Factorio Forums

netmand wrote:When I loaded my 0.15.9 map into 0.15.10 after a while I noticed my steam delivery train had water in it's tanks... easy fix, but just thought I'd post it as an FYI. (500°C) Steam powered outposts are still good for me.

• Increased maximum wire distance of all circuit connectable entities from 7.5 to 9.

Optera wrote:I don't like steam being it's own "fluid".
Having even rudimentary evaporation and condensation would have been fun to play with.

bobingabout wrote:

Optera wrote:I don't like steam being it's own "fluid".
Having even rudimentary evaporation and condensation would have been fun to play with.

I know why it was done though.

Basically... say you want a recipe that needs steam. You can define an ingredient as {type="fluid", name="water", amount="10", min_temperature = "100"}, and the game would report that the recipe requires "Water" giving no required temperature information, and when you actually try and give it water, it won't work.

If steam is it's own fluid, you can just ask for steam, and the game will report that you need steam.

Ultimately, changing hot water into steam was an easier solution than trying to make the game report and properly handle a minimum temperature, and change the display of what fluid was required in a bi-state fluid.

bobingabout wrote: Ultimately, changing hot water into steam was an easier solution than trying to make the game report and properly handle a minimum temperature, and change the display of what fluid was required in a bi-state fluid.

Optera wrote:

bobingabout wrote:

Optera wrote:I don't like steam being it's own "fluid".
Having even rudimentary evaporation and condensation would have been fun to play with.

I know why it was done though.

Basically... say you want a recipe that needs steam. You can define an ingredient as {type="fluid", name="water", amount="10", min_temperature = "100"}, and the game would report that the recipe requires "Water" giving no required temperature information, and when you actually try and give it water, it won't work.

If steam is it's own fluid, you can just ask for steam, and the game will report that you need steam.

Ultimately, changing hot water into steam was an easier solution than trying to make the game report and properly handle a minimum temperature, and change the display of what fluid was required in a bi-state fluid.

Sure it's simpler but having a fun mechanic like that would open so many possibilities. Just think of water purification or desalinators.
Steam stored in tanks could also more easily be made to cool down without a medium transformation so we don't have 100% efficient energy storage.
I have placed way too much ONI recently.

SpeedDaemon wrote:

Adeon Hawkwood wrote:

Avezo wrote:For example, that steam for coal liquification seems weird, just put a boiler next to a line full of coal that's already there and plug in, doesn't seem to add much to the game. Theoretically setting up combined power plant and refinery might be cool, but I'm personally not going to try that before smarter people crack up all the new ratios.

I'm thinking that the change might have been done to increase the energy costs of the process more than anything else. Right now if you run the recipe and convert everything to solid fuel you actually end up with more stored energy than you started with (10 coal = 80MJ, 10 coal = 10 H. Oil + 15 L. Oil + 20 Petroleum = 3.25 Solid Fuel = 81.25MJ, assuming H. Oil is cracked to L. Oil). Now obviously you use more than 1.25MJ actually running the process but it's still a very favorable rate of return, particularly if your regular processing has excess light oil and you use petroleum from this rather than converting that light oil to petroleum (10 coal + 30 L. Oil = 80MJ + 20 Petroleum, 10 coal + 30 L. Oil = 10 H. Oil + 45 L. Oil + 20 Petroleum = 5.25 Solid Fuel + 20 Petroleum = 131.25MJ + 20 Petroleum). Changing the process to require steam indirectly increases the energy cost of the process.

RL processes for coal liquefaction do actually start with coal+heavy oil, and then take place at high temp (400-500C) and pressure, so steam makes perfect sense. In fact, it seems like they should be requiring higher temp steam than we actually get from a boiler.

Anyone running nuclear power is probably going to have an excess of 500C steam anyway, so coal liquefaction with steam seems like a natural compliment to that.

Avezo wrote:But don't all processes in refineries take place at high temperatures? All other oil-related recipes in Factorio should require steam instead of water as well then.

bobingabout wrote:Plus, the temperature based stuff, probably still exists, it's just not used by the base game. (I mean, we still have loader tech even though it's not used, why would they remove the functionality for bi-state fluids if it doesn't break anything to leave it in?)

warrior62 wrote:I'm still in version 14.23 on Steam Why ?

Thanks