Maximum power per coastal tile
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 7:18 pm
The other day I was playing with water only at start so water was a very rare resource. So how much power can you generate with a limited coast line?
How about one 1:14:10 line per tile of coast? 340 Steam engines going full power from 34 tiles of coast.
At first I tried placing boilers next to each other or merging water from 2 pumps into one pipe. But any kind of sharing will give unbalanced results leaving some steam engines without water. So my design specifically keeps each 1:14:10 set completely separated from one another (water wise). That means I have even and odd lines of boilers that are offset so no 2 boilers touch. This also means I have empty space between the rows of boilers, ideal to place inserters moving coal from one boiler row to the other. The most compact form of supplying coal. First I tried 2 sets of 7 boilers per row. But then where do the inserters get their power? No space for the power poles. So I used sets of 5, 5 and 4 boilers per row. Now the sets can be spaced a bit apart allowing power poles to be placed and the power pole to reach all inserters. One can also walk between the boilers so crossing the line is no problem.
But putting boiler rows in every line means every line needs an offshore pump. But offshore pumps can only be placed 2 tiles apart. Some landfill later I've made it so I had a parallel strip of land to the (now also straight) coast line. Pump can then be interleaved giving one pump per vertical tile.
The boiler pattern repeats every 2 rows and can be extended upwards as far as inserters can move coal fast enough. How many rows I don't know. Haven't tested / calculated the maximum. 34 rows still works and if you reach the limit you have to add a gap with a coal belt.
The next problem was connecting the steam engines. Each engine has a hight of 3 tiles. But round pipes can tunnel under an engine. So for each set of 3 rows one gets an engine and 2 tunnel under it. Repeat 3 times with a different row getting the engine. This gives you a pattern of 3 engines for 3 rows, one engine each. Now repeat that larger pattern 10 times for the perfect 1:14:10 ratio. This requires a lot of round pipes, A LOT.
The pattern repeats 10 times in X direction because that's the limit of how much water an offshore pump gives. It can be repeated endlessly in Y direction.
I used substations to connect the engines in 2 of the 3 columns. That connects all the steam engines but the substations aren't connected. So in the 3rd column I use medium poles to connect the substations. This allows walking across the line. Imagine you had to walk around this beats.
Overall my pattern has 340 rows for a total of 340 steam engines resulting in 173MW power, enough for 549 radars plus all the inserters and electric miners with some left over to charge a accumulator. With 550 radars it fluctuates but drains the accumulator more often than it can recharge and overall slowly drains it.
Enjoy,
Mrvn
Note: If you use solar cells and steam engines with hot water storage to cover the night then I think optimum is a 1:14:33:3 ratio (33 engines, 3 tanks). Imagine how WIDE this would get with more than 3 time the engines attached.
How about one 1:14:10 line per tile of coast? 340 Steam engines going full power from 34 tiles of coast.
- factorio-steam-all.png (3.59 MiB) Viewed 8025 times
But putting boiler rows in every line means every line needs an offshore pump. But offshore pumps can only be placed 2 tiles apart. Some landfill later I've made it so I had a parallel strip of land to the (now also straight) coast line. Pump can then be interleaved giving one pump per vertical tile.
- factorio-steam-boiler.png (1.08 MiB) Viewed 8025 times
The next problem was connecting the steam engines. Each engine has a hight of 3 tiles. But round pipes can tunnel under an engine. So for each set of 3 rows one gets an engine and 2 tunnel under it. Repeat 3 times with a different row getting the engine. This gives you a pattern of 3 engines for 3 rows, one engine each. Now repeat that larger pattern 10 times for the perfect 1:14:10 ratio. This requires a lot of round pipes, A LOT.
- factorio-steam-engine.png (2.33 MiB) Viewed 8025 times
I used substations to connect the engines in 2 of the 3 columns. That connects all the steam engines but the substations aren't connected. So in the 3rd column I use medium poles to connect the substations. This allows walking across the line. Imagine you had to walk around this beats.
Overall my pattern has 340 rows for a total of 340 steam engines resulting in 173MW power, enough for 549 radars plus all the inserters and electric miners with some left over to charge a accumulator. With 550 radars it fluctuates but drains the accumulator more often than it can recharge and overall slowly drains it.
- factorio-steam-graph.png (546.19 KiB) Viewed 8025 times
Mrvn
Note: If you use solar cells and steam engines with hot water storage to cover the night then I think optimum is a 1:14:33:3 ratio (33 engines, 3 tanks). Imagine how WIDE this would get with more than 3 time the engines attached.
