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I've been cross connecting boilers so all boilers feed to all steam engines.

Doing this with the thought that this would improve water and heat flow distribution. (also include occasional extra water pump to bump pressure)
Now I'm not so sure, any thoughts on this method?

Hope you can see from the image I've provided

http://i.imgur.com/aRgFUP8.jpg

Steam engines work best when water is at MAX temperature. Anything else reduces their efficiency.

So by mixing water, you can make things worse, but never better.

In your specific example, here is how things can get worse:
14 boilers only boil 64 water/s, so your upper steam engines will run on 80-degree water.

I am not sure the answer is that simple, as the water from the middle could push up/down.
I guess it depends on how the water flows are actually implemented. I do not have a definite answer though.

@Donbo: in your setup, you could measure the efficiency create disconnected groups of steam engines and let them charge up a few accumulators and see how long this takes. Thereby you'll be able to tell how efficient they are.

Whenever I've tried to chain together lots of steam engines and boilers, the flows were never even.

The only solution I found was to use a small pump after or before each set of boilers, and each set of boilers should be just enough to get the water to 100C. I don't remember how many you need. 7 or something...

The small pump limits how fast the water flows, ensuring that it always hit 100C. So I could have say 4 sets of boilers feeding into one big set of tanks, and a pile of steam engines on the other side. My tanks fill with 100c water in the day when the sun shines, and empty out at night when the steam engines run.