Power density 0.15 vs earlier

[Peter34]

Check my calculations, please:

In 0.15, a setup of 1 Boiler and 2 Steam Engines will produce 1800 kW.
1 Boiler is 6 tiles, and 2 Steam Engines is 15 tiles per one, total 36 tiles.
1800 kW/36 tiles = 50 kW/tile.

For 0.14 and earlier:
A double line setup of 2x14 Boilers and 2x10 Steam Engines takes up 28 tiles + 300 tiles, total 328 tiles.
Each Steam Engine produces 510 kW, so that's 10200 kW total.
10200 kW/328 tiles = 31.1 kW/tile.

So while it may seem as if combustion-based power production is taking up more space in 0.15, it's actually the other way around. Per watt, it took up 60% more space before 0.15.

I'm ignoring stuff like Offshore Pumps, and the need to have spacings between Steam Engines for Power Poles, and of course the Belts to bring in the fuel. If those are included, the figure might be higher or lower than 60%, but I'm sure it'll only be by a few percent.

[Kelderek]

You use up more space providing fuel I think. The new boilers need more fuel and burn it at a penalized rate so you need more coal or solid fuel and that will take up more space elsewhere. Seems like a wash to me.

[Peter34]

You use up more space providing fuel I think. The new boilers need more fuel and burn it at a penalized rate so you need more coal or solid fuel and that will take up more space elsewhere. Seems like a wash to me.

Penalized rate?

[Frightning]

You use up more space providing fuel I think. The new boilers need more fuel and burn it at a penalized rate so you need more coal or solid fuel and that will take up more space elsewhere. Seems like a wash to me.

Penalized rate?

afaik, they have always had 50% efficiency (at least since 0.12 days when I started playing)

[Kelderek]

Oh, well one way or another they consume the fuel much faster now, so you'll have to setup more coal miners or solid fuel chem labs to keep these boilers happy. That was the point I was trying to make. The density of space used is just shifted from mostly just the boiler-engine setup to now include more space needed to produce fuel.

[Frightning]

Oh, well one way or another they consume the fuel much faster now, so you'll have to setup more coal miners or solid fuel chem labs to keep these boilers happy. That was the point I was trying to make. The density of space used is just shifted from mostly just the boiler-engine setup to now include more space needed to produce fuel.

But Electric mining drills are unchanged, hence the # of drills per MW of Steam power needing to be fed also hasn't changed.

[5thHorseman]

Oh, well one way or another they consume the fuel much faster now, so you'll have to setup more coal miners or solid fuel chem labs to keep these boilers happy. That was the point I was trying to make. The density of space used is just shifted from mostly just the boiler-engine setup to now include more space needed to produce fuel.

Sure, one boiler now uses more fuel than one boiler did before, but 0.5 boilers per 1 engine ratio is better than 1.4 boilers per 1 engine, by almost 1/3. The question is, do the new boilers consume 3 times the fuel of the old ones? Because if they consume about that much, it's about the same.

I'll admit I never really looked at it, before or after. All I can tell for sure is it's a whole lot easier and cleaner to set up steam power now than it was in 0.14.

[Lav]

Ratio of coal to power has not changed. Neither did ratio of coal mines to power.

Space footprint depends on layout. This is my numbers so far:

For 0.14, a pretty typical layout would be two lines of 14 boilers each, with a feeding belt between them, followed by two lines of 10 steam engines each. That's 5x14 + 50x7 = 420 tiles, if we ignore the piping, offshore pumps and electric poles. Total generation is 10.2 MW, that's approximately ~24.3 kW/tile. Note however that two lines of engines are 7 tiles wide, while boiler setup is 5 tiles wide. There will be two unused strips of 1x14 tiles on each side. Including them into calculations results in ~22.8 kW/tile.

For 0.15, a pretty typical layout would probably be two lines of 10 or 20 boilers each (feeding from one or two pumps respectively), with each boiler directly feeding two steam engines, and a feeding belt between boiler rows. Assuming 10 boilers per row, we get a total footprint of 27x30 = 810 tiles, once again ignoring any piping, offshore pumps and electric poles (note that you'll have to either space the design with pipes or use medium poles, otherwise some steam engines will be unreachable). Total output of 40 engines is 36 MW, that's ~44.4 kW/tile.

There are ways to squeeze either design, but I'm going to leave that to others as I'm too lazy don't consider insignificant space optimization to be worthy of my valuable time.