a) because there's lots of sandstorms and b) because it's boring. Each planet is going to have its own way of solving energy. Same reason why you can't use combustion/gas energy outside of earth -- if you could use it everywhere, people would just copy and paste what they already know and then complain they're bored.
Considering the alternative of constantly shipping energy storage units to Mars, that also sounds ridiculous. Mars is on the EV tier, but in HV, mechs and production chains aren't developed enough to easily produce large amounts of fuel for every flight. Furthermore, there simply isn't enough surplus energy to be shipping it to Mars in the first place.
I'm confused why you're shipping energy storage units to mars anyway. Lapotron crystal batteries are huge, and we made the power substation significantly cheaper and easier than it is in base GT specifically for this

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@clear arrow

clear arrow
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Yeah I don't know what to answer, one of the core concept of the modpack is to have dedicated method of generating energy on each planet

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We were asked many times to allow solar power everywhere simply because it's busted and easy but that's not really the point

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Mars is a planet about energy mangement

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Also you shouldn't ever need to ship batteries to Mars

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The uranium reactor already produces enough steam to run 2 nuclear turbines

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when you get your hands on the plutonium reactor you can easily set 4 nuclear turbines

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Also right now the main goal of Mars is to generate tritiated water

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We are adding in a next update much more reason to spend energy on Mars and we will bring even more with Venus update

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Everything is overly convoluted, irrational, and inefficient

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Wdym by that?

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Gonna need more details

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also we have a feedback channel for beta tester

vital granite
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I mean we aren't in beta any more so that channel isn't exactly appropriate here lol

clear arrow
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we still are in beta though :p

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we left alpha

vital granite
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if you wanna treat everything before 1.0 as beta, sure lol

clear arrow
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well we name the pre release as alpha so

vital mist
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I wasn't been oh Mars yet, but
Moon gives u 2 options of generating power: ad astra's solar panels which gives not a lot, but doesn't require any infrastructure and solar array(trimix's recipe) which requires some infrastructure but generate quite a lot of energy.
And on Mars as I understand it(not only from topic starter's message above) u don't have energy without infrastructure so u should bring energy from outside and even in this case as u said it's produces energy just enough for just power itself(and I guess if u use less energy efficient ways(like using machines without perfect OC) it will be negative energy)
And 4 example moon's energy production can be increased by upgrading solar array itself while to increase Mars'es energy production u not only need better rods but more(not better) turbines.

But as I said I wasn't been on the Mars yet so I can't give my feedback

clear arrow
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Moon gives you solar power and Mars gives you steam power that's basically the same

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You can upgrade Mars power with better turbines yeah?

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That's what using the rotor and rotor holder is for

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better rod don't give you better power just more steam

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It won't be negative energy

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It's quite the opposite

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On the Moon you have the Ad Astra solar pannel because the batteries at this point aren't as good but on Mars you can have the basic thing to survive with just ev batteries and a super tank of earth air

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You would never use in any situation the railgun to ship batteries to Mars

dreamy dust
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Let's say for my needs on Mars, the base requires a power output of 100k EU. One turbine, for example, outputs 57k EU. But even before spinning up to its maximum 57k EU, it consumes 2 buckets of fuel every 2 seconds. Therefore, for two such turbines, I need to produce 4 buckets of fuel every 2 seconds. Trying to use the best rods and reactors, I figured out that it takes a minute to produce just 2 buckets. But again, we return to the question of where to get the rods for this fuel. The best recipe requires a lot of processing in various machines, which takes time and consumes energy, which also needs to be obtained from somewhere before the entire fluid processing chain for supplying the turbines is running.

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It's important to consider that at this stage, players don't have a quantum ring to handle some of the production on Earth. In the end, we conclude that the entire fuel production cycle must be on Mars, because flying back and forth several times is not efficient. Firstly, it costs time and fuel; secondly, for the turbine to provide constant power, the player would have to be a robot doing the same thing over and over? I'm not arguing that your idea of different energy sources is interesting, but this stage feels like it doesn't have properly considered progression paths, as there are no wireless energy transmission methods. For example, how are players supposed to automate the production of quantum processors in LuV if even now, being at the LuV stage, I can't do anything due to Mars' energy problems? I can't properly supply energy there from Earth without wires because there's no way to do that, and I can't generate sufficient energy on Mars using your energy source. In the end, it seems like this stage was made overly complicated and unbalanced. The bottom line is this: if the only power source on Mars is the turbine, then you can forget about a smooth transition into the subsequent eras in terms of automating production.

vital granite
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But again, we return to the question of where to get the rods for this fuel. The best recipe requires a lot of processing in various machines, which takes time and consumes energy, which also needs to be obtained from somewhere before the entire fluid processing chain for supplying the turbines is running.
you mean the uranium processing line? you should have that thing on passive

dreamy dust
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Может не до конца пояснил суть, но проблема в производстве именно топлива для турбины и её расход её. сама турбина хорошая идея, проблема в топлие

vital granite
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mars' ore veins are huge, one vein is easily enough uranium for a long long time

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For example, how are players supposed to automate the production of quantum processors in LuV if even now, being at the LuV stage, I can't do anything due to Mars' energy problems? I can't properly supply energy there from Earth without wires because there's no way to do that, and I can't generate sufficient energy on Mars using your energy source. In the end, it seems like this stage was made overly complicated and unbalanced.
You set up the ostrum harvester, which can then process into an infinite source of uranium and thorium. You can then run a couple fission reactors infinitely from this, to craft all the tritium for the nano wafers. Then you can use a railgun to send them all back to earth.

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Your turbines should easily be able to always be running to support this. You can buffer your steam or power if you need to deal with turbines spinning up. It's the same with any other turbine system

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I don't understand what you're doing to have such energy problems. Are you crafting your nano circuits all on-demand?

clear arrow
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Yeah I'm a bit lost

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I did Mars and the fission line on my server and I wasn't at LuV at that point I was at EV

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Yeah the early is a bit rough until you get your first uranium rod but after that you are totally fine energy wise

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it's a slow process to setup all Mars but the idea is that you have many other things to do at the same time

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getting ostrum, looking for sheep, trees, mining uraninite et thorium processing as rods then sending them to Mars

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it sure is a lot of work and I wonder if the fact that you are at LuV and it just feels like a chore to have to rush through it

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but the balance is totally fine

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maybe you are using LuV machines on Mars to go faster but the OC is just too big without a good fission line

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Try to take it slow and progress slowly with EV or IV machines

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set up 2 industrial turbines with IV Rotor Holder and HSS rotor

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you can process the thorium on Earth that's what I did

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I just did uranium and plutonium on Mars

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there is one thing that I agree is a bother and I plan to change it the fact that you need tons of CO2 to get power out of uranium

wide sand
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I haven't left the earth, I wonder which method to produce energy could i use in space station. not relevant to this question, just to satisfy my curiosity.killme

clear arrow
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Not much

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Plasma Turbine I guess or Fission later down maybe

wide sand
clear arrow
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Orbits aren't really intented to be used

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Fission may be available for Orbits when we release the new update with it adding fission to produce energy mainly

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maybe I've no certitude at all

wide sand
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Hope it will be. i plan to build station for every planet, and also its plausible to build a station during further space explore. Don"t want to be hampered too long because of energy.

vital granite
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ad astra solars work in orbits

vital granite
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we might allow more on orbits in the future, we mostly just don't really know what to do with them at the moment

wide sand
# vital granite ad astra solars work in orbits

I tried using the cheat mode in the game, but the solar power generation from Ad Astra is too low to support main industries. With that limited energy, I can only build a space greenhouses (from Firmalife) or a rest space bay. I've seen the mind map for space plans before — perhaps we could integrate it with data? At least we could design new solutions or permit some older methods to address the energy issue in orbit, i guess it dosent need too sci-fi tech. Begining with the fission sounds a good idea.
Currently, we control the tech progression through specific production procedures — for example, nano wafers need work on Mars and ae2 is cheaper on the moon. Allowing regular industrial components to be manufactured in orbit wouldn’t change that. Still, building in the void dimension and creating a renaissance without Xenomorphs sounds exciting.
Regardless, thank you for your team’s hard work, and I’m looking forward to future updates