Solar Panel depth and Bioreactors

gblnk

Right now there's no incentive to use the bioreactor. The gap between the maximum depth for solar panels and the depth at which geysers and lava vents become available is pretty narrow. I think panels stop producing charge around 250m, but if this were changed to 50m, then they'd be effectively limited to being used in the safe shallows and the bioreactor would be a more attractive choice for bases in the kelp forest and grassy plateau biomes.

zetachron

Even then I'd never use the bioreactor. I'd have to micromanage its consum of biomass. I consider this a pain to use and no fun at all. I only need solar panels and thermal plants and a network of power lines. The nuclear reactor offers at least a good choice for a quick startup of powering bases until the power lines get established. But the bioreactor is utterly useless.

It'd be completely different if they would give the bioreactor some unique advantage, like being able to work interior and invulnerable to future creature attacks or something similiar useful. Or maybe you could feed it with minimal biomass of all different kind or even use this thing as a waste disposal unit for needless stuff to consum. More of a waste disposal reactor. Whatever.

Rainstorm

zetachron wrote: »

maybe you could feed it with minimal biomass of all different kind or even use this thing as a waste disposal unit for needless stuff to consum. More of a waste disposal reactor. Whatever.

It would be cool if you could feed the bioreactor ANY kind of biological components like any plants, old/rotten fish ... with the new planter system im growing plants like mad in my bases and feeding some to the bioreactor would become much less tedious and a more incentive way to attract players into using them. A way to dispose of stuff would also be great, altho ive heard they are soon implementing something thatll act as an Incinerator which is a welcomed idea.

zetachron

Rainstorm wrote: »

It would be cool if you could feed the bioreactor ANY kind of biological components like any plants, old/rotten fish ... with the new planter system im growing plants like mad in my bases and feeding some to the bioreactor would become much less tedious and a more incentive way to attract players into using them ...

That's exactly what I would expect of a bioreactor, especially if it's science fiction. If chemically eats every organic stuff you put into its container and converts it to energy. So you just keep feeding the container until it's full and refill from time to time. That's acceptable micromanagement. I've just created a thread on bioreactors and nuclear reactors. These are the type of resource eating reactors, but their management is not well and I tend to stick with the self-replenishing ones like solar power and thermal power.

Ashkael

Bioreactor viability is limited more by the micromanagement required, and the fact that creepvine doesn't respawn. It would be great if we could at least load it up with a few hours worth of biomass, or place it inside with our (eventual) plant farms.

Rainstorm

Ashkael wrote: »

Bioreactor viability is limited more by the micromanagement required, and the fact that creepvine doesn't respawn. It would be great if we could at least load it up with a few hours worth of biomass, or place it inside with our (eventual) plant farms.

as far as kelp, you can grow some in exterior planter trays and inside the large aquarium but the mushroom pieces you cannot, not yet anyway not sure if theyll implement that in the future

zetachron

Maybe when farming is done the bioreactor will finally make some sense. Then you might just grow all resources for the reactor.

Still, unlike solar and thermal power, you have a hard time managing reactor arrays, because there is no autofeed from gathered resources.

Dracon1023

If this is science fiction, then we shouldn't even need to micromanage the bioreactor. It could contain some micro-organisms that filter-feed off of other micro-organisms in the water and are genetically engineered, by the player, to produce a type of fuel as a by-product. Bacteria that do that already exist in real-life, so why not in a game that is suppose to be more technologically advanced then modern day. The bio-reactor then might be required to be in biomes with high planketon content such as the kelp forest and grand-reef.

Glim1000

The bioreactor is sitting in nutrient rich water, why should we need to add anything to it?

Madgamer13

The bioreactor should be the automated deep depth version of the solar panel, which feeds off bio material in the water itself. It should also do this inside a large aquarium, so you can set up an elaborate biosphere inside the aquarium that the reactor can feed off.

Of course, for gameplay balance purposes the bioreactor should generate energy at a slower pace to the solar panel, but that rate should be constant based on the availability of bio-material in the local water environment.