8 hours ago, Riamus said:Solar could be made to give just as much heat map as a generator if that's something that is felt to be important. But the thing with generators is that they really are just a micromanagement thing compared to solar. Solar isn't even really about the free power. Gas is extremely easy to get by the time you have enough money to get solar up and running, so it's not like there's any challenge to generators by then anyhow. The main benefit to solar is so you don't have to micromanage your power by refilling the generators all the time. For those that don't mind that aspect, you can get a lot more power in a lot less space for significantly cheaper by using generators. Solar already has drawbacks of taking up more space, needing to have sightlines to the sky, and costing an arm and a leg if you can even find them for sale (which is rare). It's there for people who just don't enjoy refilling generators constantly. It isn't about not having to get gas for power. I could easily have a box of stacks of gas cans long before I can get a full solar bank up and running (and I usually need a couple full banks since I build big bases), so gas isn't at all a challenge for using generators by the time you can use solar.
In any case, something needs done for making it easier to buy solar cells. As it is now, it's so rare to find them for sale even if you hit 10 traders every 3 days that I've given up trying and just use the Creative Menu to give myself the solar cells. If I didn't, I'd probably need to be day 150 before I had a single solar panel fully stocked with level 6 cells and that's rather ridiculous.
At what day would you have a full solar bank if you didn't care about highest quality?