Factorio Forums

Suppose I have a "normal" setup line of e.g. 14 boilers to 10 steam engines (all connected serially), for 5.1MW max capacity. If I only connect 2.5MW load, the engines will run at ~50% capacity, and use ~50% fuel, right?

Now what happens if I connect different steam engines in the same 'line' to different networks. For example, I use the first engine to power the inserters, and use the remaining 9 to power the base load. Does that lead to any loss of efficiency? In other words, does the 2nd engine function normally (e.g at 50-100%) if the first only runs at 5%? If not, would it help to branch the hot water to two 'lines' (of 1 engine and 9/10 engines, respectively)

Good question! Now someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the answer to your question would be, yes it would work fine. However, if you are going to do that, just to be safe I would use the last Steam Engine for the Inserters and the first 9 for the rest of the base.
To my knowledge the Steam Engines can each be providing a different amount of power without an issue. I'm not sure if it would cause problems having the first one only running at say 5%, but I'm guessing it would not be an issue, because it would still be passing the 100 degree water through to the next ones and 100% of the water would still pass through even if the first engine isn't working much.
Again though, if you want to play it really safe, I would suggest using the very last one for the Inserters. I hope this helps, and if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.

FTI: it does indeed seem to work fine. I build 10 steam engines on 14 boilers, the first connected to the inserters, the other 9 to a dummy load of radars. They were able to get 100%, and adding an eleventh even allowed for the full 5.1MW (presumably minus the trivial inserter load). This seems to be a nice easy way to ensure inserters/coal mines/fuel plants etc get power when e.g. the normal supply is drained by laser demand.

This is very clever. Love the idea