I think you may not realize how much your tutorials help us newbies. You are one of the only "up-to-date" producers that actually are a big help in understanding this rather complicated game. Thank you for that.
I'm really glad you've been finding them useful. Fingers crossed this week I'll be able to get some real progress made on some Air Tightness tutorials I've been working on as I always find making a tutorial is a great way for me to better understand how things are working :)
Six years later, just some feedback: I just started this game -these tutorials are invaluable. I wouldn't still playing this game without the help provided in these videos. I found nothing like this anywhere else. Thank you!
Finally got around to watching this one.. the vertical setup does have one science flaw - the dawn and dusk moments where they are getting the most light, apparently are not taking into account the increased amount of atmosphere that the light has to travel through, which would actually decrease the amount of light the panels would collect. :p So the max point of light being twice is actually a flaw, but... handy to know for the game mechanics! haha Edit: just got to the point when even Splitsie mentions the atmo comment that I made.
Hey hey, first of all can I just say: Thank you! I'm enjoying watching your vids, they're saving me huge amounts of time with trial and error with certain topics, the tips are excellent! Much appreciated. One thing that I wanted to note though with your multi power tests; I believe it is not certain that the solar power energy will be used 'before' the reactor. They could just as easily be sharing the load. If you want to confirm which it is, a better test would be to build a sufficient number of solar panels that would provide just a bit more than the amount required by the furnace/assembler. If solar energy is used first, then no uranium should be used. If they share the load, then some uranium will still be used and the power load is simply balanced proportionally between the two with no preference as to which has priority.
Also, one thought on why the solar panels within the armor blocks generated power... Ambient light. In many cases a 3D engine will use four different lighting methods. 1. Point lights, like the Interior lights, these are non-directional and only affects surfaces within a radius from its source. 2. Spotlights, like, well, the spotlights.. directional and from a point (usually with a limited distance). 3. Directional light, not from a single point, it only has a direction vector (and intensity and colour I suppose) which informs the engine which angle to use incident light from which is the same on every surface, also where to project the shadows.. this is usually used for Sunlight (the direction vector can be changed of course to simulate relative sun/planet movement). 4. Ambient lighting, this lights every surface with the same base minimal value without any consideration of source, it has just intensity and colour, it's generally used for quality of life lighting, such as ensuring the player isn't just given a black screen (most games), such as inside a dark cave. Since ambient lighting does not have a source, it can still exist within the enclosed box. You could test this by closing yourself in a dark room, but don't expect to see any difference with your eyes. Space Engineers also violently changes the ambient light based on the player's location, in a room or cave, or out in the open etc. If you want to check if there is light there (which hopefully isn't lost from that dynamic ambient change), take a screenshot, put it in photoshop and boost the contrast up to highlight any differences in pixel colour values. Also note, you are not the solar panel, it won't have that dynamic ambient lighting wherever it goes. The solar panel probably just examines it's own colour variables and converts these to a percentage and applies that to its max output. This also makes me curious if shining an interior light or spotlight on a solar panel generates energy - anyone tried that in a dark room? If the solar panel surface is lit to it's highest brightness would it generate enough power to sustain it's own light? The same light should be able to illuminate the surface of multiple panels also. Surely not - it has to be related to the sun only.. right? Testing time... But then again.. since the panel would only be shaded for the purpose of display to the player, would enclosing yourself in a dark room next to it, thus making the dynamic ambient lighting change, affect the generated energy? I feel like there are loads of design issues here unless it specifically uses the suns location and other occlusion data - then the question comes to code efficiency ha. It should probably use the multiplier from the directional light (3.) and perhaps a limited, nearby check for occlusions i.e. a count of blocks within a close radius?
Solitaire, in the last year and a half, I have gone from confused and discouraged newbie to motivated advanced player all from the help I have received from your videos! I do view other Experts and their channels but your vids are informative and dare I say, actually entertaining! I have tried to follow the play thru series and learned what to do with greatest results to not so good of an idea! ( the scene with driving down a mountain in a runaway truck for a shortcut,) was the funniest thing I have ever watched. My sides were sore from laughing so hard for a day or so! But, please keep playing and creating content for us descent players and everyone else ( tbh)! Thank you sir. 🎃
I don't know how much of the game has changed between this video and right now in regards to solar panel function, but I think a new test is in order. I built out a massive solar array using Isy's Solar Alignment script. Three sections stacked atop of each other with 8 solar panels on each "wing", top and bottom (so a total of 32 panels per section). This array is stationed near the equator. During dawn and dusk it generates power at nearly max efficiency (shifts between about 99.8% and 100%). However, during midday when the sun is directly above the tower, efficiency takes a massive nosedive and drops below 50%. I've seen it get as low as 30%. This actually makes perfect sense given the number of sections in my array. During midday, the only solar panels receiving 100% of the light are at the very top. Virtually every single section beneath that one is obscured from the sun by the shadows cast from the uppermost section. 2/3rds of the tower is effectively covered in darkness, therefore can only operate at roughly 30% efficiency. In fact I can even see this, as the shadows creep over the lower sections of the tower, each panel goes from full green to yellow almost instantly. However, it doesn't last very long when it gets this low. I suspect Isy's script tries to do some correction for obscurity. I set up an identical tower closer towards the pole, in some mountains. Throughout the day I notice each section of the tower all angled slightly differently. It's especially noticeable when the sun is in a position that would likely cause the panels to obscure one another if they were all facing the same direction. It's just, this correction doesn't really work at the equator because the sun is directly above the tower. When it hits 30% it's only very briefly, maybe for just a couple of minutes. Then it starts climbing back up to 50%+ as the sun starts moving downwards. Makes me think that, in the equator, you might be better off with a bunch of small, single-section solar arrays rather than one massive tower with multiple sections. To prevent a drop in efficiency from higher sections obscuring the lower ones.
You're better off with one giant tower without sections, just have 3 rotors and allow them all to move into the optimal position throughout the day. As long as the number of panels are balanced around the rotor head then it'll be able to turn even if you have an enormous mass, of course the risk of that is if the rotor part gets shot out the whole thing falls down :P I think some of the light blocking has been improved and some other aspects (voxels blocking light) have become worse since these tests but not a lot else seems to have changed in my experience. If I ever get time to do some tests with wind turbines I'll likely throw some new solar panel tests in there too :)
I'm slightly concerned about the various solar panel setups in the blocking light from one another, particularly with the outer vs the inner setups in the polar tests.
It would have introduced some differences, however based on the deliberate obstruction tests, they are incredibly unlikely to have changed the relative efficiency rankings of the different setups
Watching this video it also shows how important it is that you align your base foundations with the sunrise right from the start, otherwise your vertical panels (probably) won't get the same level of light hitting them, assuming the calculation is based on the profile of the panel facing the sun. I expect the reason the verticals were so much better was that they were getting two maximum efficiency periods where the horizontals only got the one at mid-day.
My thinking with the horizontal vs vertical at the equator was that the sun was mostly moving in a 180 degree arc straight over the top of the setup. This should mean that the vertical setup is exactly the same as the horizontal, the morning half of the day for the horizontal would be inverse of the morning for the vertical and the afternoon parts would also be inverted. However I think the sun exposure is slightly more than 180 degrees giving the vertical an extra period of high exposure just before the horizontal at dawn and just after the horizontal at dusk thereby extending their time with high efficiency :)
@ the end of the video: reactors inefficient charging batteries. Yeah, the reactors deliver more power than a battery or two consume to charge. If you match the charge consumption of the batteries, your grid and the power output of your reactors, you'd be fine i recon. But then again, i am only a few hours in. Bought the game on release but... KSP you know ^^
When charging batteries you lose a portion of the power generated, it's around 80% efficient. So a reactor providing power directly to the blocks that need it will use less power than a system where there's a battery involved since all power on a grid flows through the battery if there is one :(
It's also worth noting that terrain does not block solar panels, instead they calculate the light based on a "sea level" for each planet so you can have your solar panels behind a mountain and they will still work.
Keen might add the hydrolysis engines next week! So you could use ice to make power, I wonder how much power you'll get from it, if it's enough to compete with solars
I wouldn't say SE is trying to be realistic ... at least not much more than Minecraft. We can make a fairly long list of unrealistic stuff in this game without even going into details. Some huge points: no orbital physics, no aerodynamics and absolutely "wtf" values for volumes and mass of stuff. Current power production and consumption system is also not very realistic - oxygen generators using fairly little power to make H2 and O2 from water (ice) for example (electrolysis is not very efficient in real life). So I really wouldn't mind them adding a new usable power source that isn't very good IRL. After all it's a game that doesn't market itself as a simulator so they can add whatever they want, as long as it makes sense (in game environment).
It's widely theorized that hydrogen will not exceed 100% efficiency with it's power generation. From the looks of things, it's being implemented more as a way to power small ships without the need for more costly batteries. It would still be useful though, as it allows you to take solar energy and turn it into something more energy dense. We'll have to wait and see for the exact numbers to get an idea of where exactly they're trying to push this into the progression. Overall, I'm stoked at the idea of having the generators because of such mods that would serve to remove/limit the quantity of uranium on planets, as in it's current state, the abundance and availability of uranium nullifies all power concerns in the early game survival.
On the pole You would have dif' result's if it was 1 at a time not whole rig... Due to shadow's those rig cast etc. Scripted solar tower's will always beat stationary one's... Logic win's, yay ! Nice too see someone did test's befor Me, confirm'in I was right, and I don't need to change anythin... Good job Splitsie ;)
I have done similar testing, and my conclusion was: either you align the vertical panels to face the sunset within +-10° or you are better of placing them horizontally. Alignment is key for static vertical panels on any latitude exept for the poles. For pannels on ships or rovers, you should always park aligning the panels. I just use horizontal pannels on vehicles.
That's a very good point, I did all of these tests with the grids aligned for optimal exposure. And on vehicles, there are a lot of reasons why horizontal is just more practical - hangar entrances for one, so I agree with you there, horizontal often makes more sense :)
I had a theory about the "enclosed" solar panel. Ignoring the end-caps, the shell was made of several oblongs connected by their edges. Now, if you have two perfect corners together, the contact surface between them is infinitely small. Computers don't like infinity though, so some game engines have problems with leaving a seam in shapes like that. In Minecraft for example, light and spreading fire can pass between the blocks, as one of my attempts at a fireplace can testify. Basically, I reckoned the corners of the solar panel "block" were practically exposed. I tested a full oblong alongside your "plus sign" shaped shell. The oblong still generated power at roughly half the rate of the plus sign. Weird. But hey, I got to do some science and type the word "oblong" a few times.
Lol! Nice excuse for using oblong numerous times :) You could be right that part of the contribution is the infinitely small connection, though I suspect the larger contributor is that the blocks are on the same grid as each other... at some point I'm going to come back and test these again to get a better understanding of what's going on
Around 18:38, it makes sense that vertical is still better. The panels are max when the vector to the sun is parallel to the surface normal. The vertical start and end the day at max, dipping to their near-zero min at mid-day. The horizontal starts and ends at a near-zero min and only has one max. It's like looking at a graph of abs(cos(t)) compared to abs(sin(t)). While the area from t = 0 to t = pi would be equal (I think... it has been a long time since calculus and trig), in reality, we are getting more than 180 degrees of light (planet curves away). If you look at the area of each curve just to the left of 0 (early dawn) and just past pi (or 180 degrees, late dusk), the cosine of the vertical panels is larger than the sine of the horizontal. This makes sense since the vertical starts and ends near max, while horizontal starts and ends near min.
Yep, the vertical ones benefit a lot more from the fact that the planets are relatively small so you don't even roughly approximate a horizontal plane and have quite a lot extra light below the horizontal and dawn and dusk.
The only reason that is true however is due to consistent solar power throughout the day. A more realistic patch would cause the sun at mid-day to give more max power to a perpendicular panel than the sun at dawn/dusk with a perpendicular panel
Btw it seems to me that some of your panels cover some other of your panels, and that may skew the results (although probably not in too significant manner). Also, for the completely boxed one - you probably should've compared it with another design that has even the corners covered up. I suspect that light is seeping through there. Otherwise, that's an obvious bug. Might test it myself :) The vertical ones (VSPs) would be better at equator because they get nothing once per day at noon, but the horizontal ones (HSPs) are obscured twice - once in the morning and once in the evening. Also, it's not just these "moments of no sun", it's also the fact that in the morning, the VSPs get full load of the sun, decrease towards the noon, and then increase towards the evening. The HSPs start with no sun, increase towards noon, and decrease towards the evening. So in conclusion, there's half as many dead points an twice as many peak points for the VSPs over HSPs, which would lead me to guess about one third better productivity at equator (which is more or less the case).
It's true that the blocking may affect the results slightly, however as with the tests of deliberate blocking it doesn't have much of an effect (which is a bug), and thankfully the differences between the setups were quite large so I feel it's unlikely that the blocking of light changed the order of which one was best even though it may have reduced some margins :) If the planets were perfectly flat then the horizontal and vertical should have the exact same results since the vertical get gradually reducing power from dawn til midday (which is identical to the horizontal's power from midday to dusk) then gradually increasing power from midday to dusk (which is identical to the horizontal's power from dawn to midday) but due to curvature of the planets and the wonky nature of voxels not blocking light at great distances the vertical panels are superior :)
As always a great video from you splitsie! It's nice to see, that my script is a solid perfomer throughout all the tests. One little note though: the pole setup could do a lot better if the side by side arranged test platforms wouldn't obstruct each other.. Also the different height levels of the panels are likely causing a little unfairness.. So at the end it's not a really objective test but nevertheless very interesting and informing! Keep on with your awesome videos!
Your script worked incredibly well, especially as I effectively had it running 3 times over at each test site. Also, that's a good point about obstruction at the pole, that might make up for some of the difference I observed between locations. I am going to have to come back to solar panels and do more tests, I think a height based one could be interesting to see just how much you gain for adding a few blocks to a tower.
Adding height to the towers would be an interesting one because there is a point where solar panels can see the sun through the planet all the time.. Would be interesting to know, how hight the tower needs to be ;)
Ugh solar panels in this game make my bloody head spin... Especially when trying to write a script so they track the sun. This game really isn't newbie friendly, especially if the newbie wants to play power efficiently. You shouldn't need to have a script to have panels track the sun (think of KSP's solar panels). But good test of the panels nonetheless. It's actually really good that you're testing this sort of stuff, not only are you helping your audience understand the stuff in the game, but it also highlights bugs, problems and contradictions in the game that KSH will (probably never) fix. So on behalf of the Space Engineers community, thank you for your service :) xD
Thanks for the kind words :) I've had at least one comment from a dev on these videos so who knows? Maybe pointing them out in this way will help them be aware of some inconsistencies that they'll be interested in fixing - but then I'm a realist, so I'm not expecting anything, just to help people understand where the systems work and where they don't
No worries, Splitsie :D That's a good mindset to have, and I do hope that these videos will shed some light to Keen on things that should be different or fixed. But yeah like you said, who knows... We'll just have to see :)
Very interesting indeed. However, I’m not convinced that the power system does work as efficiently as I would expect when using Reactors, Batteries and Solar Panels (RBS) in conjunction with each other. To my mind, the best result would be power being drawn from the Solar Panels thought the day then using the stored energy in the Batteries throughout the night. All free energy. However, this is not the way that the system works. It appears to me that when a RBS system is active, all power is drawn from the Batteries which are constantly topped up by the Reactors and/or Solar Panels (it didn’t show up well in this demo but maybe you will be able to better demonstrate this with your next test). The problem is that the system wants to keep the batteries fully charged at all times whilst drawing power from them at the same time. This means that if there is insufficient power being generated by the SPs to keep the batteries at 100% the Reactors will also be used. I find that once I get the balance right, it is more efficient to control the Reactor(s) manually, leaving them turned off most of the time. This way, the batteries do drop down thought he night (depending on what is running) but are recharged in the daylight hours. It is only when the batteries get down to about 25% that I turn on the Reactor(s) - which is a very rare occasion. My thought is that to work most efficiently in a RBS set-up, the Reactors should kick in automatically ONLY when the batteries get to a critical level, say 25%.
I wonder if someone could write a script to control the reactor turning off at a certain battery level, and turn the solar panels on at daytime. Create a very efficient system of storage ans usage?!
That's the problem with having reactors and batteries powering the same grid. Reactors try to charge the batteries, which means when you add the first battery to that grid, you get 20% less power from the same amount of uranium. Then you'd need a lot more solar panels to offset reduced efficiency. Sadly, there's no such thing as a one-way power connection in vanilla SE. On a station, the most efficient setup would be to have the solar panels supplying power to any blocks (including batteries), and the reactors only supplying power to things other than batteries. It'd be nice if reactors had an option to not charge batteries. Or better yet, if batteries had an option to not request power from reactors. It'd be very odd if solar -> battery were 100% efficient in SE. It was my impression that batteries lost 20% of the input from any power source, as IRL. (Batteries are energy converters by nature, right? So they'd waste the same chunk of energy regardless of what was charging them.)
+Michael Robison What happens when you dock a ship to the station, and the ship has reactors? The ship's reactors will then try to charge the station's batteries. If the script also turns ship reactors off while docked, then you'd have to remember to turn the reactors back on before undocking (and hope the script doesn't turn them off again in the interim). With atmospheric ships that could end badly. IMO SE's power grid doesn't provide enough options to allow us to achieve maximum efficiency.
Yeah, i'm always leaving reactors off until needed, early-game; I'm pretty sure a script does exist to do what you've described, Mick, but i can't for the life of me remember what it's called. Still, there's something all 3 of you haven't noticed, yet... This comment section is a sitcom waiting to happen! 😝 Two Michaels and a Mick! 😄
I could think that the script would need to be able to adjust for the additional power input? Instead of shutting down, maybe just allow the additional input from the external source to override any sources the station has. Then upon disconnect it can return to normal function?
I ran a reactor/battery test a few days ago in response to some disinformation on another channel: It can be demonstrated in game by testing some unit of uranium (0.01kg is convenient, but it's more obvious with .1kg @ 2MW) directly reactor -> load vs. reactor -> battery -> load . I tested both configurations against 10 max range large antennas (combined 2MW draw), .1kg lasts 3-4 minutes directly from the reactor and probably 20-25 seconds less from batteries. If you have a reactor with you, it's always more efficient to draw directly from the reactor, as any power drawn through a battery loses 20%. Reactors have no efficiency losses from running at less than maximum output: scrap all those batteries and just "store" your power in uranium ingots (unless you're using them for something else, like raising your peak output). Keen needs to fix the power input priority for batteries so you don't get pass-through @ 20% losses: battery charge should only trigger on excess power and only drain on insufficient power when set to default.
Ah, nice work. Good to know the wiki doesn't have that bit wrong :) From talking with other people in the comments I've been brought round to the idea that, the battery system works really well for ships, because with them you occasionally need a peak power output higher than your reactors can deal with so having them charge your batteries is useful and a nice game mechanic that it isn't fully efficient. But it would be nice to have a toggle for stations where the system works by only charging batteries off solar, then using the reactors when the batteries are dead/almost dead.
I totally agree... I'll often use exclusively batteries on small ships, because they have superior kW/kg. I hadn't heard before that solar panels give 100% of their power through batteries... I find that suspicious, as I don't see why batteries would check who is giving them power, especially it's my understanding (although I haven't put it to the test) that batteries tax each other... which makes me a sad panda, but that's how I charge my small ships at my solar station... solar panels charge the station batteries, station batteries charge the small ship batteries (because I don't have 4MW of solar panels).
That's what I've read, haven't tested it yet though. That's a good point about the battery tax, I should test that as well. Especially since in my survival scenario I refilled my flying ship off my rover which might not have been my best decision ever... but still would have lost power somewhere if it is indeed lost.
I enjoy these videos a bit more than your survival series. Actually, your very first series was my favorite. You almost had an EthoLP approach, where it really was survival (mostly ;)) but you thought about the episodes in advance and edited all the stuff out that didn't pertain to your lesson or the topic of that video. Loved those first 6 videos.
The first tutorial series was meant to be contained to those first few videos and I spent an amount of time on those that's not sustainable long term - several weeks per video. I wanted to come up with a survival basics that let people get their head around enough of SE to have fun but didn't go through so much as to become overly prescriptive in what to do with the game - my thinking was to give people the tools and let them go from there. I would love to do more of the tests and tutorial videos but they take a lot longer to make and by playing through the survival scenario I've come up with more ideas so it's been handy in that way :)
I wonder if the difference in the amount of sun light getting to the bottom layer of solar panels if you sandwich them on the scripted rotor system will affect how well the script detects the best angle for the solar panels.?
Interesting thought, I suspect it would be ok as the way the script seems to work is by moving the rotor in one direction until power output starts going down, then tests the other direction for the same thing so it should still work unless the light getting through the panels is a glitch in which case it could cause all sorts of disasters...
I've linked it on some previous videos but forgot to on this one, thanks for reminding me :) Here's the link as well: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=699142028 it's Isy's Solar Alignment Script
I know this is a couple years old now but.... Solar panels produce power across multiple wavelengths not just the visual, IRL. This means the covered you may still receive some power, although pretty sure it would not be as much as those panels still made. Certain wavelengths of light can penetrate through "solid" objects, but this gets into talk about a theoretical black box for emissivity of light based on material and also temperature. Also believe it or not color also can change what depths the wavelengths penetrate. Of course all of that is real world, and pretty sure the power generation in SE is from heat transfer from my computer, I mean an artifact of computer programming.. ;P Edit: But really in an enclosed space power generation from solar is pretty negligible and would require a very large size to even charge a AA battery...
My experience with the power hierarchy is that if the power being generated via solar is less than what you're system is using then it will default entirely to reactor and not use the solar. If there is a battery buffer, they will take the full load of the system while still using 100% of the solar so long as they're in the right mode (no checks selected) and have enough stored power and output to supply demand. Ultimately, if you have solar, you NEED batteries to use 100% of their output, otherwise they will be generating power that won't be used, likewise, if the batteries are fully charged, the panels won't be used at full efficiency either. I prefer to avoid having to default to reactors so my experiene beyond that point is limited but I have had times where my equipment was switching on and off, I assume because the batteries reached critical and were no longer able to power the system, the reactor was coming online and charging, then switching off because the batteries took over again. Worth mentioning twice, batteries are a pain in the a$$ with their modes. Make sure everything, charge, discharge and auto, is unchecked and it will work as a passthrough power system for your solar. The batteries will absorb the system demand and the panels will continuously feed the batteries so long as they have output.
That's why I did that test, the solar panel was no where near enough to power the arc furnace yet it did save on a small amount of Uranium so even when unable to power all of the functions it still worked. The setup did have a timer block though so it might have been powering the timer block alone and that saved the small amount of Uranium. Completely agree with you on the battery settings, they work reasonably well with no boxes checked these days which is nice as they used to bug out a lot, Keen's managing to get some of the simpler problems gradually worked out :)
I made the test in encasing a solar panel into window. That do not produce energy and is considered obstructed. For non script follow sun solar panel you can use solar panel who aliment overdrive gyroscope and are docked via landing gear into a ship
I'm seeing this for the first time now, and I wonder if you could just use a rotor set at a very low fractional rpm that is in sync with the day / night cycle instead of fancy scripts and timing blocks. I might try this myself!
Splitsie I tested it last night in one direction, and it worked great! It also serves as a clock of sorts at night, as the panel continues to track the sun even as it's on the other side of the planet.
The only thing I didn't hear mentioned was the orientation of the verticals, are they facing East -West or North - South. (I'm thinking they face East -West but didn't hear it in the setup.)
even if its insignificant, low-profile setups (ones that follow the land horizontally rather than stick far up) are better than nothing and may be better for a tactical standpoint, especially when you add the glass above it to make it less conspicuous
im surprised the best possible planet-side setup you could possibly do was not covered in this video. Set up a tower at one of the poles. Depending on the size of the planet/moon you may need to build it a bit higher but it's possible to get solar power 24/7 with this setup. On moons it the tower doesn't have to be more than 50-100 blocks high either. Building space elevators on the poles is ideal for this due to this effect. Maybe make a video on it?
From my perspective I pretty much did cover it, since the tracking script solar panel was almost 100% even though it was only a few blocks off the ground and the benefits of that really showed. I have wanted to make a guide on space elevators at some point (but most of my designs have had limited reliability) and if I do I'll hopefully remember to mention that from a power perspective the poles can be very useful places to put them :)
Great test, thanks you! The wonder if there would be a difference between vertical setups with the solar panels oriented with the width being longer than the height instead of oriented as tall and skinny, but still hooked up to the battery the same. Wouldn’t think there is a difference but they may be more efficient a certain way during indirect sunlight.
You tested a vertical box (front, top, back) but what about a horizontal box (front, side, back) this of course meant for any point not the equator? Where the middle panel could be facing the equator to better catch the angled noon sun... or the time at the pole where the sun is facing one edge of the other two panels.
True, there was a limit to the number of different tests I was going to do. I'd originally thought of testing at various positions on the planet but it just got all a bit too much
Could be nice to set that black glass UNDER solar pannel to see if backside of pannel get sun by mirrowing it from darck glass and give more power for the pannel...
I think Le Derp is right, I'd be very surprised if the game models that degree of effect. What I think might be happening with the glass blocks and the other solar panel is that the game is simply not calculating some of the blocking effect. Which might also explain why the completely blocked in panels still generate power. Though that is all speculation :P
I don't think this game could handle a mirroring effect, but I did notice that you only examined the tests with the semi-transparent obstructions on the top when you were at or near the poles, where there would be more light hitting the panels from the sides instead of through the top.
I'd be interested to see if it holds at 45 or 60 degrees rotated compared to the sun track: These are all set so vertical panels get a best possible exposure... so I'm curious how much angle between the panels and the sun track before they are equal to/worse than horizontal panels, which largely do not care about the sun track angle.
That would be interesting, see if there's a simple way to use a rotor to set up an optimal angle and leave it fixed there rather than using a script, at locations further from the pole or equator you might actually get close enough to the moving setups to not worry about them. Would certainly be more efficient in some settings, particularly if we're talking about processor efficiency for those on lower specced PCs.
Some of your results may have skewed a bit: The different setups were scrunched together close enough that some may be casting shade upon others - it's particularly likely that the horizontal setups would be in the shade of the vertical setups next to them for portions of the day. I don't know that it would have been enough to change the conclusions, but something to note.
On the pole it might have had an impact, but as you say, I don't think it was enough to change the relative outcomes in a meaningful way and to avoid it would have meant running the tests individually and I didn't have quite that much time on my hands :P I meant to point it out as a potential problem but forgot to say it specifically when I mentioned that there were a few factors that weren't completely controlled
I know its been many years so I have no idea if you are still looking it the comments here but Id be interested in a follow-up. Is this still accurate? For power distribution, did poser usage get split? How about 3 setups. One with one single generator (uranium), one setup with one gen + one solar panel and one setup with two generators. You could compare if solar is being used first or if power distribution is being split between solar and the generator. It might split it 50/50
Pure science =D It's a bit difficult to find a good spot on a planet for panels. I thought it's common sense that a ball in space (planet) that is lit by a source that rotates around it in 1 plane should have at least 2 pole points that are lit 24/7. I mean, in SE planets don't move, don't turn, they don't have a shifted axis of rotation that makes real Earth days longer and shorter. But I fail to find such a pole. How do you do that? It seems like the sun plays tricks on me and ALWAYS gets obstructed by something. Even though in space there should be more positions that never get dark, that always have the sun circle trajectory visible. Like if we move in real life above the planetary orbital plane the sun will always be visible.
I've always found the poles by cheating and moving the sun quickly to ensure I've found that sweet spot (I've not been in a situation where I've wanted to find it in survival). Because the sun is tied to the player observing it you get some weird behaviours in terms of obstructions that make it somewhat more difficult to predict what will block it out :/
I suspect it won't be there, but it would be nice if solar tracking was one of the vanilla 'script' options (I say 'script' because I'm pretty certain those in built scripts don't run as a normal PB script runs)
It's not a fair test. You know... having all of your tests lined up could be affecting the results, as adjacent tests are blocking light from each other. 14:11 What about a "box" setup that is asymmetrical, where one of the vertical panels is rotated 90% so that the shadows of both vertical panels don't block 100% of each others light when the sun is aligned (syzygy) with them? Or a box setup where all three panels face one of the X, Y, and Z axis's?
I set the box up in its optimal arrangement based on the direction of travel of the sun, the panels were exposed for as long as possible for each of their facings, if you can expose a panel vertically so both sides are able to capture light then it will do better and will do better than a horizontal panel, so any horizontal panel addition will reduce your overall power output. That's why the box fails to live up to expectations, which is disappointing as I thought it was a pretty cool idea when it was first suggested to me. With regard to some of the test rigs blocking light from others that is a problem, but as shown by the panels that generated power completely blocked by armor, that's unlikely to have resulted in or significantly changed the large differences observed :)
You should have tested the box setup comparing to single panels in the verticals and horizontal positions. Just because there are 3 total, they are only useful by themselves at 1 point in time of the day
If you are running 3 panels in verticals that have nothing blocking them, that’s twice a day that the 3 panels are at max effectiveness. By default your 3 will output more than a single.
I tested them the way I did as the resources that go into the 3 vertical or horizontal are the same as the resources that go into the 3 as a box, so it's a more relevant comparison to me :)
You mention the bug with the solar panels accessing light while completely obscured. It's a joke now. The sun can be completely below the horizon, nay closer to the opposite side of the planet, and my panels are giving me 4 bars. It's awesome to get that power, but takes away from the survival aspect. Do you know if Isy's script still works after the big overhaul not too long ago? I was using it heavily on an old game, but I haven't tried it since starting a new one a week ago (haven't been on in almost a year).
Yep, Isy's still works as of the last time I tested it (which was just before the economy update and I don't think that would have broken his script) :)
Given you've found the equator, I need you to get Capac, and do something originally done by Eratosthenes in 240 BC (if only flat earthers knew history, we could have saved so many flat earth videos, which also the debunkers never freakin' us either), and find the circumference of the earth like planet. I'm really curious now. Assuming everyday is an Equinox, get Capac to walk a known distance, place a column at that distance and measure the angle of the shadow when you have no shadow. You can then find the circumference to under 4% error! Only downside is that he'd have to count his paces...maybe you walk the distance and you measure the angle? Wait, the GAME measures the distance for you! Now, I'm really excited to find out how big the simulation planet actually is...ancillary to this experiment I have developed the hypothesis that Capac is an idiot savant, but I don't have enough evidence yet to finalize a p value under 5%. This experiment and how he handles it would push it over the top. Every now and then when he dies (his CQB is *horrible* he eats bullets all the time...pie the corner doesn't mean dessert!) or things break on him, occasionally he comes up with something unexpected, or I see something unexpected to try because of his mistakes. You need him even in these kinds of videos! Imo. I can't do it myself, I don't have my own Capac and given I only use metrics when I do research, but imperial measures like feet, yards and miles, at home, I wouldn't understand the results if I did it myself. I also have yet to solve the being in two places at once, from what I'm told I'd have to be really tinnie tiny to be able to only probably be anywhere...or many places all the time...unless someone looked at me of course, and then I'd have to be somewhere that time... Has the game changed enough such that these experiments are no longer relevant? Then, a new series with Capac could make things fresh for you and entertaining and informative for your viewers! Given this video has 51k views, you've made anywhere from 50 to 150 bucks. Buy Capac a pizza, and he'd be good! If you were female, they average 6 dollars per 1,000 views...if you didn't know, so yeah guys (1-3 dollars) get screwed on RU-vid. Even on RU-vid women get paid only 70% of men! (Maths, it's not what it used to be.)
I'm not sure I grasped everything there, but, we know the dimensions of the planets in the game as their default when in the solar system start has them at 120km in diameter. What you were suggesting does have me curious though, since the sun orbits about the player, does that change any of the light based calculations of planet size?
Splitsie, if you're saying instead of heliocentric solar systems, Space Engineers uses a narcisscentric (sic) solar system, (how does that work in MP!?) I'm quite certain that would make the geometric calculation change, but I'd have to call a local politician to verify. I have an adv degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, not any certs/degrees in specialty with people who think the world revolves around them. Though I know lots of NLP and hypnotic communication, and have been known to have women feel cold because they didn't notice I got bored and got their clothes off, idt that is of any use here. That being said, even if you knew the distance from the sun to the player, idt you could extrapolate anything about the planet. Then again, I just realized I remember way less Euclidean geometry than I thought. My first job I got after I decided I wanted to avoid lying, cheating, stealing, breaking things or hurting ppl, was as a NYC BOE Math teacher. Most ppl in my field helped some one develop better weapons. Though I get you need to be alive (and free) before anything else, I refused to do that. I taught geometry sometimes, and would never look at the problems so I kept myself entertained. The first time I proved the problem in the lesson plan was the first class of the day. None of the kids ever noticed, and it always seemed obvious to me. My concern right now is Idc that idk. Then again I have this background process that solves things without my awareness so it's possible in a few days, something will go ding and I'll inform myself of the solution. The reason why the problem would be different by only having the sun and paced distance, with the angle is because the Greek guy could use the knowledge of 360 degrees closes a circle. Ffs, my unconscious just informed me it should be possible, but won't tell me. I have a Sophocles approach to life: I'll believe my unconscious only after he shows me because, "You don't know you can do a thing, until after you've actually done it." I.e., most ppl talk shite, much less actually do it...
This video is about a solar panel in a video game how do you make it about you being perv an taking women's clothes off through hypnosis lol whack job you sound like a diddler bud
are you taking into account that the batteries start out with a little bit of charge when created? Or did you discharge all batteries before starting? you may have mentioned it and i missed it but that may explain why you are seeing a charge on the battery on the 100% covered panels..
The only factor I don't think was taken into account and may have messed with the results is the height off the ground. The solar arrays that were taller got to see the sun over the horizon first. How much this effected the tests I do not know.
There were certainly some height differences but the power production gap between the setups was large enough that I don't believe they would have changed the relative rankings - this is just based on my experience though so I could be wrong :)
btw your equator panels vertical and horizontal the horizontal ones get 1/3rd less light as they have sunrise and sunset at an extreme angle ... while the vertical panels get sunrise and sunset at near perfect alignment... so in a 1hour day ... they get max power for 40minutes and less power for 20 ... while the horizontal get max power for mid day and min power the rest ... which means 40min of min power and 20 minutes of max power ..
My sister often pays me out for the language I use - especially when I've recently been reading fantasy and start throwing out old english terms for things :P
It's a pretty rough game to start out in, doesn't exactly forgive much. I'm glad my videos helped you get through that stage to see what fun can be had with it :)
I absolutely confirm that. Splitsie is my prefered source when it comes to understand the SE game mechanics. A big inspiration to try out new things in SE and to play SE in a technically way which it has been intended to be played. I got infected by SE just a couple of weeks ago. I did not feel being nudged that rough into the start out of this game. It's pretty straight forward imo. But as a daily YT consumer it inspires and helps so much seeing what fun you actually can get out of SE by watching Splitsie's videos. I'm not an native English speaker and I'd say even to be able to understand US people from Texas - even with a pithly word swallowing slang. But you have the ability to transmit content in a laguistic and technically perfect way. So just after one video you became my youtuber I prefer to watch on my tablet in bed before I go to sleep #nohomo :D. I would suspenct you're from Australia. But it doesn't matter. Your content helps sooooo much, is entertaining and you should be the official 'tutorial guy' for SE. At least for me you are.
Hmm ... does it make a difference if you stick your panels up a big high tower or keep them relatively low to the ground? I tend to go for the tower. The idea being it extends the length of the day since run rise for the tower top of the tower will be sooner than for the ground level and similarly sunset will be later in the day night cycle. But is the extra power generated worth the extra resource and power needed to build the tower.
If you can build higher you should get some benefit, especially if you're on a smaller planet as the curvature will allow a higher tower to be exposed to the sun for longer - assuming the voxels blocking light mechanic is working as you would expect. That's something I want to test further though, since the light blocking of panels seems... unreliable at best.
I don't think light is being blocked properly at all. I've had panels with 4 full bars at night for quite a while now. At least as far back as when escape from mars came out.
Yeah, it's really wonky. I would have thought at least that the grids were able to block light but I got proved wrong on that one. I'll go with you on that one, I don't have any specific memories of when the problem started but I also remember it being broken in EFM
Makes me feel pretty good about setting my solar panels up in a "Duga array", though to be honest I only did it at the time b/c they were facing the morning sun.
Nice testing, thank you! But one question: how can one determine the relative position on a planet without checking the path of the sun for several whole day/night cycles? Is there a compass- or GPS-mod or something? I really like the idea of having a base at - or at least near - the pole of a planet that can completely rely on solar power all the time.
The way I did it was by using spectator and a very fast day/night cycle so I was able to observe the sun's direction of travel quickly. Even though you might think it's easier to live at the pole, I actually got substantially less power per day there than at a more temperate zone, only the single rotor did better at the pole (than the single vertical rotor on the mountain) but the double rotor did better than it by about 15% on top of the mountain. So if you've got batteries you'll get more power per day settling on a mountain in the 'temperate' zone :)
Thanks a lot for the reply! :-D Perhaps a base on and in the top of a mountain is a cool idea as well. With a solar-tower at the peak, a big landing pad beneath and the production and habitation inside the mountain - with huge windows to enjoy the view! ;-) Thank you for all the ideas I get from your videos and tipps!
I like making mountaintop bases, but the only downside is that it limits your ability to build rovers and have them enter your base. Awesome to sit back and watch a sunset from your hidden mountain base though :)
Interesting, nice informations ! I think It's not finished yet, because we miss a test a the exact middle between a pole and the equator. I think the vertical setup might be less efficient in this part of the planet. The reason why the vertical solar panels were better at the pole is logic, but at the equator, normally there should have been the same results, and the vertical setup has been better. But what is happening if the vertical setup was turned to 90 ° ? The vertical setup surely would have been less efficient (but that's space engineers, so we have to try). But why do that ? Yes, in the equator you know how to place your vertical solar panels, but just between the equator and the pole, how should we place them ? Tt some point, are the horizontal ones better regardless of the orientation of the verticals ? You have tested it for a point between a pole and the equator, but it was really close to the pole, so can you try another test in other places between a pole and the equator ? Maybe we would have some surprises...
As it turned out, I think the mountain test was as close to the midpoint between equator and pole as I'm likely to get. I'm assuming this based on the results of the single rotor setups being almost identical so the sun must have been at about a 45 degree angle above the horizon. I also setup the alignment of the panels in order to maximise their sun exposure at each position, I was honestly surprised that the vertical setup was so far superior in each position, I'd always had my panels flat in the past, but no more! :)
Can you do something similar with wind turbines? I built a 4x4 grid of turbines and the middle four spun slower than the outer 12. Why? Also some edges were slower than others. Is wind directional in Space Engineers? How do i optimise my turbine setups?
I really should get around to doing the video I had planned on that, hopefully it'll happen not too far away but until then, the way wind turbines work is by detecting obstructions up to 20 m away in the horizontal (as defined by gravity, not the orientation of the turbine) so your inner ones were likely getting blocked by the outer to a small extent. The differences between edges are harder to explain but are related to the inaccurate way the game detects obstructions
Interesting. 20m is how many large blocks? Sounds like I should spread out the turbines. Another video suggested that 5 blocks (between inner edges) is optimal for wind clearance. Do i have to have the turbines on 5 block stems, or do they not calculate wind clearance below them?
On the polar test there was little I could do to fix that sadly, without running the test once per setup (with it being a long test each time I simply didn't have any time to do that). Fortunately the differences were so large between each setup that it's incredibly unlikely that the brief shadow from the other panels had any impact on the order of which setup is best (the absolute numbers aren't relevant just the relative rankings) :)
No worries, just pointing out what I saw. I still miss when surviving or not came down to turning off doors, lights, etc for every available amp. That was before low power devices were moved to a IsPowered bool check and no longer drain power. :(
I miss that too, I love having to eek every bit of power or mineral/material out of what I have to survive. But then I'm one of those people that loves a difficult survival game :P
The box is actually a bad set up. What you prove is that the solar gets power as long as the sun get a broad side. A better test would to have only 2 or a 3 staggered facing same as the other. that way neither are shadowed by the other. I suspect that's what was wrong with the box there. But of course rotors would dominate. IRL they dominate too. This game is crazy awesome... would hate to imagine a physics voxel game that beats out this one.
Despite its flaws, Space Engineers still does things that other games just don't get close to in terms of being a physics sandbox and lego space ship builder. That's why I have kept coming back to it for such a loooooooong time :)
It seems like the obstruction from other blocks is a lot more accurate these days and you're less likely to get magical power with another block covering, though I'm not sure that applies to the solar panels, I just know that armour is a bit more effective at blocking them these days
Your "fan" and setup can be done with only 2 panels if you place them side by side. "Fan" setup should be compared with 2 panel setup, not 3 panel setup.
That's not a bad idea, though I suspect, given the poor performance of the horizontal panels in general, that it will still be outperformed by the vertical only pattern
Nope, it's a bit of a bug in the calculations for whether solar panels are obscured :( I'm not sure of the exact positions you need to ensure 0 production from the solar panel
I have noticed a bug with solar panels where if a part of the panel is in the ground it will produce power even when the sun is on the opposite side of the planet.
have you ever used spectator to fly into an asteroid or planet? the surface won't be rendered from the inside. it is likely that a similar act of simplicity in coding is causing the bug you noticed.
Oh, it's worse than that. Try building your solar array completely underground (e.g. some large cavern). ;) Apparently, only blocks obstruct sunlight in SE; voxels do not.
I'm thoroughly confused as to what effect voxels do or don't have on solar panels. These tests have only confused me more so I think I'm going to need to do a follow up to look at that more closely and try to work out how the system is supposed to and how it actually is functioning (or not)
You can only initiate jump when you're in a cockpit, but if you jump out afterwards, or if in multiplayer you're in a ship but not in a seat you will be left behind and the ship will jump on its own replying here as well in case someone else wants to know the answer :)
I haven't been in the game in a long time so I don't know if its still in but I want to ad oxygen garden on isys solar script like it will have solar and oxygen on it
I haven't checked the script, but it may be able to use oxygen farms, but you'd be able to just stick them on one with at least 1 solar panel and it would allow for proper tracking for the oxygen farms :)
It's always a bit of a challenge with these sorts of tests as I want to be thorough but I also don't want to drag them out much longer than necessary (some already say I do that) :P All of the things I didn't check in the video I did check off screen to ensure the comments were accurate though :)
In all of my tests I use the game completely vanilla, in this one I used Isy's solar tracking script in the programmable blocks, but since scripts are technically not mods it's still vanilla. I don't like to test with mods because things change so much more frequently with mods than the base game and I don't think I could keep up with updating that many tests :P
Ah, I used space master mode to turn on creative tools. That means that you can fly with no hydrogen but your oxygen, health and hydrogen still deplete. It allowed me to build like in creative mode but still have batteries function normally :)
Neither had I to be honest, until I started my current survival scenario where I'm reliant on solar and really don't have enough. It's amazing the things I've learned since starting this channel :)
The glass is tinted and it's unclear how the game models diffusion of light through a material. The reason for the test was to see if there was any consistent behaviour with that which would allow for armored solar panels. As it turns out the rate of transmission of light through a transparent block is almost random since opaque blocks aren't always detected either
The vertical panels were set up at each site to maximise their exposure to light, if I rotated any of them by 90 degrees they would produce less as they would be parallel to the light vector. This would almost certainly reduce their overall power output
Sort of, but what about voxels made by voxel hands, what about a large hole in the ground? I had intended to test them but forgot which is quite frustrating :|
Not any more sadly, since without going through the effort of installing a special version of SE you can no longer access the debug menu. It got removed which for me is frustrating as I used it a lot for a variety of situations when filming
There's a bug where you get solar power through voxels if the ones that should be blocking the light are far enough away (like the opposite side of a planet or moon)
