Wind power

A low-maintenance renewable energy source for the mid-game, land based.

Having the blades be a craftable consumable that turns into waste when used up would be a realistic way to balance them.

It would be clever if you could put them inside farms so as to not waste the space. Make it a choice, upgrade the irrigated farm to a greenhouse or upgrade it to a wind farm, keep the crop performance the same but add a power output.

Yeah they would also eat lot of space so 1 per farm, are expensive to make and give barely 3MW of power but can save coal on windy days

I think the idea sounds good for the setting of the game, though yes, balancing it out would be necessary, e.g., uses maintenance, link12313's craftable and consumable blades, variable wind speed to variable energy output, making them a mid-late game building, make it a large area farm that requires a stretch of space, etc. It is a resource management game so don't want a spamable free resource. Perhaps adding later techs that increase output, lower maintenance, etc.

Maybe offshore wind?

It must self-destruct violently after some time (shorter when lacking maintenance ofc) and claim a worker's life when constructing or maintaining idk. It should look really nice as an investment but screw you a bit :D from every side possible, but I also find the trucks should have stupid accidents on overcrowded junctions where products of mispositioned factories are exchanged :|

I can see these as being barely worth the investment in parts on the lowest tier, better at the next tier, and a good power source on the third tier. On the map with the Gold mountain in the middle, putting a few of these way up high should be a big payoff because you're sacrificing some of the gold to do it.
I can also envision windmills set in the water as a Research thing. They give more power and take up no room but have a higher Maint. cost because of wave action.

Windturbines should be a seperate building. This way space management is a more serious thing. For keeping the game simple a square size footprint would be good. A round footprint would be best. Windturbines should come in three sizes/variatoins: small/medium/big. Small turbines are for earlygame with low power output (max.200W), low space requirements and small height: level 4-6. Trucks are not allowed to cross the footprint. Medium turbines are for midgame giving more power (max.750W), need more space and have greater height: level 10-12. Trucks are allowed to cross the footprint but no buildings are allowed. The big turbine gives the most power (max.1500W) has the greatest height: level 16-18 and largest footprint allowing small buildings (max. height level 6) and trucks to cross the footprint. Due to the big size still wind does not affect them and a small amount of power is still generated(min. 150W). Storms shut them down to protect the turbins. Wind exists only above level 0.

Presently onshore wind power is the cheapest form of electricity per kwh. And as we are nautical, we can expect strong, stable winds. I tend to agree that in-farm turbines are an excellent idea.
Now, one big problem is that carbon fiber is the main thing you'd use to make turbine blades and we don't have that. You'd also need epoxy resin. Steel is the second choice, which makes this midgame but justifies easy recycling. Simple option is that turbines require steel in addition to construction parts.

I think wind turbines are neat visually, and make sense economically. On an island, they are probably the most efficient power source. One important thing would be that they need a special footprint. Like the docks, more or less. So we don't end up with wind turbines sitting densely next to each other, but having to spread them out over our island. So farms and buildings are placeable close by, while other wind turbines are not.

the idea is great. but the implementation of this idea will be a rather laborious process. after all, when adding wind farms, for realism, you need to add the physics of the wind itself! and this means a change in the direction of exhaust gases, the height of sea waves during storms, an increase and decrease in urban pollution (depending on the direction of exhaust gases), etc.

The blades and turbine can use maintenance. Dont make them consumer goods. Other stuff like powerplant is also serviced by m.

I think they should consume maintenance, but not tear up as long as they're maintained. The power they produce should be up and down though. Maybe higher tiers should have better payoff. I think this would be the easiest answer for this.

might be also nice for the late-game. Would be great to have in order to have something other renewable to damp the fluctuation of solar cells. I mean wind energy could be subjected to wheater changes as well - but produce electricity on other specific condition then solar.

its nice idea and i think this should have few stages, first trubines made with metal, vertical and horizontal type. second generation produce more power but need change of blades every 15 years, normaly made with glassfiber, because we dont have it it can be made with polymers, and need special recycling/burning or place to dump.

I made something to start with :-)
Features:
- Entity - Wind turbine
- can be placed everywhere with 3x3 un-even flat place
- generates up to 1.2 MW of power based on Wind Strength defined by current weather
- blades are rotating, slowing and starting as the wind changes (the strength affect the speed)
- gondola is rotating randomly and on load is moved to default position
- the height is 16m (pretty low)
Plans:
- Create a wind map cache
- the wind turbine will take wind speed and direction from cache
- the case will calculate the wind power also based on placed buildings / trees
Latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYMb57W_ZMc
Latest test files:
https://discord.com/channels/803508556325584926/1355698241123123290/1356375541523021887

Vertical building! Stand-alone turbines of course, but the ability to build this as an addon onto existing structures (multiple turbine options, like roof-line turbines for example).

Wind farms are actually quite high-tech. Hard to imagine carbon blades being made before carbon and advanced electronic, which is at a time when more useful generation is already available anyway. They are also quite meh IRL in term of power per land area - kind of in the same ballpark as solar panels actually. So more useful as expensive bragging rights achievement rather than something practical.