solar panel production speed

[Bleda]

I'm playing the new tight spot campaign and I noticed that the production time for solar panels is very fast. Let me make an example:

production time for a solar panel is 0.5s
you need at least an assembly line 2 to produce them, so every 0.5 / 0.75 = 0.666667 seconds, a panel can be produced in just one single assembly line

to make calculations easier I will assume we use a tier 3 assembly line

to produce one solar panel, you need

15 electronic circuits
5 steel
5 copper

one steel takes two tier 1 furnaces 17.5 seconds, so to get 5 steel every 0.5 seconds, you would need 350 furnaces and 100 miners

electronic circuits are made in 0.5s as well, so to sustain one solar panel factory you need 15 circuit factories of the same tier. you can imagine the number of furnaces and miners you would need for that.

so in short: It's completely impossible and nonsensical to have a solar panel factory running all the time. you will never be able to provide enough materials and you will never have use for so many solar panels. I suggest you make the production substantially longer.

A typical solar plant with one substation consists of about 20 solar panels. now, to produce these in one assembly line would take you 10 seconds. so after one hour you could build 360 power plants. Even for a very big base, you will hardly ever need more than 30 of them. And if you need more, you can always add a second assembly line to produce them.

the same probably happens with some other high level items. I just came across the solar panels because of the tight spot challenge.

[tralala]

I agree. The production time for solar panels is ridiculously fast. It doesn't pay of to make them in an assembler you just grab the ressources and make 100 of them in less than a minute by hand.

[Khyron]

But what makes you think a factory making solar panels needs to be operating 100% of the time?

Does it have any bearing on how many solar panels you need, or how quickly you need them?

Would changing the production time make any difference to how many solar panels you need at a given point in the game?

How might you take advantage of the fact that a solar panel factory is not running most of the time?

Hint:

With the current settings, a solar factory is an excellent candidate for productivity modules. The pollution added and extra power consumed is almost meaningless given the factory is waiting for resources most of the time.

[BurnHard]

Hint:

With the current settings, a solar factory is an excellent candidate for productivity modules. The pollution added and extra power consumed is almost meaningless given the factory is waiting for resources most of the time.

Since they only work with intermediate products, no

[Khyron]

Since they only work with intermediate products, no

Oh, true.. that's a shame. Well, I still can't see any reason to make solar panels take longer to build.

[tralala]

The short build time is very convenient I agree but it would be convenient to build modules and destroyer capsules very fast as well.

There are several reasons the build time should be (drastically) increased:

a) it's a complex product: A solar panel (like a processing unit or an engine) is a pretty complex product which can't be assembled very fast.
b) it needs a lot of components: Once again a reason it should take some time to be assembled.
c) You don't need a ton of them: Unlike circuit boards or cables you don't need hundred of thousands of them. A few hundreds midgame and a few thousands (late) endgame are enough.
d) Solar power is OP anyway: The mainenance-free, 100 % reliable and 100 % storable, unlimited, pollution-free energy source is so good that's just fair to make it a bit longer to build to achieve 100 % solar energy production.
e) Balancing: Comparable products like processing engines, capsules and engines take much longer and eventually you set up an assembler to make them. You could make solar panels solely by hand and wouldn't even notice the build time.

The same is true for the accumulator.

[GewaltSam]

Sure you could build them manually, but why should you? I personally don't mind an assembly standing around on standby most of the time. It produces into a provider chest which is restricted to around 200 solar cells. If I tell my little bots to expand my solar farm, the assembly starts up automatically and fills the chest again. I see absolutely no problem with that.

But, to topic, I wouldn't mind longer production times for this item and some others at all. I even think advanced products SHOULD have a longer production time; it only makes sense and it's another reason to have good automated structures for most productions.

[Robbedem]

Accumulators fall under the same category as solar panels. I think both could easily have their build time doubled.

[tralala]

Accumulators fall under the same category as solar panels. I think both could easily have their build time doubled.

Doubled? That would mean 1s of build which is still ridiculously fast. 15s seem to be appropriate to me (same as processing units or capsules).

[Robbedem]

Well, I said: "easily" doubled. quadruppled or even x10 would be fine too. (I find 15s is perhaps a bit too much though)

[cpy]

Solar panel should require some sort of maintenance (maybe some material that will be used as "fuel" to maintain it?).

[Turtle]

Solar panel should require some sort of maintenance (maybe some material that will be used as "fuel" to maintain it?).

Fuel to power solar panels? Sorry, that makes no sense to me at all. Kinda sounds like trying to get a solar flashlight to work at night. IMHO, they're fine as they are because of the large amount of space you need to make in order to get enough to equal steam engines. If people want to add some kind of maintenance, how about keeping them clean them with water and a some other new liquid? (i.e. some type of Windex-type liquid)

My question to the OP: Why do you need to have your solar panel machine to run 100% of the time?

[Kazuar]

[...]IMHO, they're fine as they are because of the large amount of space you need to make in order to get enough to equal steam engines.[...]

They're just too cheap, IMHO, for the huge, gameplay-shifting effect they have, but that's another topic.

My question to the OP: Why do you need to have your solar panel machine to run 100% of the time?

I'm not the OP, but I'll supply my own answer, nonetheless:

Because this is a game about factories, and about building factories big enough to meet your self-imposed demands. That is the whole spiel of this game - being able to fullfill your entire late-game needs with a single assembly machine is a bit cheap. It's not about it running 100% of the time - it's about the fact that letting it run only 40% of the time still leads to a ridiculously massive overproduction.
Raising it's crafting time to 3 seconds, for example, would still mean 15 panels/minute from an assembly-2, which is still more than you'd ever need, but would at least appear credible.