Finding parts - turret001/OffGrid GitHub Wiki
Every panel, rack, controller and transformer recipe is in a book, and levelling Electrical never teaches one. Until you find a book, you start with what other survivors left behind.
The books
- Photovoltaic Systems Handbook teaches 10 recipes: salvaged arrays and roof panels, improvised battery crates and wall cells, Solar Array, Roof Panel, Battery Bank, Wall Battery Box, Charge Controller, Transformer. Look in hardware and electronics stores, bookstores, garages, and storage crates and boxes in houses.
- Advanced Photovoltaics and MPPT teaches 5: the Monocrystalline array and roof panel, the Sealed battery and wall cabinets, and the MPPT Charge Controller. Much rarer than the handbook.
- Knox County Almanac teaches Reading the Sky, a 29-day energy forecast (see The almanac). Look in bookstores and libraries.
Skills to build each grade
| Arrays and roof panels | Battery racks | Controllers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salvaged, improvised | Electrical 2 | Electrical 1, Carpentry 2 | |
| Standard | Electrical 4, Welding 2 (roof panel: Welding 1) | Electrical 3, Welding 3 (wall box: Welding 2) | Charge Controller: Electrical 3 |
| Premium (advanced book) | Electrical 7, Welding 3 (roof panel: Welding 2) | Electrical 6, Welding 4 (wall cabinet: Welding 3) | MPPT Charge Controller: Electrical 8 |
A Charge Controller is built from a car battery charger; an MPPT controller from a Charge Controller. Metal grades need a welding torch and a welder mask. A Transformer takes Electrical 5 and Welding 2 (see Power whole buildings). The solar lamps need no book (see Solar lamps); neither does a backup generator, converted from the game's own generator.
Where to look
Boxed, in shops:
- Hardware stores: arrays, roof panels, racks, controllers
- Electronics stores: the same, and now and then a premium part
- Car supply stores and gas station shelves: controllers
- Garden stores: solar garden lamps, which hardware and electronics stores also stock
Used, worn:
- Garages, sheds and mechanics' shelves
- Old tool crates
- Farm storage shelves and crates, and now and then a storage crate in a house
- Electricians' and construction trucks
- Controllers also turn up in household electronics crates, often as good as new
A worn panel makes less until you repair it. A worn rack or controller works like a new one.
Yard rigs
- 1 in 15 houses has a rig in the yard, complete and wired: a controller and one or two battery racks against the house wall, and two to four panels in the garden, or in a row along the wall where the yard is small.
- About 1 in 10 rigs still hold some charge; the rest are flat. In every rig most batteries are nearly worn out, and one rack in four is empty.
- Sandbox › Off-Grid › Houses with a solar rig (one in) sets the 15. 0 means none.
Storage barns
- 1 in 2 barns used for storing hay, with no animals in them, hold two to four spare panels and battery racks standing along a wall, in fair condition. Livestock barns hold none.
- Sandbox › Off-Grid › Storage barns with spare solar gear (one in) sets the 2. 0 means none.
Also worth knowing
- Repair the frame: scrap electronics, screws and a screwdriver give a panel (array or roof panel) +30 condition each time. Racks and controllers need no repair.
- Strip it: parts you don't want can be stripped for materials in the crafting menu, with a screwdriver.
- Explored places: yard rigs and barn stock also turn up in places you explored before adding Off-Grid, and in ground a server wipe resets. Player bases are skipped. Loot in containers only appears in places nobody has been near yet.