Portable Solar Panel

The portable solar panel is not part of any power network. It has a single slot for a battery cell and charges it when it is set down in the sun. When you set it down it unfolds; when you pick it up it folds shut.

It calculates differently from the large panels. According to the game code it puts 100 W · (irradiance ÷ 1,367 W/m²) · cos(angle between its top and the sun) into the cell every tick. Nothing is damped and weather does not count – only whether direct sunlight falls on the panel. With the sun straight overhead that is about 100 W on the Moon, about 43 W on Mars, about 193 W on Venus and less than 4 W on Europa.

That makes it a tool for the road: at an outpost or a drilling site it tops up the cell for your tools without laying a cable. A small Battery Cell (Small) (36,000 J) is full after about 360 ticks (3 minutes) on the Moon in the best sun, but only after about 830 ticks (7 minutes) on Mars. A large Battery Cell (Large) (288,000 J) would need about 6,650 ticks on Mars even then, that is 55 minutes of pure sunshine – several game days.

Through logic it reports Open, and through its slot the values Charge and ChargeRatio of the inserted cell. That way you can see how far the cell is even without a tablet.

It is made in the Electronics Printer (tier 1). It is no use for a base – there a charger on the network such as the Battery Charger Small with up to 400 W per cell is much faster. What a cell stores and how long it lasts is in Batteries and storage: sizes, charging, discharging, a transformer in between.