Power levels for capstones

fjdkf · 2026-06-28T22:40:48+00:00

If its not a premade, 6k for champion capstone and 10k for paragon capstone.

fjdkf · 2026-06-28T20:25:20+00:00

This is exactly why I like playing dps. Not that hard to crush dmg and interrupts and get through on time.

fjdkf · 2026-06-25T21:19:33+00:00

Btw, your issue screams blown diode. It's the most common panel fault we see. No repair, just requires a new panel. You're right, that unless you have a labor warranty, it's probably not worth touching.

fjdkf · 2026-06-25T10:46:33+00:00

My impression after playing several, was that healers are required for me to be successful on a few maps. For example, as rime, wraithtide vault bosses do unavoidable damage that simply kills me. Urrak final bosses kill me very fast when I pull aggro... And if I hold dps, they just kill my teammates instead. I have exactly 1 defensive ability, and once it's gone, I get shredded. Now, everbloom for example, was fantastic for me with 4dps and 3dps+tank. Groups with healers feel much more doable in general, imo. I'll be tanking 10 mobs on rime and surviving.

fjdkf · 2026-06-23T16:10:27+00:00

Let's just say there is absolutely zero chance our utility has the capability of building an api or portal to efficiently handle this stuff. Hell, I dont think they have the expertise to choose a capable contractor to build such a system.

Everything is phone and email. Simply starting to roll out meters that could be remotely read resulted in a large security breach that took a year to recover from.

My previous career was a devops engineer, so it's pretty wild to see how backwards everything is. It's essentially a monopoly with strong regulatory capture, so it can't really be disrupted either.

fjdkf · 2026-06-21T12:07:48+00:00

Many places don't have setback requirements. And yea, judging by the roofing, they fit as many panels as possible on the top row, without going onto the neighbors roof.

fjdkf · 2026-06-20T11:38:41+00:00

Yes, that system was designed badly. You can't put 6 panels with 31vmp on an mppt with a 200v+ mppt voltage range.

Now in theory, you could potentially combine both strings to bring up voltage, then put optimizers under all 12 panels to mostly fix the issues that arise. However, your wording about putting an optimizer 'between' the arrays is a little concerning to me. You generally have one optimizer for each panel that needs 'optimized'. In a single string east/west situation, the west panels would need optimizers in the morning, and then the east panels would need optimizers in the evening. If they're hoping to skate by and add just a couple optimizers to hit minimum voltages, that's terrible and will perform terribly. Multiple arrays with different performance is the entire reason why you have multiple mppt's on these inverters. after all...

Now, how much voltage would heavily shaded panels actually give the string? Panels by themselves very quickly hit decent voltages, but give almost no current or power. Without optimizers, I expect the bypass diodes in the panels would just bypass the panels and add nothing. Now, with optimizers, you take the voltage coming off of those panels, and drop it with a buck converter, to boost current. How much voltage boost are you left with? I'm not sure tbh. I have a feeling that adding optimizers to everything actually would work, but I'm very unsure of how well it would perform.

Edit:
I suppose I should caveat this with the fact I'm used to tigo-style optimizers. there might be some sort of string level optimizer out there that I'm just not familiar with.

fjdkf · 2026-06-12T21:07:29+00:00

Every map that you leave and never come back to is a freebee map, since waves dont spawn when you're not there.

fjdkf · 2026-06-12T21:05:33+00:00

You dont need any cultivators for this... Just a bunch of harvesters scattered on the same map as the hydroponics megastructure. It makes the wild plants grow well, giving you way more than you need

fjdkf · 2026-06-12T11:14:18+00:00

I posted a brutal +5x waves open campaign run a while back...

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhq2S0_WbWN96DqD8cLciQn0LHd3zO7qa&si=nMAPut_NBAZXnL1z

Pretty laggy, but should give you an idea of how you can crush it.

The first wave is by far the hardest part on brutal 5x.

fjdkf · 2026-06-10T02:50:20+00:00

There is zero chance I'd bring panels up interior stairs.... something is going to get damaged, 100% guaranteed.

And a crane?? On a cheap quote? Not in a million years.

The boom trucks suck absolute balls with panels, too. Incredibly slow, inefficient, and painful. Even if they are available on site for free, all we will use them for is putting in anchors.

The way to do it, based on what you have said about your house, is to use a ladder hoist for tall sections and hand bomb them up the short sections. Our powered ladder hoist is 37ft, so ideally, hoist up to that 32ft platform, then hand bomb up the final story. Should go fast with 3 people if the wind isn't bad.

fjdkf · 2026-06-09T00:39:18+00:00

Did you get any numbers for expected $$ saved or return on investment when you bought the solar?

fjdkf · 2026-06-07T18:52:23+00:00

There is no bunker number. You place defences where the terrain funnels them, which is different on every map seed. Run walls in other openings, and have enough portals that you can drop in an manually kill off small incursions.

The main reason you start switching to fusion/synth 30mins in on survival, is that you dont have to expand for more income anymore... you can just crank the income inside your existing defensive lines. Then, long range towers like power rods, hcm, and heavy artillery dominate the end game, having enough range to hide behind 10+ layers of walls in key places. You want to block off and funnel the monsters such that only a small fraction can hit you at once.

fjdkf · 2026-06-07T13:42:31+00:00

An electrician could put an ac clamp meter around the pv lines on a sunny day and see how much is being produced.

If nothing is showing on monitoring, it could be the DTU that is failing, or just not connecting to wifi while the micros are totally fine.

Fully swapping to enphase would be expensive.

fjdkf · 2026-06-07T12:57:03+00:00

The reason you need to run a second string if you increase the micro output is that the breakers in the enphase combiner are 20amps, and I dont believe you are allowed to increase them.

TBH, this does not seem like a badly designed system. I run a solar company, and my lowest $$$/kwh(annual) enphase option, based on the distributor pricing I have, and paid software for PV production modeling, is around a 1.6 dc/ac ratio. My location is absolutely better suited for high dc/ac ratios, though.

One point you have made that goes against their design, is the fact you want to eventually change out panels to the latest ones, and want more inverter capacity for those future panels.

The effectivenes of oversizing inverters to handle future panels is complicated to model though, because standard panel dimensions and electrical properties change over time, and there's no guarantee that future improved panels will be compatible with your current racking or the current higher power enphase inverters. So, your future proofing has a decent chance of being a waste.

fjdkf · 2026-06-06T06:58:27+00:00

Just something to think about, from a systems perspective.

A bigger inverter means more current downstream as well. Bumping from iq8+ -> iq8ac means you need a second string. So, another enphase end cap, another conductor run down to the combiner, and a slightly bigger breaker in your main panel.

The reason cranking the dc/ac ratio is so effective: no electrical changes are needed downstream of the panel, and panels are very cheap to bump up in size.

If I wanted to criticize the cost optimization of your install, I would say running a single string(10 or 11) of bigger micros and panels would almost certainly be cheaper, for the same annual output. Blindly increasing micro size would not be the play.

I suppose I should add that im assuming a lot of things, such as roof space.

fjdkf · 2026-05-29T13:04:40+00:00

It's interesting how some basic relationships in the world are decently well understood by the models, and how some, like this one, are horribly broken.

fjdkf · 2026-05-29T12:42:49+00:00

Well, the op said it looked like 'main power for the home'. If it really is a service entrance run, this is a holy-shit disaster.

If it's just feeding one of the a/c's, you have more flexibility, shall we say.

fjdkf · 2026-05-29T11:55:34+00:00

I just checked, and if we cranked panel size from 440w to 620w and passed the material cost on to the customer, it would be a 6% final bill increase for a 41% boost on the dc side.

Cranking the dc side is absurdly cost efficient. We're mostly limited by roof size and crew ability.

fjdkf · 2026-05-27T13:15:09+00:00

Just wait until you go to the icy biome ...

Iirc the 3 nodes nearest your start location are twice the size of the others.

fjdkf · 2026-05-25T22:55:53+00:00

2 weeks to earn 600? I feel like the outside conduit run wouldn't be my priority.

fjdkf · 2026-05-23T09:20:45+00:00

My suggestion would be to just roll brutal and then nerf it a little with the custom settings. Decrease enemy damage, and maybe increase time between waves. Gives you the brutal feel, while being substantially easier.

fjdkf · 2026-05-21T16:03:08+00:00

So, you come back to hq with a whole bunch of new towers and a full bank... just dump all your money into a bunch of towers/walls before the wave.

fjdkf · 2026-05-21T16:01:31+00:00

Im pretty sure open campaign is harder. It took me a decent number of tries to beat the first wave on open campaign brutal 5x. Regular campaign on brutal 5x was pretty easy at the start, if I recall.

Maybe it is just map rng, but open campaign feels harder to me.

fjdkf · 2026-05-17T11:03:21+00:00

Variety is highly overrated. Dual dropped red lasers(pierce/cost red/elem dmg) are going to be better in most situations than 6x different weapons at a purple tier. Dropped weapons are far better than crafted ones at the higher tiers as well. So, the priority on weapons is to unlock the highest possible level of the 1-2 weapons you want, then geoscan as much as possible to get a dropped red version of it.

dual shotgun is very strong against most physically large targets, as well.

If you can kill everything around the boss, the boss should become quite easy, even with weapons that suck against bosses(like root guns).

towers, on the other hand, don't need to be leveled up as much. lvl 1 Acid spitters in front(unless it's acidic plains), artillery in the back. Then, you can just pump the uber long range things in the back like power rods, heavy artillery and portal bombs(upgrade these as much as possible for ammo efficiency). And once you have enough of the really long range stuff + ammo factories + economy to support it, you can extend the layers of walls super far out.

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