Make Day and Night Equal Length

[thereaverofdarkness]

I think most players assume that solar panels give 50% power output averaged over time, but they actually give quite a bit more. They run at full power for over half of the day/night cycle, and shut off completely for only a very short time.

You can see the effect in this image:

Electric Network Info

I did a little bit of geometry and found that solar panels generate around 70% power averaged across the day/night cycle. So their 60 kW is something like 42 kW sustained. This not only defies player expectations, but it also greatly reduces how many accumulators you need, and it diminishes the drawback of using solar panels for power.

I am asking for the day/night cycle to be even with each other (and much longer too), such that a solar panel outputs 50% of its power averaged across a day/night cycle.

[Ingolifs]

I find night really annoying, and I'm glad it only lasts for a short period.

[BenSeidel]

The day/night settings should be configurable in the map creation screen like the biters are now.

[Roxor128]

If we get the option for configurable day/night length, why not do it in terms of latitude? Pick 80 degrees south and if you're playing in June, you get perpetual night, while in January, you get perpetual day, just like in Antarctica.

[ssilk]

There are some mods, that make longer night.
E.g. https://mods.factorio.com/mods/binbinhf ... htExtender

[thereaverofdarkness]

There are some mods, that make longer night.
E.g. https://mods.factorio.com/mods/binbinhf ... htExtender

That mod doesn't change the ratio between the two. I use it, and I hate that I still have a day that lasts over twice as long as the night. I've talked with the person who made the mod and he seemed to want to make day and night equal length for the mod, but he says because of the way the code is designed, there is nothing he can do about it.

From 01 Feb 2017:

Night seems to be significantly shorter than day, in particular full darkness is very brief. This makes solar panels generate too much electricity--they generate well over 50% average output across the day/night cycle. Someone told me this is just part of vanilla day and night cycle, but I want to change it to make day and night have equal length, and make twilight a lot shorter. Is there a way Day Night Extender can do this?

since factorio 0.13 night/day cycle is now dependant of the surface. The result is that night/day shift are not synchronized anymore on different surfaces : you can have different noon on different surfaces. As I can only slow down time globally, I cannot implement a difference between nights and days that would work on every surfaces... Sorry.

[Distelzombie]

It is quite realistic. Why would you want to change that? Because of the solar cells?

[thereaverofdarkness]

It is quite realistic. Why would you want to change that? Because of the solar cells?

What's realistic? That day is longer than night?

[Distelzombie]

Yes. Here look at the app I have on my phone. At these times the night is only about as third as long as a day. (Not current time)

[thereaverofdarkness]

Yes. Here look at the app I have on my phone. At these times the night is only about as third as long as a day. (Not current time)

For part of the year in parts of the world, and only when the sun never gets high enough in the sky to make solar panels worthwhile. Other parts of the year in the same places, nights are twice as long as day.

It is NOT realistic for the game world to always have nights take up only 30% of the day/night cycle when the sun is clearly going high in the sky during the day. (as evidenced by the shadows, difference in brightness between twilight and midday, and the remarkable effectiveness of solar panels as a power source)

[5thHorseman]

Nights suck, gameplay wise. Why do you want to wander around in the dark for a longer time? If you ask me, they're already too long.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Nights suck, gameplay wise. Why do you want to wander around in the dark for a longer time? If you ask me, they're already too long.

I don't want to wander in the dark. But I want that pressure to deal with that environment.

Resource scarcities suck. Biters suck. Having your character get killed sucks. Not being able to find water sucks. Not being able to find good land because there's too much water in your way sucks. Making a good sandbox game isn't about making nothing suck, it's about giving the player problems to solve and the tools to solve them with.

We have ways to deal with the night, though I would like to see that expanded upon. Having such short nights makes me question why the game even has them. It wouldn't be strongly affected by removing night altogether and reducing solar panel output to 42kW, though that would remove an already existing aspect of the game: that solar panels ever do have their power output change. The way I see it, it makes sense to have 50% night to properly justify this already existing game mechanic. It makes sense for solar panels to have a strong advantage (no maintenance or input) along with a strong disadvantage (turns off at night) to make them a powerful choice that matters, and not just an essentially mandatory part of game progression.

[ssilk]

I accidentally moved this to won't implement. Sorry for that, I dealed around with hundreds of posts yesterday, I cannot remember when that happened.

To the suggestion: Well that is not a new idea, there are many similar and the number of old mods around that is bigger than five. But there are also a lot of players that want the opposite: shorter or even no night at all.

From that aspect I would suggest this instead: make length of day/night much simpler mod-able than yet, make that eventually also a game configuration value.
There are also suggestions that do that already:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43644 Variable day/night time

Nonetheless I added it to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=342#p133677 Events (Environmental Disasters and Weather) / Biome-Types

[5thHorseman]

Nights suck, gameplay wise. Why do you want to wander around in the dark for a longer time? If you ask me, they're already too long.

I don't want to wander in the dark. But I want that pressure to deal with that environment.

Resource scarcities suck. Biters suck. Having your character get killed sucks. Not being able to find water sucks. Not being able to find good land because there's too much water in your way sucks. Making a good sandbox game isn't about making nothing suck, it's about giving the player problems to solve and the tools to solve them with.

Night sucks for a different reason than lack of water sucks. Lack of water is a gameplay hindrance. Night is a black screen. Lamps help in your factory, your flashlight technically helps outside the factory. Night vision (finally) eliminates the problem but that's fairly late tech.

Factorio gameplay - for me - is about designing and building a factory as your wants and abilities grow over time. It has nothing to do with not being able to see the screen. It also has nothing to do with biters but that's a different topic

Also, if the night was half of the game time and didn't get nearly as dark (say, it got down to "night vision" levels and you didn't need night vision goggles) then I'm all for it.

Though if you nerf Solar any more, it'll always lose to Nuclear. Instead of nearly always losing like it does now.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Though if you nerf Solar any more, it'll always lose to Nuclear. Instead of nearly always losing like it does now.

It's not much of a nerf if power output is adjusted to compensate for the change. Then all it would change is you'd need more accumulators to last the night, and you already don't need very many on full solar, less if you're partially dependent on other energy sources. But most importantly I'm not asking to nerf them here, and adjusting their output can always compensate for any way in which you feel the change would be a nerf.