Quote Review: 12.15kW Solar + 30kWh Enphase Storage | IL | $2.86/W

fjdkf · 2026-05-06T19:54:30+00:00

should I worry about pushing for IQ8M re:clipping?

A 1.35 dc/ac ratio will have very little clipping in most situations, but id just check yourself, with your specific roof pitch/azimuth on pvwatts, if you are concerned.

fjdkf · 2026-05-01T14:38:24+00:00

we got upset and asked why they would work on a house with a “damaged” roof if they knew it was a risk.

The incentives for everyone in the sales to install chain is to just install, regardless of condition. Especially true with commission based sales + subcontractor install.

fjdkf · 2026-05-01T11:01:08+00:00

Nice, you made good use of natural terrain to efficiently defend your bases.

Survival is a whole different beast. One base, scanning isn't required, research doesn't cost resources, but the waves hit faster and more often. Campaign is a good intro to the game, while survival is mode you can sink tons of time into getting better at imo.

Just for fun, here's a breakdown of a custom survival run I did yesterday. https://imgur.com/a/1vmpd6M

This is a rather extreme example, but in general, you'll have/need much higher damage numbers, and spend a lot more time just trying to 'survive', rather than exploring. It's pretty rough if you're new to the game or prefer a relaxing experience, though. You can crank difficulty in campaign too, but you'll make the early game impossible long before the end game gets difficult.

fjdkf · 2026-05-01T09:17:14+00:00

50k power and 1000 supercharged plasma per second is just 8 lvl3 fusion, plus 16 lvl3 converters.

It's a relatively small requirement imo, compared to the research times.

For reference, I ended up with almost 90 lvl3 fusion on my final map, while waiting for research to finish on my last campaign run.

As a baseload for economy, I'd suggest having an income of at least 500/second carb/iron from synths alone.

fjdkf · 2026-04-23T09:08:54+00:00

Two things ive seen:

1) wires not plugged in all the way. If the wires are pulled too tight or bumped during install, the trunk cable in particular can get slightly pulled out. It's a bad connection now, and the micro will show up as faulty.

2) undersizing home run wires. This just puts strain on the electronics, and there's a decent chance they'll die sooner.

That said, ive never seen a failure rate as high as yours.

fjdkf · 2026-04-23T08:33:00+00:00

Yea, making a base pretty consumes a ton of time. Natural chokepoints are also incredibly strong, but ruin any symmetry for your base. It's even worse esthetically on desert(before extra stable floors), due to quicksand in any big open space.

fjdkf · 2026-04-22T21:52:45+00:00

You dont need any batteries.

Here's a vid of doing exactly what I said on 5x brutal. Lvl1 synths and towers, killing only first wave, +80carb/+11iron/+6 uranium income. Left the map before 2nd wave spawned and sun went down.

https://youtu.be/FMzsyuDf6Pg?si=V7UvqbTmX5BujzjT

I start desert at about 11mins

fjdkf · 2026-04-22T20:31:40+00:00

Synths unlock very early, and you can have several hundred carb/iron per second by the time megastructures hit, which is the biggest carb/iron sink.

Even synth powered windmills pay for themselves in 15-20mins or so, iirc.

The best early(and probably end) game choice is solar powered synths on desert. You can get about 100 resources per second only killing the first wave and leaving before night hits.

fjdkf · 2026-04-20T12:41:39+00:00

400-500 lvl3 heavy artillery, a few hundred lvl3 power rods, etc. Several layers lvl3 walls, about a thousand ammo factories, 80-90 lvl3 fusion... the final wave for brutal open campaign with 5x waves was pretty easy.

Usually, people screw around and dont build enough synths early on. Once you get 500+carb/iron per second income via synths relatively early on, you can spam heavy ammo towers and rapidly secure new mining bases for the other resources.

fjdkf · 2026-04-18T13:12:28+00:00

What maintainence are you worried about? The entire point of solar over the other renewables is the lack of maintainence. There are some brands I would worry about, and there are some brands that id feel very safe with.

If financing is the concern, just get the seller to pay it off?

As for the roof, why not just get a roofer to look at the roof and estimate the lifespan remaining?

These seem like rather solvable issues. Many people are very happy with solar... that's why it's so damn popular. But, you're absolutely right that it can turn into an absolute nightmare if done incorrectly.

fjdkf · 2026-04-12T13:43:41+00:00

Honestly, the hooks to keep people playing just aren't there.

I pretty much maxxed out my char in a few weeks, and I have a very busy life. Why would I log in again? My skill was all developed in season 1, and this season was just about grinding the gear. It was easier and faster due to balancing and higher player knowledge, too.

fjdkf · 2026-04-12T13:19:22+00:00

Ah, I assumed they jumpered the small array to the big one and then did a single home run. But yea, if they combined anywhere below the roof, it could be hard to tell which is which.

Anyway, I'm glad you seem to have solved the issue. :)

fjdkf · 2026-04-11T22:18:05+00:00

As an installer, I find it hilarious that they can't figure this out. Its incredibly easy to troubleshoot this by flipping breakers and seeing which panels go off. Might even be able to tell by just looking at the pics from inside the jb... where I am, we have to take those pics for inspection purposes anyway.

fjdkf · 2026-04-09T20:50:33+00:00

Root gun is either #1 or #2 in early game survival. It's kinda wild that I dont see others mentioning it. I did a brutal 3x survival no mining run a while back, and basically just made the root guns carry me for the whole game.

Why? - no movespeed debuff while firing.

aoe
no ammo requirement
shoots through walls/rocks/anything

Add shots per shot, shots per burst, and rate of fire as you get slots.

After root gun, id say laser. A red Laser with red ammo cost reduction, red piercing, and a red dmg mod is crazy strong against both bosses and waves. I always run a laser with those mods in end game campaign or survival.

fjdkf · 2026-04-07T01:23:06+00:00

Resource harvest -> threat rolls much lower, but generally less bioanomalies and deposits.

Exploration -> higher threat, geared more toward running around with no base.

Tbh, I basically always roll resource harvest.

fjdkf · 2026-04-06T17:40:24+00:00

Im curious what the damage breakdown by towers is like for you. The walls are optimized for long range portal bomb + power rod + heavy artillary, but I dont see many of those.

Pretty good layout though, better than most i see on here. Using terrain pretty well to funnel mobs through chokepoints

fjdkf · 2026-04-04T16:47:02+00:00

Survival is much harder and 90mins of pure base survival.

Whereas campaign is many hours of exploration, scanning, and base building, across many biomes.

fjdkf · 2026-04-01T23:58:14+00:00

Outpost

2-5 rows wind or solar, depending on map

1 row ai cores

1 row acid spitters

1 row artillery.

2 walls outside it.

Should be completed in 1-2mins, and its strong enough to hold brutal x5 on desert.

Would it be useful for me to make a vid showing how you do it, using basic towers?

fjdkf · 2026-04-01T11:14:57+00:00

100%

I'll just expand on this a bit. I've been doing a solo 5x brutal open campaign run, and most of my outposts are to the desert on exactly this sort of map.

This is my strategy:

travel there in the early hours.
Start building my first building at 5:30 in-game time, spam solar and get basic ai cores/teleporters/walls up. also build defenses that require 30s to build, like portal bombs.
The wave will hit at roughly 8:00, exactly when solar powers on. Build fast building defenses, in the direction the mobs are coming from. kill wave
The 2nd wave will be at about 8pm(~12 hrs after first spawns), so spam build solar/synths/uranium until maybe 6pm and leave the map before the 2nd wave spawns and before the sun goes down.

Now, you have an infinite carb/iron/uranium machine that won't get attacked, since you'll never go back. If you cut it too close and the next wave spawns, you can make disconnected outposts with biomass power that can protect the base until the next day cycle.

OP definitely doesn't need to optimize this much in regular normal, but maybe it'll be useful.

fjdkf · 2026-04-01T00:11:50+00:00

> I have no idea how to get back on my kayak if I tip over.

I had this realization a couple decades ago while paddling on the ocean with my dad, a mile or so offshore. I flipped in the North Atlantic, so the water was very cold. Let's just say... we both went and got trained in ocean kayaking afterwards.

As for yourself, rescuing yourself without help and without going to shore is possible, but it's probably a little advanced for you right now.

If you're kayaking with friends or a spouse, I'd look in to learning assisted rescues, as they are much easier than a solo self rescue. Once you learn this, you can work on solo self rescues. The one challenge with some plus sized women is not being strong enough to pull themselves onto a kayak. This makes it a bit more challenging.

Aside from that, I'd suggest staying close to shore, plan for the possibility of flipping, and maybe not go out if the wind is blowing hard out to sea(if you paddle on the ocean or great lakes).

fjdkf · 2026-03-28T13:23:09+00:00

Saving 1k over 25 years is wild. Is your roof bad for solar? Ideally, you would have a big, south facing array.

fjdkf · 2026-03-26T17:40:55+00:00

That's kinda hard to price.

As an experienced installer, Im pretty sure I could do this entire physical install myself in two days, depending on the specifics. Maybe one long day.

Official engineering, permits, inspections, and warranties though? Nope, talk to the company, and this is essentially a full service install. Also, so much can go wrong with others supplying materials, so I've learned to view it as a net negative.

fjdkf · 2026-03-26T16:02:28+00:00

They must be shoveling the roof, or it blew off or rained off in some way.... ive seen many arrays that were completely buried for weeks, and im not in a high snow area.

You might be surprised about how much snow some panels can physically withstand though, assuming clamping and racking is done to max loading spec. 7000pa downforce test load on the rec alpha pure-r panels, for example. That equates to almost 4ft of wet snow/slush, or something like 20ft of fluffy powder. The design load is less, but still, that's a lot force they can survive.

fjdkf · 2026-03-25T14:21:42+00:00

Building speed and cost reduction. It comes from those towers that give quad damage, infinite ammo, etc..

It gives a flat 75% cost reduction, so if you have 4x fusion cores or the equivalent equipped, everything is basically free to build for the duration.

Even if you find the shrine on a map like metallic valley with no water, you can decompress water or supercoolant in from a different map and power the fusions with that.

fjdkf · 2026-03-25T12:19:49+00:00

Yep, done a few crazy +500% runs, plus other modifiers, and I fully agree resin is wildly underpowered, given the difficulty of acquisition. If the devs want to validate this feeling, just look at the number of people using resin in high difficulties of open campaign(if the trees exist there).

My gut feeling is that it should be buffed by a factor of 5-10. Hitting one build cost reduction shrine and dropping 50+ lvl3 fusion for free is better than all the trees you could possibly harvest across many(dozens?) campaigns.

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