I recall they used to be in the past...

why they look so transparent in the picture when they aren't at all in the game??
that gave me a huge confiusion

Sweet, will check them out once I am back in town.

@Rysten it has now been decreased

Last I used them, yes

Interesting....
Can these be used as windows??? As in are they air tight? Thanks

@itsdren, any chance of decreasing the transparency?

Small grid solar cells will likely go down in output and increase in cost.

Everything should be balanced though to where you are getting roughly the same amount and construction cost from the same build area.

I absolutely love this mod. But I noticed that large ship counterparts produce the same amount of energy, and use 4 times the amount of solar cells of a smaller grid.

@JonyAlcoGames I made a bugs section, let's talk specifics there

there's a point of the day where one of the pannels doesn't give any power at all while the other is still giving 10kw

@JonyAlcoGames ™ Thanks for the information, I think vanilla panel orientation will also affect your power output. This is part of the base game.

I think i have found a problem/bug with these solar pannels, i had a lot of them in a roof and 6 of them were giving very little power (something like 7kw while the rest had 22kw) i saw no difference between them, all were recieving the same amount of sun, but then i noticed all six of the ones which were giving very little power were rotated in the pic you can see the solar cell lines facing other way ( https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/771721592096959004/3549DB1DD58E35EC672AB78D83BBDD1C4B788846/ ) i don't think that's supposed to happen, i can fix it easyly on my side by rotating them, but i think it'd be a problem for someone who made an entire structure of these just to find out they give very little power for some reason.

@itsdren:
The inside seems to be the more opaque, giving each block a sort of inverted appearance to what one would expect.

Are these less efficient than normal panels?

very cool idea @Orthopaktis however these are TLSCs and they do not work this way. I am simply bringing this beautiful mod up to date.

I only wish the bolt/rivits would be removed. I first thought they looked good.. Untill I placed many of them together, then they rather ruin the look.

Any chance you can make an option on the windows to "close" them by making the glass go opaque and produce more power while in the opaque mode and less in the transparent one? Flip a switch and all the windows go into "night mode" allowing a ship to recharge while the crew gets sleep

Yes, airtight.

is it airtight?

I agree with SoulDoubt, if you make these less powerful than vanilla, don't drop below 75% as these could be put in many locations on a ship instead of windows. I think their (need to test it now) decreased durability would offset the power benefit just fine. Something I noticed, these blocks can be place in any direction, meaning it can be placed in such a way that it looks as though it is "floating" off the block.

@SoulDoubt @itsdren - my mistake, I only saw the small grid versions. Large grid *IS* balanced, while small grid gives more (vanilla small grid is about 5*10 and gives 40kW while transparent is 1*1 and gives 20kW)

Okay, awesome, thanks. :) Like I said, just curious. As long as they aren't OP, I'll probably use 'em.

If you decide to nerf the power generation, 50% seems a bit low. I'd go with more like 80%. They aren't completely transparent, after all, and presumably this is advanced tech (compared to today). That's just my take, though.

They actually should produce less power than vanilla large grid per panel or best case about the same. Test them out yourself by area it's balanced output to vanilla panels.

I can cut their output in half to match real life TLSC efficiency. I originally did that but wanted to stay closer to Shaostoul's original panels so I set it back to balance against vanilla.

Now for small grid it may be more but I have not finished that yet, so I will look at that again when I get to finishing those panels. Those will likely be balanced out the same way.

To be honest they produce such little power already I would rather not nerf them to 50% like I did originally. Since they are fun to use and do take 55 PCU per panel.... they should at least have the same power output as a vanilla panel for the area given which I think is like 1/8th power and area.

@SpaceNinjaNate: That's unfortunate. I'll probably have to nix them from my game then. Thanks for the info.

@SoulDoubt - these produce FAR more power than vanilla.

Well these look frickin' cool. How do they compare to vanilla panels? Do they produce less energy, since some light is passing through? Also a balance concern, since these are superior to vanilla solar panels by virtue of doubling as windows. I mean, I'ma use them anyway, but just curious. :)

@nuke makin` destroyer relax, enjoy the game

and transparent solar panels are not as good as solar panels do to... well not getting all the sun it needs to be good as i said

and @DeadMechGaming i didn't know it was a thing i just stay on the things i want to know on youtube but i don't care what updates solar panels/cells are getting so i don't look for them on youtube

@Forgi LaGeord well i'm sorry i didn't know it was a fuckin' thing so go fuck yourself but by the i know it a solar cell need the sun to hit it for it to be good
@DeadMechGaming fuck you too

good idea...

Nice, always like to see neat old mods revived. Solar's not quite a crucial as it used to be, but these are still nice.

So Glass wich also is a Solar Panel? Now thats cool. If i could make a "Now thats Kewl" reward you would get it right now here. Because thats cool. (Also one to the Original mod creator)

Transparent solar panels do work. We're developing them in real life right now.

@Forgi LaGeord - You must be new to steam, people on steam tend to not think before they post anything. Idiocracy is rampant just about everywhere on steam now.

Now if they make them in heavy armor transparent solar panel :p The Entire hull of the ship could be energy producing.

acksually , they do.
http://energy.mit.edu/news/transparent-solar-cells/

@nuke makin' destroyer, it would have been so easy for you to google that before you so confidently posted a completely incorrect comment.

transparent solar panels would not work just sayin'

Looks good!

nice ...keep up ...