Bring back the reduced upkeep upgrade for powerstations.

[Pixelated Sparkster]

JWE1 had an upgrade for power stations, "Reduced Upkeep" which reduced the costs of power stations. Back then it was not something that I used, as it was easy to make money, and the upgrade could be used for outage protection and improved output instead.

After some time with some parks made in Custom Challenge mode, I could actually see the upgrade be more useful.

Power stations could only ever have two upgrade slots, and there are only two forms of upgrades available. Improved output would always be useful, but the weather protection never really felt like a useful upgrade to me from my experience with the game. I would very much like the option to reduce the upkeep costs of the power stations in my park as they could start eating up a good portion of my upkeep the larger the park gets.

 

[TacticianLyra]

This. Damaging storms only happen on Alpine, Taiga, and Tropical maps, and tmk storm protection does nothing against sandstorms.

 

[Pixelated Sparkster]

This. Damaging storms only happen on Alpine, Taiga, and Tropical maps, and tmk storm protection does nothing against sandstorms.

Sandstorms are weird as they do not damage the power stations but temporarily disable them, which is an oddity with storm protection included.

I am mixed on it as I like how sandstorms affect the power stations in a way not possible by other storms, as it has you to manage the temporary outages per storm and rely on backup generators in your park.

Maybe another upgrade option could be made where power stations could be outfitted with backup generators that store some temporary power amidst an outage. So a small power station that has 60 power units by default could have an upgrade that allows for 20 units of power as a backup in case of an outage, so outages by sandstorms and sabotage would not completely disable the power station, leaving some juice to make sure the park is able to operate well enough to not completely plummet park profits.