Factorio Forums

What about Heat Pipes ?
I guess that you plan to keep their temperature in the game ? (Since they don't interact with other fluids, and are, AFAIK, computationally simpler...)
I wonder if most of the interesting temperature-related modding ideas couldn't be done using them? (Probably not, just brainstorming...)

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:22 pm

What about Heat Pipes ?
I guess that you plan to keep their temperature in the game ? (Since they don't interact with other fluids, and are, AFAIK, computationally simpler...)
I wonder if most of the interesting temperature-related modding ideas couldn't be done using them? (Probably not, just brainstorming...)

I would really like heat pipes to have much more applications and become available much earlier. With some standalone heat generators.
May be chemical plants could use some temperature. Or some heat-based defenses.

MoleOnDope wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 23, 2019 12:27 pm

Generally speaking I would say mixing steam of different temperatures makes no sense at all (vast differences in many properties like pressure, saturation etc.). Also, I have no clue why someone would like to change the temperature of any other liquid in factorio...?

In Factorio, all fluids are basically liquids - there's no (gas) pressure, and volume = mass.

At atmospheric pressure, turning water into steam makes it occupy 1700 times more volume, or, kept at if same volume, would (roughly) increase pressure by a similar ratio (this is how steam engines work !) ; or something in between if both volume and pressure are changed.

Nor there is in Factorio any "real" phase change. Which, (see also another thread), implies vaporization energy :
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... phase.html

(Which Factorio doesn't have. But maybe should, at least for mods. AFAIK some of them already have something like that, for Assembler recipes, but can't have for Boilers?)

Also saturation would imply phase mixing between water and steam :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle

T–s diagram of a typical Rankine [~Boiler+Turbine] cycle operating between pressures of 0.06 bar and 50 bar
[1 bar ~ 1 atmospheric pressure at ground level on Earth].
Left from the bell-shaped curve is liquid, right from it is gas, and under it is saturated liquid–vapour equilibrium.
And there's no fluid mixing in Factorio.
There's even no fluidbox fluid sharing !
(Which would probably solve most of the fluid "mixing" issues, but might be prohibitively computationally expensive.)

But going back to your question, I've got a quick example for you :
One could change Coal Liquefaction to require (at least) (165+500)/2=332.5 °C Steam
(yes, I know, "muh balance!!", this is just an example...)
So you could not liquefy coal with just Burner Steam, while Nuke Steam would still work, but wastefully,
however, using both in combination would be much more efficient !

_italics_ wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:43 am

Could even get rid of nuclear steam entirely, replacing the current nuclear setups with something else, perhaps some expensive, huge self-contained buildings more like the ones in the real world?

Using this logic, wouldn't you also want to "replace the current [boiler + steam engine] setups with something else, perhaps some expensive, huge self-contained buildings more like the ones in the real world" ?:

http://butane.chem.uiuc.edu/pshapley/GenChem2/C7/2.html

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2019 1:14 pm

Nor there is in Factorio any "real" phase change.

Recently, when I've decided to check fuel consumption rates, it came as a big surprise for me that to vaporize 1kg of water takes ~3 times more energy then to melt 1kg of iron. (if my calculations were correct)

Whoa!
Both starting from room temperature though, or just for the heat of vaporization/melting ?

I can't really talk about the coding side of this problem.

All I can say is that I really liked having to build out multistage cooling plant for smelter coolant in Angels Smelting. And I do appreciate superheated steam. (Although I'd like it to be available from fossil fuel burners too. There is no reason why the steam couldn't be superheated in an extra set of specialised boilers) If it's possible to retain game systems like that, do whatever you want

PS:Also, I'm really sad over steam turbines not needing cooling.

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2019 1:14 pm

_italics_ wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:43 am

Could even get rid of nuclear steam entirely, replacing the current nuclear setups with something else, perhaps some expensive, huge self-contained buildings more like the ones in the real world?

Using this logic, wouldn't you also want to "replace the current [boiler + steam engine] setups with something else, perhaps some expensive, huge self-contained buildings more like the ones in the real world" ?:

Like I said in the previous reply, it's a bad idea. "After playing a bit more with nuclear I've realized that the heat pipe/steam/turbine part is not that uninteresting, it was my designs that were uninteresting."

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2019 2:12 pm

Whoa!
Both starting from room temperature though, or just for the heat of vaporization/melting ?

Both starting from room temperature and ignoring energy losses. Converting 100C water into 100C steam requires suddenly huge amount of energy. I can give exact numbers when I get home.

You can see them in my post above - for water/steam, not for melting iron though...

_italics_ wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2019 2:44 pm

Like I said in the previous reply, it's a bad idea. "After playing a bit more with nuclear I've realized that the heat pipe/steam/turbine part is not that uninteresting, it was my designs that were uninteresting."

My bad, it's harder to distinguish people without avatars...

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2019 1:14 pm

MoleOnDope wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 23, 2019 12:27 pm

Generally speaking I would say mixing steam of different temperatures makes no sense at all (vast differences in many properties like pressure, saturation etc.). Also, I have no clue why someone would like to change the temperature of any other liquid in factorio...?

In Factorio, all fluids are basically liquids - there's no (gas) pressure, and volume = mass.

But... I didn't say there was? I'm trying to convey that from a real world physics point of view there is no point in mixing two kinds of steam that differ greatly in their respective properties.

Maybe I need to oversimplify some more, because I'm afraid getting deeper into thermodynamics here isn't of much help :

• In real life steam Engines and different kinds of steam turbines each need their very own and precisely adjusted kind of steam.

• Therefore, I think it makes sense for Factorio to implement these as different fluids with no mixing capabilities or such.

• Since the fluid temperature mechanics aren't currently used anywhere else in the base game, removing them would make no difference to the player and seems reasonable to me.

• The calculation of the in-game steam's energy capacity is already an oversimplification (Which it should be, in a video game) and can simply be replaced by three discrete values. Those can then be used by the player to, say, calculate how many tanks he needs in order to buffer one full reactor cycle. In fact just like right now, except the separate calculation via heat difference and specific heat capacity per °C can be dropped, which is great.

• If those discrete values should differ from what they are now is really a question of fine tuning and game balancing. They probably should roughly correlate to real world physics as much as the rest of this game, but looking at how many oversimplifications stack on top of each other in this subject, there's really no way of calling out any final decision as severely unrealistic

• As a suggestion, I would like to see (nuclear) steam turbines run on 300°C steam since they also do in real life, see the links I attached earlier. To my understanding, this wouldn't need any further changes than simply renaming the fluid within the game. On the other hand, I'm no programmer and probably wrong on this one

Yeah, initially my post was just about the burner/nuke steam mixing example for coal liquefaction. Then it got a bit out of hand...

Also : Bob's suggestion about fluid categories is probably still the best one, getting the best balance between realism, programming, and gameplay !

Numbers from Wiki :

Water heating : 4.1806 kJ/(kg*K)
Steam heating : 2.0784 kJ/(kg*K)
Water vaporization : 2260 kJ/kg

Iron heating : 0.449 kJ/(kg*K)
Iron smelting : 277 kJ/kg
Iron smelting temperature : 1539 C

Copper heating : 0.385 kJ/(kg*K)
Copper smelting : 213 kJ/kg
Copper smelting temperature : 1356 C

Vaporize 1 kg Water 15C : 85 * 4.1806 + 2260 ~ 2615 kJ
Overheat Steam to 500C : 400 * 2.0784 ~ 831 kJ
Smelt 1 kg Iron 15C : 1524 * 0.449 + 277 ~ 961 kJ
Smelt 1 kg Copper 15C : 1341 * 0.385 + 213 ~ 624 kJ

As you can see, converting 100C water into 100C steam is the most energy-expensive operation.

+1 for removing fluid temperatures. It's wonky, can be approximated with cold water, low-temp steam, and high-temp steam, and will give performance boosts to those of us playing on crappy old laptops!

Yes, removing seems good.
Performance gain is very good!
Fluid simulation is something so complex, surely it can get a cpu hog very quickly.
And the temperature is not even really much used in vanilla is it?
Modders can still always make different fluids and just call them hot, molten or cold if the immersion is needed.

MewMew wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:55 pm

Yes, removing seems good.
Performance gain is very good!
Fluid simulation is something so complex, surely it can get a cpu hog very quickly.
And the temperature is not even really much used in vanilla is it?
Modders can still always make different fluids and just call them hot, molten or cold if the immersion is needed.

I vaugely remember, I think, Dytech, in which lava was used for smelting, and you had to heat it up, via a recipe that added like 200 degrees per recipe. Except it took specific temperature values, so it might as well have been different fluids, unless you mixed them.

I think there was a nuclear mod that did the same thing, except it was for purity of the material. Although I am not 100% certain it was a liquid.

Honestly, anything short of allowing heat decay, or now, fluid mixing, would need temperature. And heat decay would be expensive and annoy all the people abusing steam storage.

I can't think of any application that needs fluid temperature.

Even a mod like my old Reactors didn't need fluid temperature - if I made it again today I would be outputting steam instead of heated water, and I could just as easily adjust the amount of high-temperature steam produced as its temperature.

I just gave one above ?!

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:52 pm

I just gave one above ?!

and although true, I have to agree with gotlag, if fluid temperature was removed, I'd simply just replace it with 5 different versions of steam, each with a different fuel value to reflect their temperature.
of course, that would require the implementation of the fluid category system I brought up as a solution to the current fluid_value vs temperature system merger, that prevents you from "burning" steam in your "oil" powered boiler.

Personally, I like the idea of mixing fluids.
I was running a setup that had 165° steam from solar boilers with a nuclear backup that would feed in 500° steam when the storage dropped too much, and feed in excess from the coolant cooling towers constantly.

But I also had a system that would pump different oils into one tank on demand, and that's been totally vetoed with the latest versions.