choice of solar panels

[Vézalius]

Hi,
I see a lot of plans that use universal solar panels and I'm curious why earth-based solar panels are avoided ? while I find them more efficient and they are visually neutral I think, am I wrong ?

solar pannel.png

[alt3rn1ty]

If I am making a station for the Construction Community, I avoid Terran Solar Panels because getting the resources for building them (Silicon Carbide, Metallic Microlattice, Computronic substrate) is generally such a pain in the proverbial until you get well established.

I wouldn't like to impose on any user of a station I upload that additional logistics problem.

I sometimes use Terran Solar panels in my own builds though because they are smaller and fit limited space in plots, as I have a Terran Resources Fab churning out all three resources for my Wharf and Shipyard, so in my game they are easy to get hold of.

I think its probably as simple as that. A lot of us dont start in Terran sectors, and maybe prefer setting up home sectors too far away for traders to build up stock of Terran resources easily. One of the first places I go to Terraform is Scale plate Green, to get the huge amount of freebies and the SCA Rep, so thats my home sector for a long while after the Xenon have been cleaned out.

[Agrefits]

Hi,
I see a lot of plans that use universal solar panels and I'm curious why earth-based solar panels are avoided ? while I find them more efficient and they are visually neutral I think, am I wrong ?

I don't think they are being avoided, i think it all comes down to where you build and what economy / blueprints you likely have better access to. Judging by the astethics i actually like them like way more and while i almost exclusively use them on my Terran builds, i avoid them on my Teladi builds in favour logistics reason and possible race relations on the target audience.

[adeine]

I think some people avoid them because you need more of them to achieve the same output.

I'd say pick the version that matches the rest of your station, or if you rely on build materials from NPC factions based on what is available in the vicinity.

[Vézalius]

I see, I understand better, thank you very much

[alt3rn1ty]

Check the in game encyclopaedia for Station Modules, Energy and Terran Energy (forget exactly what they are called)
But I think you will find that per hour (p/h) the standard Solar panel outputs a lot more than the Terran ones, I think its something like 10,500 versus 500. Terran ones look smarter, but personally I also like the bigger ones not just for the output, but because they have a more nostalgic look to them for us old sci-fi fans , and using less of them for the same output also means you are building less of a mega station when it comes to game performance.

[Vézalius]

Check the in game encyclopaedia for Station Modules, Energy and Terran Energy (forget exactly what they are called)
But I think you will find that per hour (p/h) the standard Solar panel outputs a lot more than the Terran ones, I think its something like 10,500 versus 500. Terran ones look smarter, but personally I also like the bigger ones not just for the output, but because they have a more nostalgic look to them for us old sci-fi fans , and using less of them for the same output also means you are building less of a mega station when it comes to game performance.

Yes, you are looking at 1 to 1 production, but in terms of size the comparison should be 6 to 1 (shown in the image of my post) although it only takes 4 TER modules to produce more

[alt3rn1ty]

Oh right I see, when you said in the first post that "I find them more efficient", I thought you meant in terms of production output.

[Vézalius]

Oh right I see, when you said in the first post that "I find them more efficient", I thought you meant in terms of production output.

in truth I'm talking about size and yield , if for the same size I produce more with TER I suppose it is better.
What is misleading is that the TER is in small pieces, that's why in the image I put 6 to compare it to the size of the standard, I don't know if I can explain well