[MOD] (Alpha 5) BetterPower+ (V5.0.0): Updated 16/07/14

[Architect]

I'm guessing your current wind turbine textures are currently just place holders though, right?

Everything I have is using what tools I have available to myself I'm no artist so all the textures I have are those of which i have either bodged together myself, or been provided by helpful members of the community. If you can provide me with textures I think are more in line with the game, then by all means go ahead It's not so much placeholder, as continued progression. Ass soon as I can animate, I shall. As soon as I can give more functionality, I will, and as soon as I can make them fit perfectly with the game, I will. Forever growing and improving

[Haplo]

... As soon as I can animate, I shall. As soon as I can give more functionality, I will, and as soon as I can make them fit perfectly with the game, I will. Forever growing and improving

Thats a healty work ethic if I have ever seen one! Go Architect, go!

[dd0029]

Tried this out. I like it, however the build times seem a bit odd. They're just tediously long. Is that a choice or a function of the resources required?

I get the comparatively low power output for the placeable steam vent. The cost seems a bit high. A little more than 1/4 of the power for a bit less than twice the price. But with the comparatively small footprint and and placeability, it's a wash.

Windmills, on the other hand are really underpowered. They offer 120 units of power for 100 metal. One mill can power a single lamp. I get that they aren't dependent on the sun like the solar panels and are placeable anywhere unlike the geothermal generator. Solar panels offer 1700 units of power for 80 metal. Even if you figure with nights and eclipses they only offer that power 1/4 of the time. A single turbine doesn't even offer the same energy in the whole day that the solar panel does in one hour. These things could easily offer in the 5-600 power range and still be a bit of a toss up when factoring in early research costs and the high initial outlay.

[Vas]

Windmills, on the other hand are really underpowered. They offer 120 units of power for 100 metal. One mill can power a single lamp. I get that they aren't dependent on the sun like the solar panels and are placeable anywhere unlike the geothermal generator. Solar panels offer 1700 units of power for 80 metal. Even if you figure with nights and eclipses they only offer that power 1/4 of the time. A single turbine doesn't even offer the same energy in the whole day that the solar panel does in one hour. These things could easily offer in the 5-600 power range and still be a bit of a toss up when factoring in early research costs and the high initial outlay.

Or, Solar panels could be pretty over powered.  Remember, this is a rim world, not earth, so you are likely further from the sun, or maybe you're closer, who knows.  Either way, your solar panel will not produce as much as these seem to.  Solar panels can't really get more efficient, or it would be very hard to.  It's kind of why they tried to make RTGs (nuclear reactors for space ships) but turns out that's even less power than a solar panel.  xD  Anyhow, it is solar panels that may be over powered.

It is hard to balance stuff, but at least we know he's trying right?

[Architect]

I'm taking all feedback into constant consideration, so I'll take into account all of the outputs compared to sizes and see if I can come up with some better equilibriums. As for the work times, that's me being silly most likely, I tend to just keep increasing them each time, something I'll most certainly revisit.

On a plus note, should have some proper textures coming in the next few days, so look forward to it guys

[DarkXess]

Thanks for posting your update, mirrors and download page updated

You can find our mirror here:

[Vas]

I keep getting this when I start my save file.

Seems to take quite a while to start the save too and I really don't have -that- much.

Thanks for posting your update, mirrors and download page updated

You can find our mirror here:

You sound like a spam bot trying to advertise some download site.  What's wrong with downloading things here? >.>

[Architect]

I keep getting this when I start my save file.

Seems to take quite a while to start the save too and I really don't have -that- much.

That is because I have had to butcher the XML files for geothermal generators to get this to work I'm afraid XD Basically in the core hard code, it does positional checks to make sure the generator is on a geyser. However, in the XML files I butchered out that necessity, but it's still trying to run the code. Hence when you start the game up and it runs through all the defs on launch, it realises there's no geyser, and has a hissy fit. For alpha three, I can 100% guarantee that I will be doing everything in my power to make proper DLL's for this mod, giving it infinitely more functionality, and sorting any errors such as this. Good spot though

Thanks for posting your update, mirrors and download page updated

You can find our mirror here:

You sound like a spam bot trying to advertise some download site.  What's wrong with downloading things here? >.>

DarkXess has been in contact with me regarding this mod a lot, and it's actually the other link provided in the main thread I can personally vouch for the fact that he is no spam bot, just the representative for Modsaholic XD

[DarkXess]

You sound like a spam bot trying to advertise some download site.  What's wrong with downloading things here? >.>

lol I am noooo spam bot, I assure you that I am 101% human, my girlfriend can vouch for that too

Maybe you should have a look here mate. Its better this way instead of spamming PM's to everyone about their mods being updated.

[ps0705]

Great mod! Just tried it out yesterday and wanted to give my feedback. I find the balance is quite good on wind power, the small turbines yield low power as reflection on varying wind strength. It would be nice if you could implement power variations according to wind, but this works so far.

I was wondering what you have planned for nuclear power? A single building that drains uranium is kind of boring, imo, even if it is expensive and labour intensive. It would be far more interesting to make nuclear power require some kind of extra buildings around, like turbines and pumps. That way, faults in individual systems could cause meltdowns or other disasters depending on how well you maintain things. Just a thought.

[Architect]

Great mod! Just tried it out yesterday and wanted to give my feedback. I find the balance is quite good on wind power, the small turbines yield low power as reflection on varying wind strength. It would be nice if you could implement power variations according to wind, but this works so far.

I was wondering what you have planned for nuclear power? A single building that drains uranium is kind of boring, imo, even if it is expensive and labour intensive. It would be far more interesting to make nuclear power require some kind of extra buildings around, like turbines and pumps. That way, faults in individual systems could cause meltdowns or other disasters depending on how well you maintain things. Just a thought.

Love it! Aww man I hadn't thought of that, that's good Unfortunately something like that will take me a little while to throw out, so I reckon I will make a basic 'boring' uranium eater to begin with, but without a shadow of a doubt I will do as you suggested in the long term

[Vas]

Love it! Aww man I hadn't thought of that, that's good Unfortunately something like that will take me a little while to throw out, so I reckon I will make a basic 'boring' uranium eater to begin with, but without a shadow of a doubt I will do as you suggested in the long term

Just a note, I mentioned in another topic on uranium already, you don't need to replace uranium in a reactor for a very very long time, longer than your colonists will live on that rock.    Way more than a year.  I'd say make it require 100 uranium to build that building and boom you're done.  But you'll need to wait for an update before you can give the power plant some actual drawbacks like radiation, super explosion, or any other draw backs we can think of.  There is already a nuclear reactor mod out there so someone already pretty much beat you to that reactor.  xP

Of course it would be nice to see one that requires a few other buildings around it, like turbines and stuff, but then you'd need to make the reactor small and just call it core containment and then make a few buildings around it that produce the power.  This would cause core containment to heat up more each building you place, so if you place 4 reactor buildings around the core containment, your core will explode and release radiation everywhere.  These reactors just produce the steam too from the heat of the core, so you need to then attach turbines to each of these reactors to produce the power, and each turbine takes a certain amount of steam from the reactor, once it's all gone, no more turbines will turn on, or they'll all run slower.  Meaning if you need more power, you either need to heat your core up more and add another reactor, or build a new core to keep your core below 75% (though in real life I believe our reactor 100 miles away is running on both 89% and 92% on average, it's got 2 reactors in it )

Obviously it'd need to be renamed a little.  Core would probably be reactor, and the reactors I've been saying would likely be Steam Building or Water Pool or something like that, the turbines would then go around those.  Each turbine can be connected to the steam building via pipe, like wires only grey and just for steam, with a loss of 3% steam per pipe they have to go through.  So if you travel through 10 pipes, you've lost 30% of the steam you were sending to the turbine so it produces 30% less power.

Just some ideas on how to make a good reactor system.

[Architect]

OK then dude, I'll bare that all in mind XD Creating such a degree of realism isn't going to be easy, and I need to balance my time with this mod between all features as well as my school work. Never the less, I'll refer back to this when the time comes to grow it out a bit

On a side note for anyone who's interested, my work into creating DLL's is going swimmingly, and so things such as the wind turbine makes more sense in terms of what it needs to work

[Vas]

OK then dude, I'll bare that all in mind XD Creating such a degree of realism isn't going to be easy

Hey, when you have such an epic amount of realism, the mod becomes epic and everyone will want it.

Except those people who want easy mode infinite god reactors.  Like those people on Space Engineers who think a 20cm^3 sized nuclear reactor will obviously produce 4 gigawatts without having a total meltdown, 60 years in the future, from 4 years ago.  Cause we'll totally have technology that advanced in 56 years, right?  a backpack sized nuclear reactor operating in space producing 4 times more than current earth reactors, and 1 billion times more than current space nuclear reactors?  Yea.  Right.  xD

[shadowtajun]

Basically, I want to see something more like this; (only darker colored, more towards the colors of the game)
but I'm not an artist, so I wouldn't be able to come up with an image myself.  I have some artist friends I might possibly be able to convince to help make a new wind turbine texture.  But it's doubtful.

Hey Vas Something like this? or a different angle?





I know the image is a little small. I'm unsure on the dimensions needed.