04-14-2017, 07:36 AM
No, OK, you have real questions here that need answers. 
No. As long as you've got enough power to raise the temperature to 23°C, you're good.
That's surprising; I often need rather large ones. Again I suspect it's the unusually high surface-area-to-volume ratio of your colonies. Also consider how much insulation (shielding and soil) you have. With any decent sized colony with a reasonable amount of shielding and/or soil, cooling is a much bigger problem than heating.
It's the same collision check you get when you place buildings manually, which is basically just a radius... I don't think that it includes trees, but I could be wrong (it's been a while since I looked at that code).
Indeed. It's on the to-do list. Agreed about the bridges too.
Sort of. It's actually the overlap between the mirror radius range, and the window radius range. So yes, you can easily get less than 100% lighting, though there is no advantage in doing so. (Your residents will never bake from lighting — we assume the window tint or mirror reflectivity is adjusted if it's too high.) Distance of the mirror from the hab actually makes no difference; the sun's rays are essentially parallel.
However, the window lighting predates the outer solar system orbits... and it looks like we're not actually taking distance from the sun into account. Flat mirrors and windows wouldn't be very helpful out in the black. (Parabolic mirrors would solve this, but I think that's beyond scope, at least for now.) Note that it does take into account occlusion — try building a window-lit colony in low Earth orbit sometime, for a bit of fun.
No. Radiation is reflected in the radiation levels in the colony, but not in maintenance costs. Nor is there any model of orbital debris. That's an interesting idea (along with the debris removal component).
Thanks, as always!
(04-12-2017, 02:49 PM)Permeable Ceiling Wrote: Thing is, so far I’ve always had a decent surplus of power available (enough to heat a colony to 100°C, give or take), but is there actually a reason to?
No. As long as you've got enough power to raise the temperature to 23°C, you're good.
Quote:My point is, the colony should require radiators when using fusion/fission, since a notable fraction of the generated power is inevitably lost as heat. So far I’ve never been in a position to actually need any radiators. So something’s off here.
That's surprising; I often need rather large ones. Again I suspect it's the unusually high surface-area-to-volume ratio of your colonies. Also consider how much insulation (shielding and soil) you have. With any decent sized colony with a reasonable amount of shielding and/or soil, cooling is a much bigger problem than heating.
Quote:Does the autonomous building creation employ collision check? I think so (I’ve never seen buildings being built in a copse. I think.).
It's the same collision check you get when you place buildings manually, which is basically just a radius... I don't think that it includes trees, but I could be wrong (it's been a while since I looked at that code).
Quote:What about buildings being built in water? Because that’s a thing, especially since I usually build roads along the shore of the lakes.
Indeed. It's on the to-do list. Agreed about the bridges too.
Quote:Incidentally, is the ratio of area of habitat mirror by surface area of habitat taken into account to calculate the lighting percentage?
Sort of. It's actually the overlap between the mirror radius range, and the window radius range. So yes, you can easily get less than 100% lighting, though there is no advantage in doing so. (Your residents will never bake from lighting — we assume the window tint or mirror reflectivity is adjusted if it's too high.) Distance of the mirror from the hab actually makes no difference; the sun's rays are essentially parallel.
However, the window lighting predates the outer solar system orbits... and it looks like we're not actually taking distance from the sun into account. Flat mirrors and windows wouldn't be very helpful out in the black. (Parabolic mirrors would solve this, but I think that's beyond scope, at least for now.) Note that it does take into account occlusion — try building a window-lit colony in low Earth orbit sometime, for a bit of fun.
Quote:Unrelated, but are orbit-related wear and tear included in the colony’s maintenance costs? LEO and HEO would have lots of space debris, HEO and out have higher rate of radiation damage (noteworthy for solar panels and rectenna and other sensible equipment), Jupiter has stupid large radiation damage, Saturn has rings (and debris), and so forth.
No. Radiation is reflected in the radiation levels in the colony, but not in maintenance costs. Nor is there any model of orbital debris. That's an interesting idea (along with the debris removal component).
Thanks, as always!
Joe Strout
Lead Developer, High Frontier