What is the throughput of a turbine?

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Impatient
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What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by Impatient »

I have an array of turbines (54, producing 314.3MW, consuming 3240 steam/s).



factorio.54turbines.jpg
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Now I want to make sure, that the steam throughput in the pipe network fits the consumption rate.

(In the picture there is an u-pipe connected to the tank at the top. It limits flow to 3000/s, but that is not the issue I am interested in.)

And I wonder what the turbine to turbine throughput rate is. In-/outputrates of buildings are not in the tooltips and for turbines also not in the wiki. The page about the https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines only says, a pump-boiler-boiler-pump setup has a tp of 6000/s. What does that mean? Building to building is limited to 6000/s?

Or in other words: If I pump fluid into a turbine at a rate of 12000/s and the turbine does not consume anything, at what rate does the turbine then pump into the next building?

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Re: What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by Khagan »

Impatient wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:20 pm
The page about the https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines only says, a pump-boiler-boiler-pump setup has a tp of 6000/s. What does that mean? Building to building is limited to 6000/s?
I've always worked on the basis that each boiler-to-boiler or turbine-to-turbine connection is equivalent for flow purposes to one unit of pipe. In the picture you show, you have more than enough pumping.

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Re: What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by eradicator »

Impatient wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:20 pm
The page about the https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines only says, a pump-boiler-boiler-pump setup has a tp of 6000/s.
When I click on that link it says 12k not 6k.
Khagan wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:18 am
Impatient wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:20 pm
The page about the https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines only says, a pump-boiler-boiler-pump setup has a tp of 6000/s. What does that mean? Building to building is limited to 6000/s?
I've always worked on the basis that each boiler-to-boiler or turbine-to-turbine connection is equivalent for flow purposes to one unit of pipe. In the picture you show, you have more than enough pumping.
The wiki table clearly shows that *two* boiler are supposedly the same as *one* pipes though. More importantly: Only pumps do "pump", everything else just equalizes in both directions. And equalization does not produce pressure. So my personal wild guess would be that turbines probably behave the same as boilers.
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Re: What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by Khagan »

eradicator wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:33 am
Khagan wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:18 am
I've always worked on the basis that each boiler-to-boiler or turbine-to-turbine connection is equivalent for flow purposes to one unit of pipe.
The wiki table clearly shows that *two* boiler are supposedly the same as *one* pipes though.
Yup. And two boilers means one boiler-to-boiler connection.

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Re: What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by SoShootMe »

Khagan wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:18 am
I've always worked on the basis that each boiler-to-boiler or turbine-to-turbine connection is equivalent for flow purposes to one unit of pipe.
True for one or two boilers, but eg three boilers gives 4.5k/s while two pipes gives 3k/s (as the Wiki says) in my testing, so one connection = one pipe is pessimistic.

For the sake of interest, I also tested tank -> pump -> fully loaded turbines, which seems to max out at just over 2.9k/s, 48 turbines or 280MW.

In reality, with nuclear power, it's always been the heat exchangers that have given me "trouble" with throughput rather than the turbines.
eradicator wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:33 am
So my personal wild guess would be that turbines probably behave the same as boilers.
Boilers, steam engines and steam turbines seem to behave the same as each other; perhaps as expected given they have the same capacity.

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Re: What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by disentius »

Did a quick test in /editor with editor extentions mod installed. You need the infinity accumulator set to "primary" to prevent the pumps using energy from the turbines.

Setup

Start: 2 pumps with infinity pipe in (infinity pipe produces fluids at max 6000/sec) -> tank -> 1 pump out
End: pump -> tank 2 pumps -> infinity pipe drain

- Control setup: Start -> End 12000 F/s
- 1 steam turbine -> 12000 F/s
- 2 steam turbines: -> 6000 F/s
- 3 steam turbines -> 4500/s
- 4 steam turbines -> 3818 F/s
- 5 steam turbines: -> 3428 F/s
- 6 steam turbines : -> 3176 F/s

Tested boilers, and steam engines too: same results.
2021-04-08 18_05_39-Factorio 1.1.30.png
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Re: What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by Impatient »

disentius wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:08 pm
How did you measure it?

Thanks to all of you, for some good pointers about how the interbuilding flow works.

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Re: What is the throughput of a turbine?

Post by disentius »

If you hover over a pump, you ll see the pumpspeed below the minimap (entity info panel)

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