Storms and weather

On Mars a dust storm rolls in every few days. It damages whatever stands outside and takes a large part of the sun away from the solar panels. The weather station sees it coming – your chip can react to it.

The weather station#

StructureWeatherStation has to stand outside. Inside a room it reports nothing. It delivers:

You can only read Mode. The station sets it itself.

How much time is left?#

According to the game's world data, a dust storm on Mars begins 120 to 900 seconds after the announcement and lasts 120 to 600 seconds. A solar storm (Moon, Vulcan) arrives after only 30 to 60 seconds but does no damage. During a dust storm only about 30 % of the sun gets through.

That sounds like a collapse, but for normal panels it is not one: the game passes a panel's raw output on undamped only up to a threshold – up to 1.4 times the rated output normally, up to 1.6 times in a storm – and damps everything above. So on Mars a 500 W panel delivers about 512 W under a clear sky and even about 710 W in a dust storm. What really costs output is the damage.

What protects – and what does not#

A close look into the game code pays off here, because in many bases a chip turns the solar panels into a “protective position” before the storm. The code shows: whether a panel takes damage depends only on whether it stands outside and the storm reaches its height. The angle does not matter. Turning does not protect a solar panel.

On average a panel outside takes about 6 % damage per minute of storm, and its output drops by the same amount – until you repair it with duct tape or a glass sheet. The heavy panels (prefabs …Reinforced) take no storm damage at all.

The extendable radiator (StructureLargeExtendableRadiator) is different: it only takes damage while it is extended. With Open 0 it retracts – that is the real protective position.

seq open mode CALM
sbn RADIATOR HASH("Kuehler") Open open

Using the warning time#

What your chip can do in the minutes before the storm:

• retract the radiators
• play an announcement: the klaxon speaker picks the sound with SoundAlert, On plays it
• get the backup generator ready: not the missing sun but the growing damage makes the panels weaker minute by minute
• show the remaining time so nobody outside gets surprised

sbn HORN HASH("Durchsage") SoundAlert Sound.StormIncoming   # once, before the loop
sbn HORN HASH("Durchsage") On warn                          # in the loop