volcanic energy tapping - worth the town?

[misterprimus]

I read that volcanic energy tapping is the most efficient energy-per-worker producer of power, at least until you get fusion reactors. Obviously unless you find a volcano right next to your city, you will either have admin strain or you'll need to build a town right next to it. Is it more efficient to:

1. Just stick to solar panels in your existing city squares.
2. Deal with the admin strain and just build it far away.
or
3. Settle a city next to the volcano?

[mek42]

Will you put the extra energy to good use? I don't hesitate to build a city near multiple ruins tiles or a metals deposit if needed.

Do you have the IP for the mountain roads? This would be the limiting factor I'd consider rather than building a city. Unless the city would be so far away as to be effectively unsupportable.

[misterprimus]

Good point. Right now I have no shortage of energy.

[Maerchen]

Is this a "right now" when

a) being at peace and having no need to move your electrified tank units
b) being at war and moving your EV tank battalions?

Would make a huge difference in my book. And do you have the battery storage to utilize the energy?

[misterprimus]

ORIGINAL: Maerchen

Is this a "right now" when

a) being at peace and having no need to move your electrified tank units
b) being at war and moving your EV tank battalions?

Would make a huge difference in my book. And do you have the battery storage to utilize the energy?

Yes, but I do not have any energy weapons or engines. The volcano is about 14 tiles away from the nearest town (my capital in this case). My issue is this: having the people where will require qol assets, as well as staffing requirements for the logistics. I guess I'm just wondering if it's worth it to set up a town there VS. simply building more solar panels locally. Yeah it uses more workers, but so would those qol assets!

[Maerchen]

Hello!

Depending on your profile preferences, QoL is a smaller or bigger problem.

If I had the time and excess population to plan something like that, I would build

- a truck II
- maybe a food farm
on the future volcano tapping facility

and then colonise exactly there, pushing colonists in it to get it to city level II. Zone orders would be 15Cr/turn public spending.

This ensures the IP for the road aren't wasted, QoL will be build by the public itself, there is 0% admin strain and once you have the tech researched and the need for energy, you can build it in a healthy big city.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: misterprimus

ORIGINAL: Maerchen

Is this a "right now" when

a) being at peace and having no need to move your electrified tank units
b) being at war and moving your EV tank battalions?

Would make a huge difference in my book. And do you have the battery storage to utilize the energy?

Yes, but I do not have any energy weapons or engines. The volcano is about 14 tiles away from the nearest town (my capital in this case). My issue is this: having the people where will require qol assets, as well as staffing requirements for the logistics. I guess I'm just wondering if it's worth it to set up a town there VS. simply building more solar panels locally. Yeah it uses more workers, but so would those qol assets!

Administrative Strain is based on Distance and Level of the Far asset, vs the sum level of the Near assets. And anything below ~10% has no impact at all.

A capitol should have no shortage of asset levels near the city. So any impact from 1-3 levels of Volcano powerplant might be non-existent. Usually it is far flung logistics assets, that cause the most admin strain. A single T1 asset might not even register even at such a distance.

You can always try to build a T1, and mothball it if the Admin strain is prooving too much.

[Zanotirn]

Keep in mind that volcano only surpasses max level solar in worker efficiency at T2 and then the difference is not that big before T3 (particularly if your water is not from free sources). Considering it costs hi tech, I would personally only bother with it if I plan to potentially upgrade it at least to level 4-5. Which also makes it much better to have it within range of the town. I do like to have one more high-ish level city besides my capital, for additional BP production among other things, so planning such a city close enough to the volcano early on can help. If your game then gets to mass energy weapons, a town next to volcano will save you some hassle and workers.

[misterprimus]

ORIGINAL: Zanotirn

Keep in mind that volcano only surpasses max level solar in worker efficiency at T2 and then the difference is not that big before T3 (particularly if your water is not from free sources). Considering it costs hi tech, I would personally only bother with it if I plan to potentially upgrade it at least to level 4-5. Which also makes it much better to have it within range of the town. I do like to have one more high-ish level city besides my capital, for additional BP production among other things, so planning such a city close enough to the volcano early on can help. If your game then gets to mass energy weapons, a town next to volcano will save you some hassle and workers.

That's exactly what I plan to do, to facilitate future energy-hungry wars. This is a Seth planet so normally water would be an issue, but I ended up diploannexing a bizarre minors town that had 4 glacier tiles (unlimited water) with 2 private mines already built. As soon as this happened, I ended up having to mothball my Rock Dehydration 3 (unfortunately constructed right before I diploannexed them ROFL!) and still I make way more than I can ever sell, let alone use.