From the Stars to Your Home

Solar Credits was inspired by Stellaris. In it, you mine stars to earn “Energy Credits”, which are used to maintain your empire. My version simply scales this down to the home. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while. There was just one tiny little problem: I barely know how to write GDScript, only C#. The algorithm is pretty advanced for a rather simple simulation, but I just kept having that itch. So I looked to Bing Copilot and later ChatGPT for answers on what this would look like.

Beginning with Copilot, I simply ask it to simulate energy demand and convert that into money, after it searches for the GDScript documentation. Instead, it gave me links to the documentation instead of using it to better understand my request. However, Copilot worked almost flawlessly. It kept dipping into the negatives. This was a problem I had with all iterations as it evolved into storing that energy in a battery that gets converted into a wallet. So, I tried again with ChatGPT, asking for it to search the documentation, and I asked for the algorithm that increased the battery levels and, upon reaching 100%, converted that into money - making sure it didn’t dip into the negatives this time around. xD

Although I was very, very clear about what I wanted, I never expected ChatGPT’s code to work the first time. That being said, I’m using it as a template, a jumping-off point, not leaving it as is. I’ve already made changes, such as dividing the capacity by the watts generated.