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Better solar stills

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 12:55 am
by €e$y
There is in Cantr some machine like solar still. Maybe not everyone heard about it :wink: Why it is like that?
Because it's efficiency is very, very, very small and people don't want to build them on their ships.
I have calculated when resources we have to put in a solar still yield to us. We have to wait more than 40 cantrian years to receive some income of our effort.
I see two ways of repairing this state:
1) make solar still easier to be build (for example 10 grams of window glass instead of 100 gram) or
2) make output bigger (for example 10 grams of water per day instead of 2 grams)
EDIT: If we make output bigger maybe this will help with an overall lack of water/expensive water and it will response a little to suggestion of MakeBeliever who want to encourage sailors to work with the towns. Sailors will have water to sell - not much, but always sth :)

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I think that people will be more eager to build solar stills, when we will "repair" them.



P.S. Sorry if that kind of post was somewere else. I just couldn't find it.

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 1:31 am
by Dudel
How does the solar still even work where Cantr has no sun? :shock: MAGIC IN CANTR :!: :?:

On-Topic: Think he has a point there, water via the boat would be a grand thing if the machine was easier to work with.

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 1:39 am
by joo
Cantr does have a sun - it is shown in the terrain photographs. Water is shown as being blue on the maps, which means that it's reflecting sunlight from the atmosphere, plants survive, which they need sunlight for, and drying racks work because there is a sun.

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 1:51 am
by Dudel
Who says the moon isn't REALLY bright? ;)

Or that the sky isn't purple? :lol:

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 2:44 am
by €e$y
Dudel wrote:How does the solar still even work where Cantr has no sun? :shock: MAGIC IN CANTR :!: :?:


Just because you can't use sun and set up on it a project to make you own energy it doesn't result there is no sun at all 8)

Ps. Stick to the topic, please :)

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:27 am
by Gran
1- Moons need a source of light. E.g. Sun.
2- Solar stills suck and do need to be rebalanced.

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 2:15 am
by chase02
I agree completely. The 2g/day (from memory) is pretty ridiculous. What was the reasoning behind that initially?

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 10:49 am
by SekoETC
Because it doesn't require any work, thus after the initial investment, the water is free. The same reasoning that was behind nerfing drying racks.

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:35 am
by joo
Do solar stills work when the containing boat is docked to another boat or a town?

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 4:06 pm
by €e$y
SekoETC wrote:Because it doesn't require any work, thus after the initial investment, the water is free. \


You have completely right with that the water is free.

The main problem in my opinion is that these "initial investment" is very expensive to the result. You have to wait much about 40 years to receive back what you have invested (I have compared solar still with well). I think there is little people, who have such patience ;) and in result solar stills are unique in Cantr (I know that from my own experience, maybe I'm not right. Btw. is there possibility to check that?).

I don't want to make them very effective, because it will be unfair (automatic project), but if we will slightly improve the results (for example 10 g of water >>> 8 years to receive income from your investment) people will be more willing to invest in solar stills.

Ps. I hope that my opinion is understandable. Sorry for my poor english;)

Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 1:49 am
by chase02
Wait, these are automatic? Well that changes everything..

Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:56 pm
by sanchez
It is automatic. And it is meant to be a luxury item. I don't like the inefficiency either, but at the same time, note that it's not only free water away from land with no work that this provides, but also the ability to grow and produce things shipboard such as tea and apothecary mixtures, which can be quite powerful. That said, I'm up for increasing the yield somewhat on the solar still. It was made overly restrictive at first just to test how they would be used, and I don't see much potential for abuse if yield's increased just a little.

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:51 am
by Gran
So it is supposed to be useless. Unless you are a sailor who would like to have a tflower garden by your hammock to ignore the smell of the meat rotting in the storage room.

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 1:18 am
by €e$y
GranAttacker wrote:So it is supposed to be useless.


So let's make it less useless :lol:

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:20 am
by BlueNine
Why have it in the game if it's useless...that'd be like having a helicopter engine in the game without being able to build helicopters!