Alternate Power Sources (And Storage)

[DigitalCore]

I apologise in advance if these have been posted before, I did a quick search and these didn't seem to come up (maybe I wasn't looking hard enough). Also, I know these are in some mods, but I feel like they should be integrated into the base game because only two methods of power generation feels... A little shallow.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)
Pretty simple, crafted from 40 uranium (or perhaps nuclear waste) and 100 steel, and provides a limited amount of constant electricity, around 700W. Can be built anywhere, as long as it's sheltered from the rain. You have to do research to unlock it, though.

You could have an upgraded version, the Stirling RTG which is more expensive resource wise, but produces more electricity. Made after a research upgrade on the basic RTG.

Nuclear Reactor Chamber
You could possibly research this after you have Stirling RTGs, with a pretty hefty cost (3000 or so) because nuclear reactors are dangerous.

You only need to build the reactor vessel itself and you can start producing large amounts of electricity (in the region of 2500W or so), but then you have issues: it will irradiate the area it's placed in, causing acute radiation sickness in your colonists. You can only avoid this by making a 2 block thick wall of concrete (twice the resource cost of steel walls with more health to go with it) or a 3 block thick wall of steel to contain the radiation. Or you could just surround it with industrial coolers (at least 3), which is gonna require a lot of ventilation.

And then there's the matter of explosions. Well, if a nuclear reactor goes boom, it generally just destroys everything within a large radius around it. So it's pretty much an automatic game over for you if a lucky mortar shell hits it. Solution? Build it in a mountain. You're also going to have to regularly supply it with uranium. If it doesn't have any in it, it'll just shut down.

Fossil Fuel Reactors
Gas and Coal? Maybe not gas. Make Coal a mineable resource that occurs more often in forests and such and you can just build a fossil fuel generator. Coal produces less energy, but does not require refuelling nearly as often as gas (which produces substantially more electricity) does.

Batteries
An expansion on the current power storage system would be nice. You could have a 2x2 battery which stores more power but is less efficient, and then a research upgrade that makes your batteries more efficient. It gives more options for how you store your power.

And I think that's it.

[Regret]

 - Another way to store power is by heating sand. Big column of sand, surrounded by reflectors that target the column.
The single most loss free battery in the world.
The only problem is transferring the energy from the sand to your electrical net.

- Hydroelectric dams, they require verticality though, so that is quite a few updates into the future.

Animal driven threadmill.

[Anduin1357]

Thermoelectric Generator (Wall that equalises heat and produce power in the process.)

Btw, the Stirling Reactor is underpowered as it produces less than 3 times than that of the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator.