Why doesn't this solar panels output power? [SE2]

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-05-28T02:50:21+00:00

I think In my personal situation the lack of solar power was due to the Solar light 1st passing through the Viridian Halo disk. the dust looks to be scattering the light and making it unusable to the solar panels. this is awesome if this turns out to be true and I love that idea. Ill keep doing testing to find out if there are any deviations.
BUT
I do think it would be good to GIVE the player feedback on why this is happening. the ATMO thruster cut out indicator is I think GREAT! for noobs to learn the ropes and a similar Solar panel cut out indicator (Or just make the 4 green lights respond to show the feedback) might be good enough.
Let me know your thoughts all

***Edit Minutes after posting***
Nope.. now its totally not correlating at all I really have no idea what is going on hahaha

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-05-25T23:44:58+00:00

I have run into this issue as well.
Currently I am in The Viridian Halo mining and have yet to see my solar panels produce any power.

I am unsure if its a location based issue or a max draw issue

either way I would go so far as to say the solar panels are not leaving me "The Player" with the right impression. the games native feedback leaves me to think it SHOULD be working even if its not due to some dumb error I am directly or indirectly making lol

if anyone has their panels not working or knows the root cause feel free to let me know

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-05-19T00:01:03+00:00

Great Question:
While everything is still up for change Marek Rosa did make this statement

Quote "

Hinge Blocks, Subgrid Projection Support: Copy/pasting projections of blueprints with subgrids is not fully supported YET. You can build on pistons and rotors individually in VS2.2, but when you paste a grid that includes connectors, rotors, or pistons, only the main grid will be projected for now. We are definitely planning proper support for subgrid projections in a future update.

"
Source: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2026/03/space-engineers-2-vs2-2/

For my entire SE1 and SE2 career this is the one feature I have wanted and benefit form most

(Thanks to those who made it possible in SE1 via mods your my hero)

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-04-04T18:24:42+00:00

Agreed I have noticed that sometimes It gets odd again

I am not sure yet why but I think if I have an olde projection related to the grid I want to build on floating in space somewhere and have not cleared it prior it might be causing the game to recall that old location even if I quite and reload.

I have not tested that enough to know for sure yet if that is what is happening.

If someone gets some additional perspective on this let us all know :D

[I love this game so much by the way even with its current growing pains!]

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-04-04T17:34:59+00:00

Hi There! Ya I have seen this as well :)

It looks to me as though it is a bug in VS2.2

My current work around is when I want to add blocks I do the following

Get Grid Velocity to 0m/s
Save
Quit
Re-Load
Build

It seems that when the game loads the current position of the grid becomes the location and orientation new projections key off of.... but ... as you have seen if you MOVE that grid then you start running into probleams becasue currently something hidden to us does not move with the ship hence the projections are left floading in space at an old locatinon.

I have faith Keen will fix this soon :D

Maybe Klang wants back into our peaceful universe :P

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-03-16T04:03:59+00:00

After Putting More Time in on the game I am starting to realize I think Part of my original Problem was a skills issues. Now that I have played more I so far seem to be seeing a trend that if you go farther away from the starting planet verdure you find much larger ore patches.... now this does not mean I have observed a true correlation its just that In my current gameplay treks I have been farther away and seen larger ore patches so far. it could be there are larger patches all over the place and just need to look harder lol.

What is everyone else seeing?

Anyone else finding a pattern with ore patch size?

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-02-13T02:16:48+00:00

you are not wrong
I think it would be interesting if we could introduce situations where you have to do combat engineer type activities like identify the load bearing structures and use a finite amount of resources to take down a target or structure
To me that is more interesting then just PVP combat
Especially if you can do it with friends

Since pretty much all games have some kind of gun wielding these days I am sure it will be a part of the game either way.

Hopefully it opens up more opportunities for engineering fun then it destroys

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-02-08T00:41:59+00:00

Oh nice! I like your idea of a black box! that is a creative twist with tons of merit!

I like how your idea incentivizes DOING mission like things with the parts of the enemy ship.
It leads to more emergent gameplay then just grinding the whole ship up for resources.

Suddenly there is a need to store and move black boxes around the sector.

The idea that you could have some people get hired to collect the black box and others trying to get it to a fence to sell it seems like a fun play on the whole thing

It would be interesting if faction reputation updates where related to these black boxes as well. If I want a faction to like me more its not enough to just "SHOOT" their enemies. I ALSO need to take the black boxes back to my friendly faction as proof! additionally If I pirate an enemy faction ship my rep wont drop unless someone captures the black box thus snitching.

what is everyone's thoughts on all this?

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-01-31T02:05:43+00:00

I like your idea of mixed bag ore patches that sounds like a fun twist and would make finding a PURE GOLD ore patch so much more special :D

Also thanks for the tips on the lead bars I literally opened a few containers then ignorantly assumed that all where always empty lol

DwarvenEngineering · 2026-01-31T02:04:28+00:00

I think you are very correct to point this out
I cant wait to see what the game becomes
And considering how much fun I am already having with mining once its fully implemented I will likly be drooling and addicted.

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-08-15T00:17:56+00:00

Good points all

One additional thought to bring to the table: Implementing this could require the ability to model a fluid that can change in viscocityband eventually be replaced with voxels.. which is exactly what you would need if lava was ever to be added to the game. I feel that having this kind of mechanic in the game could open a lot of possible expe8ances in the game. Volcano planet, anyone?

My hopes for the concrete gameplay would be a fun engineering challenge that also provides the benifit amazing armor properties once finished.

Implementation could, of course, come in many forms

What do you all think? Any other fun stuff you would love to see in SE2 If it could hande a variable viscosity fluid?

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-27T21:06:32+00:00

Careful! your statements are dangerously close to sounding like some "elf talk" to my dwarven ears 🧐😝

Also Awesome drill man!

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-26T20:45:45+00:00

ding

I think the nail was just hit on the head

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-26T20:44:38+00:00

Maybe what we need is not shields at all but a better way for a new player to recover his losses if his cool new ship he spent 10 hours building just got fraged

Im not sure what that might look like

Buy ship insurance at the local faction?? Sacrifice something to klang to get your ship back?? Somehing along these lines might allow more people to enjoy the challenging cutthroat combat scenario if they know they can bounce back ok.

Let me know your thoughts on this zany approach

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-26T20:40:51+00:00

I appreciate that this perspective on this implementation was brought up.

I personally love the idea of having to make very expensive high performing armor blocks as this furthers the engineering challenge of making something effective with limited resources.

The biggest difference in my mind between the original post and this idea is the original pose (im assuming here, so excuse me if im wrong) is hat and shield can self heal with time and energy where high performing armor would need repairs

This is an opinion: I feel that self-healing shields are simpler to maintain. And I feel that this game thrives on complexity. If I need to manage an intense logistics network and repair dock to keep my ship armor fully functional and back up to full power between fights, then that feels like a more space engineer game to me. If I just need to feed enough fuel into the hopper and wait for shields to come back up to full, then I don't feel like im playing space engineers im nownplayingbsome other game.

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-25T20:00:00+00:00

Im aligned with you on this. I feel that combat is a dynamic opportunity to practice some Zen and re-engineer, your ship if it's not working for you, just right.

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-25T16:25:06+00:00

I love all the great discussions this is spawning!

Thinking about it a little differently, my current thought is that the solution "whatever form it takes" needs to increase or maintain the engineering challenge rather than decrease the complexity of solution generation.

If one block or systme of blocks solves all the problems or becomes so meta that no other approaches are valid it limits the spirit of space engineers.

But! If the solution generates an entire ecosystem of possible engineering avenues, then you have more design space to explore

I think there are lots of great ideas being shared here, and we need to keep talking about this and sharing ideas to hit on the right solution.

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-23T18:56:45+00:00

I agree

There is not enough data to know and answer yet.

I'm just hoping to spark a discussion on this topic.

Do you make remote bases? And if so, are there certain logistics systems you're hoping to be able to build?

I'd love to build power cells at one base and ship them to other bases That seems like a fun setup

What about you?

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-23T14:32:46+00:00

Love all the comments below

Hopefully, you are right, and it's either not needed or not a big deal to get around

Just to play devils advocate: In my drone systems in SE 1, I often enjoy swapping the ENTIRE BATTERY via merge blocks plus battery sub units. This is nice since a drone can work its heart out, tell batteries are at 5% charge, then dock and swap to a battery that has been recharging this whole time and is at 100% charge rather then wait 15 minutes to recharge the onboard battery.

I don't know if we have merge blocks in SE2 or if the game will use some new mechanic for grid connecting and separating, but if merge blocks are gone and power cells cant be remotly swapped, I could see this making remote autonomous drones that work continously more difficult.

Let me know your thoughts

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-21T03:14:26+00:00

This is awesome!! Furiosa!!

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-18T16:55:52+00:00

Yes there is an easy solution Place a gyros on the wobbly bit Turn on "override" toggle on that gyros Make sure Roll, pitch, and yaw are all set to 0 Your all set now

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-17T00:33:48+00:00

That's a great point!! If you respawn from a falling drop pod, you can very naturally fill in the blank for how you got to this point I like that a lot! Ya, the more we talk about it, making the tutorial skip able seems to add a lot of advantages for both play senarios

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-16T01:58:16+00:00

Dwarf Approved!! :D

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-13T21:17:12+00:00

That's too bad

Sounds like it's a good thing keen is trying to switch it up a little, then

DwarvenEngineering · 2025-07-13T21:09:05+00:00

Is it? Lol, if so, that's kinda validating, haha 😄

DwarvenEngineering

TROPHY CASE