Boiler Misbehaviour

[Rhamphoryncus]

Two sets of boilers and steam engines. In the top one the pipe before the boilers was removed, water was allowed to fully drain, then replaced. In the bottom one the pipe immediately after the boilers was removed, time was waited for temperature and pressure to equalize (and drain after from the steam engines), then replaced.

Somehow the top set is using 20 boilers while the bottom uses 15. The top is clearly wrong but even the bottom should barely be using 14 according to specs. The top also shows a temperature of 99.68 in the pipes and steam engines despite leaving the boilers at a full 100.

I've seen a lot more weirdness but this is at least a clear, isolated test case.

Only mod is creative mode, identical to the 0.13 version on the mod portal but with info.json edited for 0.14.

[Loewchen]

Sounds completely normal, the boiler on top are filling up when connected, creating flow and therefore need to heat up the water.
The ones on the bottom never were completely empty, so no need for all boiler to work.
NaB.

[Rhamphoryncus]

Bottom ones do 100% of their capacity at each step so they quickly reach 100%.

The top ones inexplicably do something like heating 50% of the cold water, next one does 50% of what remains, next does 50% of that, etc. It never reaches 100%.

They were also left for 20 minutes at speed 10. They should have converged but instead remained unchanged. Again, the setups are identical.

[Loewchen]

Bottom ones do 100% of their capacity at each step so they quickly reach 100%.

The top ones inexplicably do something like heating 50% of the cold water, next one does 50% of what remains, next does 50% of that, etc. It never reaches 100%.

They were also left for 20 minutes at speed 10. They should have converged but instead remained unchanged. Again, the setups are identical.

Hm, when I load the save in 14.2 they equalize within a second. What version are you using?

[Rhamphoryncus]

0.14.2. Did you load the creative mode mod? I'm using the passive energy void it provides to load the steam engines.

[Loewchen]

0.14.2. Did you load the creative mode mod? I'm using the passive energy void it provides to load the steam engines.

Well, that I would call relevant information

[Rhamphoryncus]

I did say what mod I used and attach it...

[Rhamphoryncus]

I have since discovered that this bug only happens when flowing south or east. Boilers flowing north and west nearly immediately heat water to 100°C while boilers flowing south and east only reach approximately 95°C. Please reopen the report and update the title.

Here's a screenshot showing behaviour. When flowing west or north only 14 boilers are active (lit up), with the extra 6 completely idle. In contrast the east and south flowing boilers have all 20 lit up, yet still don't produce full temperature.

[Loewchen]

Can you produce this without mods? If yes then please upload a save with instructions.

[Nexela]

Reproduced without mods sort of.... not sure if it is a bug though I think the demand is too high to allow the steam engines to fill up.

Load up and connect the water pumps up

[Klonan]

Reproduced without mods sort of.... not sure if it is a bug though I think the demand is too high to allow the steam engines to fill up.

Load up and connect the water pumps up

Hmm there does seem to be something strange going on,

The south facing steam engines always end up with not enough water, and lower performance

[Loewchen]

Reproduced without mods sort of.... not sure if it is a bug though I think the demand is too high to allow the steam engines to fill up.

Load up and connect the water pumps up

I see it now. There was a report in the past but it only concerned the fire animation, in this case the water level and temperature in the steam machines are implausible as well. The issue only occurs on the south and east water flow direction and replacing a steam machine fixes it. Power output seems to be not affected.

Edit: The south has one steam engine too many in this save fyi!

[kovarex]

The thing is, that the water simulation depend on the order of updatable entities, which is related to chunks and the order in which it has been built.
And also the water flow logic is kind of a "magic box" that "kind of works" and we are afraid to touch it.

Someone might do a proper solution someday.

[brunzenstein]

The thing is, that the water simulation depend on the order of updatable entities, which is related to chunks and the order in which it has been built.
And also the water flow logic is kind of a "magic box" that "kind of works" and we are afraid to touch it.

Someone might do a proper solution someday.

Thank you for your open words!

[Nexela]

Edit: The south has one steam engine too many in this save fyi!

Doh! thats what I get for trying to count at 7 am ..

[Yttrium]

I have found alot of weirdness in boilers/steam engines aswell, I have not had the time to post an elaborate bug report about it but what it comes down to is this:

in the old version 1 pump, 14 boilers, 10 steam engines would heat the water up to 100 degrees and provide all steam engines with water to provide 5.1Mw of power.

Now 14 boilers will heat up the water to 100 however when hovering over steam engines the water will be around 99.80 It was unclear to me wether power was lost in this process, I made some tests and the results were strange.

2 boilers 1 steam engine provided 99.80° water at the steam engine. It provided 508kw of power.
3 boilers 1 steam engine provided 100.00° water at the steam engine. It provided 510kw of power.

Now comes the interesting part, I need to design around this bug anyway so I found out that 17 was the new magical number. With that in mind I checked how much I could power with this new setup. I could power exactly 18 radars!

This is where I gave up because 18 radars should consume 5.400kw where my power stats only showed 5.100kw.

Either the radars, power statistics or steam engines have rounding issues but with no easy way to differentiate I had to call it a night.

17 seems the new magic number, I dont know the numbers for the 21/14 setup but that has probaly taken a hit aswell.

[Loewchen]

Moved to known issues.

[ghoti]

I'm seeing this issue as well. Water running east or south has temperature applied differently than water running north or west

Here's a vanilla save file that can reproduce the issue: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/658 ... rature.zip

[mexmer]

not sure, how this quirk will affect builds in 0.15, but definetly there is something very wrong with fluid control, if you can drop temperature by almost 40C eg. dropping generator output by almost 40%

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=37453

not to mention, this quirk prohibits you from using robots and blueprints for building power plants, because robots place items as they arive, even if player can build stuff in proper order, robots will not.

[Klonan]

Was resolved with the new boilers