Wind Turbine

Wind Turbine


Function:	The Wind turbine generates low amounts of power when exposed to ope...
DLC?	Vanilla

Fits large grid
Mass:	616.4 kg
Hitpoints:	1882
Power:	+0.4 MW
PCU:	55
Size:	3x3x3
Time to Build:	20 sec

Data Controls:	[purge] (?))

The Wind Turbine is a power producing block. The Wind Turbine will only work on atmospheric planets and on large grid stations (for exceptions, see below).

A DLC shape variant of this block is the Twin-Blade Wind Turbine.

Usage

Building Wind Turbines brings your base free power on planets with atmospheres.

It can be advantageous to have one base (with turbines and batteries) to park and recharge vehicles, and next door, a separate base (with its own turbines and batteries) for factory blocks. It will be more expensive to build, but they will be independent of one another and not steal power from one another.

Important: Wind Turbines produce no output in space, on mobile grids, and on airless moons.

Power

The power output of a wind turbine is dependent on clearance, atmospheric density (local oxygen levels), and weather.

Grid	Max Power Output (avg. weather)
Large Grid	400 kW

Trivia

The block ceases producing power on atmospheric planets when attached to a large ship or large rover, or if attached to stations through a Rotor, Hinge, or Piston. An exception to this rule is that the Wind Turbine does produce power temporarily while a Landing Gear affixes the mobile grid to a station or the planet's surface, a fact which travelling engineers can use to their advantage.

Construction

If progression is enabled, you can always build wind turbines, they do not need to be unlocked.

You can build it only on large grid stations. There is no built-in control panel on this block.

Since this block's maximum output depends on its height from the ground, the local atmospheric density, and nearby obstructions, consider these before placing the block. The turbine block itself takes up 3 x 3 x 3 large-grid blocks of space. The mount point is a 1x1 square at the center of the base of the turbine.

Clearance

The amount of power generated by Wind Turbines depends on the wind clearance of the turbine, which is calculated based on how high the turbine is from the voxel ground, and nearby obstructions. The more wind clearance, the higher the power output.

The Control Panel will give you some idea of the turbine's wind clearance, reporting it as either Poor, Good, Optimal, or None (if the turbine is switched off, not directly attached to a station, or in a location with no wind).

Technical details

Wind turbines calculate how much they are obstructed with nine raycasts (think laser lines).^[1]

One of these shoots directly downwards about 25 meters (10 large grid blocks) towards the center of the planet the turbine is placed on, and only checks for voxels to determine the turbine's height above the terrain.^[1]

The remaining eight raycasts check roughly for any obstructions, which is both voxels and blocks, within roughly 20 meters (8 large grid blocks). These shoot horizontally from the wind turbine, aligned with its base, in the four cardinal directions aligned with of the grid the turbine is placed on, and the four diagonals between them.^[1] Because there are only eight raycasts, it is possible to cheat this system and build a very compact wind farm by placing wind turbines on an angle from each other such that their raycasts do not detect each other as obstructions. This can be done by placing them three blocks across and one block forward from each other (like a knight's move in chess, but one block further).^[1]^[2]

Turbine Height Comparison

A turbine placed on the ground indicates poor clearance and only outputs 150-200 kW, even in dense atmospheres. A turbine placed on a pillar indicates optimal clearance and outputs 200-400 kW, the min and max depending on local weather and atmosphere density.

Height = 0 = poor clearance
Height = 3 = good clearance
Height = 9 = optimal clearance

Recipe

Wind Turbine
Component	Large Ship/Station Required	Large Ship/Station Optional	Small Ship Required	Small Ship Optional
Motor	8	—	—	—
Interior Plate	10	30	—	—
Girder	24	—	—	—
Construction Comp.	20	—	—	—
Computer	2	—	—	—