Approximately Up Solar Panels & Power Management

Batteries are heavy and limited. Solar panels are the long-cruise answer in Approximately Up: bolt them to a hull, point them at a star, and your ship sips power instead of draining cells. The full Steam release (August 6, 2026) ships with Autohemisphere Solar Panels as standard power parts — and patch 1.0.008 fixed a long-standing bug where they stayed stuck mid-orientation after you left Fly Mode. This page explains panel placement, the Autohemisphere reorientation behaviour, and how to size a power budget for routes that burn fuel-and-patience without solar top-up. Pair it with Power and Data Routing for cables and Fuse Boxes, the Thrusters tier list for vacuum legs, and the Planets map for how star distance changes yield.\n\n## What solar panels actually do\n\nSolar panels in Approximately Up are power generators — they convert incident starlight into electricity that flows through power routers to batteries, thrusters, the RCS controller, and any powered cargo. They do not push your ship (no thrust from light pressure in the current build), and they are useless in complete shadow or on the dark side of a tidally locked world.\n\nThe Autohemisphere model shipped with the full release tracks the brightest visible star and reorients its face toward that star every physics tick while in fly mode. That automation means you can leave the panel orientation alone and still get good yield — but you can also place static panels on hull faces for redundancy on multi-vector routes (e.g. one toward the local star, one toward a planet’s reflected albedo).\n\n## Patch 1.0.008 fix you should know about\n\nPre-1.0.008 Autohemisphere panels stayed stuck. If you left Fly Mode (R), entered Garage Edit Mode (G), and re-launched, the panels sometimes locked at the orientation they had at the moment of mode-switch — pointing at empty sky instead of a star. Power output then plummeted to near zero for the rest of the flight.\n\nPatch 1.0.008 resets the Autohemisphere tracking so panels always return to their original (auto-tracking) orientation when you re-enter Fly Mode. If you saved a blueprint pre-1.0.008 that relied on the broken behaviour, re-test after updating — read Patch Notes for the full changelog and Blueprints for re-saving tips.\n\n## Where to mount solar panels\n\nMount panels on flat hull faces with clear line-of-sight to a star. Good candidates:\n\n- Top decks of a lander or tug (vertical star exposure)\n- Wing-like outriggers built specifically to host panels\n- Side hull plates that face the star during cruise attitude\n\nAvoid:\n\n- Burying panels behind frames — shadow blocks yield\n- Mounting them inside engine bells — thruster exhaust dims output and (in some builds) damages the panel\n- Pointing them straight down on a low-altitude world — the planet itself shadows the panel half the orbit\n\nFor cruise, run a single tall panel on a stick outrigger and let Autohemisphere do its job. For base stations, build multiple static panels so a single shadow doesn’t kill output.\n\n## Power budget for a long cruise\n\nUse this quick formula when you size panels and batteries:\n\n1. List all consumers — main thrusters, RCS controller, radar, floodlights, life-support-adjacent cargo freezers.\n2. Estimate peak draw during a manoeuvre (e.g. RCS burst, electric braking burn).\n3. Estimate average draw during cruise (radar + life support + trickle re-light).\n4. Panel yield depends on star distance — see Planets map for gravity + star proximity hints per world.\n5. Battery capacity must cover the gap between average draw and peak draw, plus a safety margin.\n\nIf your panel yield exceeds average draw, batteries top up while you fly. If yield lags average, batteries drain slowly and the ship dies somewhere inconvenient.\n\n## When solar beats batteries (and vice versa)\n\nSolar wins on:\n\n- Long vacuum hops where the star is visible most of the route (most inner-system legs).\n- Co-op cruises where one player can micro-orient panels with manual levers (advanced).\n- Base stations with sun exposure — floodlights, freezers, and radar are essentially free.\n\nBatteries win on:\n\n- Eclipses, planet shadow, or dense nebula moments.\n- Short burns where peak draw spikes faster than panel yield can keep up.\n- Submarine builds where sunlight barely reaches underwater — see Submarine Build.\n\nThe honest answer: stack both. A modest battery pack plus a single Autohemisphere panel covers most routes the full release asks of you.\n\n## Step-by-step: add a panel to an existing ship\n\n1. Open Garage Edit Mode (G).\n2. Place an Autohemisphere Solar Panel on a clear top-deck position.\n3. Run a power cable from the panel’s output to a power router input (use a router even if the panel feeds one consumer — easier to branch later).\n4. Verify with garage debug (H) that the panel registers live power.\n5. Launch (R) — check the router’s input meter rising when you face the star.\n6. If you see no yield: rotate the ship, leave and re-enter Fly Mode (this was the 1.0.008 bug), or check for shadow from a frame.\n\n## Common solar mistakes\n\n| Mistake | Symptom | Fix |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Panel inside frame | Zero yield | Move panel to outer hull face |\n| Panel not on a router | Consumers still dark | Add a power router between panel and load |\n| Autohemisphere stuck (pre-1.0.008) | Yield dies after mode switch | Update to 1.0.008; re-test |\n| Only batteries on a long route | Blackout mid-cruise | Add one Autohemisphere panel |\n| Panel on submarine | Always zero underwater | Plan battery-only below the surface |\n| Too many panels on a small hull | Excessive mass, low TWR | One panel + spare battery is usually enough |\n\n## Solar + co-op tips\n\nAssign one crew member to monitor the router input and call out yield drops during burns. The other players focus on RCS and hover logic without distraction. Read Co-op guide for role splits and lobby etiquette.\n\n## Cross-references\n\n- Power and Data Routing — cable and router rules\n- Patch Notes — 1.0.008 Autohemisphere fix\n- Planets map — star distance per world\n- Submarine Build — battery-only underwater\n- Thrusters tier list — electric thrust power draw\n- Blueprints — re-save after panel placements\n\nSolar panels turn long Approximately Up routes from fuel-anxiety into routine cruise. Mount one, route the power, re-test after patches — and your batteries get to retire on emergency duty only.

Long-range cruise design — moon run prep