Free Energy [No modules]

Some mods, made by Bob. Basically streaks every Factroio-area.

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Pockets
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Free Energy [No modules]

Post by Pockets »

Playing around I discovered that you can have free energy with Bob's Mods

This is my setup:
Setup Image
Blueprint String
The setup is built using early game components (lowest tier of everything except for Electrolysers which were very slow)
It uses < 11 MW of power when everything is powered (roughly measured from a power pole on the isolated system)
It produces 4 Enriched Fuel blocks every 9.6 seconds (ideally). This means 400MJ of energy every 9.6 seconds or 41 MW of power.
If you burn this on MK2 Boilers (easy to get early game) you lose 40% of power, so you get 41MW x 0.6 = 24.6 MW.
There are no deadlocks (if that is how it is called) but there is a bit of overproduction, especially on Oxygen. All the overproduction is controlled with the Logic Circuit.

It could of course be improved with modules to consume even less.

That's all.
Probably this was already known but... it was funny for me.
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bobingabout
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by bobingabout »

I could multiply the Hydrazine cost of a fuel block. The maths isn't too bad, approximately 4x the energy potential out as what you put in.

Lets put it this way, from a game perspective, if you didn't get more out than what you put in, what would be the point in making the fuel?

The issue really boils down to the fact that it costs no resources. Water and Air are infinite and free. This is one reason why I changed the hydrogen to fuel block recipe to include coal, it adds a non-infinite external resource to the chain, and although the maths still boil down to "more out than you put in", the complaints about that instantly disappeared. (well, there have been a few since then, but there was a huge debate going on the subject before this change.)

If you have a suggested change (Other than changing it so you don't get more out than you put in, making the process pointless), I'm open to ideas.
Creator of Bob's mods. Expanding your gameplay since version 0.9.8.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by Pockets »

Hey Bob

In no way I was criticising the mod. I really liked the fact that you can use that exploit-ish feature.
In fact, I like almost every aspect of the mods (except for the repeated graphics in MK1, MK2, etc... items, that makes it a bit confusing)
I really liked that you can use hydrogen and coal for fuel as it encouraged me to use spare hydrogen instead of venting it and you get a bit more out of coal.

Ill comment on part of your answer
Lets put it this way, from a game perspective, if you didn't get more out than what you put in, what would be the point in making the fuel?
Maybe a complicated way to have "electricity powered" trains?
The issue really boils down to the fact that it costs no resources.
Exactly.

You could make the Enriched Fuel Block to cost 200 Hydrazine and a symbolic price of 10-20 Light Oil or 10-20 Petroleum Gas (if any of that makes sense chemically). Since the end recipe is a white block instead of a molecule it could make sense, or at least not a lot of people will bother questioning it.
Yes, both Petroleum Gas and Light Oil are infinite as well, but those are not the same magnitude of infinite.

Bottom line: I don't have any complaints with the recipe as is right now, but if you like the idea, apply it.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by BlackMoon »

Id like to see some aluminum or titanium or plastic used as a container, just as a symbolic resource use.

Id love to see hydrogen become super costly to get from electrolysis and add a petroleum gas->hydrogen reformer.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by bobingabout »

you can already get hydrogen from petroleum gas.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by BlackMoon »

Oh ok, Maybe i'll just look into modding the cost of electrolysis way up then.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by bobingabout »

BlackMoon wrote:Oh ok, Maybe i'll just look into modding the cost of electrolysis way up then.
I do keep making electrolysis more and more expensive in every major version.

if you actually look back a couple minor versions of bobplates, pure water (which is an option for electrolysis recipes instead of normal water) was created by condensing steam, making it VERY expensive (to the point where creating a fuel block from hydrogen and coal would contain less energy than the coal and the cost of producing hydrogen)

Although that's not making electrolysis more expensive in itself, it could be a viable option to make electrolysis more expensive indirectly.

Would you want me to make it an option to change the ingredient of the pure water recipe from Water to Steam?
BlackMoon wrote:Id like to see some aluminum or titanium or plastic used as a container, just as a symbolic resource use.
I think my T2 logistics chests take titanium. I suppose I could add more tiers of normal chest too.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by Aeternus »

bobingabout wrote:I could multiply the Hydrazine cost of a fuel block. The maths isn't too bad, approximately 4x the energy potential out as what you put in.

Lets put it this way, from a game perspective, if you didn't get more out than what you put in, what would be the point in making the fuel?

The issue really boils down to the fact that it costs no resources. Water and Air are infinite and free. This is one reason why I changed the hydrogen to fuel block recipe to include coal, it adds a non-infinite external resource to the chain, and although the maths still boil down to "more out than you put in", the complaints about that instantly disappeared. (well, there have been a few since then, but there was a huge debate going on the subject before this change.)

If you have a suggested change (Other than changing it so you don't get more out than you put in, making the process pointless), I'm open to ideas.
Reduce the cost instead, and require the input of standard fuelblocks as part of the final recipe for the recipy that isn't dependent on light oil. They're called "Enriched fuel" blocks, so just require some basic fuel blocks to enrich. Basically the same trick you did with the hydrogen-to-fuel conversion, in requiring coal for it. It allows for repeated fuel enrichment, all the way up from coal, before shoving stuff into your boilers.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by loganb »

bobingabout wrote:
BlackMoon wrote:Would you want me to make it an option to change the ingredient of the pure water recipe from Water to Steam?
I haven't played enough or done enough math to really know for sure, but in general I like the idea of steam as an input because it significantly changes the energy balance once nuclear power becomes available and nuclear steam becomes more available.

Here's a straw-man suggestion:
- Require "high temperature" steam of 800C+ in order to formulate hydrogen
- High temp steam comes from a "High Temperature Boiler" or "High Temperature Exchanger" - the HT Boiler burns stuff, but is much less efficient than a normal boiler, the HT Exchanger doesn't produce output unless the input temp is > 800C

Rationale:
- Early game, you can tune the HT Boiler so that the cycle isn't over unity
- Late game, you can use a reactor to provide the heat, and get copious fuel energy, BUT you have to design a reactor specifically to get hot enough to run the cycle. You can't just tap some "free" steam of a power-producing nuclear plant (which will typically be too cold to produce HT Steam)
- Basically, it's implementing a thermochemical cycle for fuel production (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_ ... ical_cycle)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_ ... ical_cycle
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by Light »

bobingabout wrote:I think my T2 logistics chests take titanium. I suppose I could add more tiers of normal chest too.
ShinyBob had titanium and tungsten chests which were quite useful. Unfortunately since that mod hasn't been updated in so long, I'm starting to really miss those higher capacity chests.

Having those natively provided would be nice.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by bobingabout »

loganb wrote:
bobingabout wrote:
BlackMoon wrote:Would you want me to make it an option to change the ingredient of the pure water recipe from Water to Steam?
I haven't played enough or done enough math to really know for sure, but in general I like the idea of steam as an input because it significantly changes the energy balance once nuclear power becomes available and nuclear steam becomes more available.

Here's a straw-man suggestion:
- Require "high temperature" steam of 800C+ in order to formulate hydrogen
- High temp steam comes from a "High Temperature Boiler" or "High Temperature Exchanger" - the HT Boiler burns stuff, but is much less efficient than a normal boiler, the HT Exchanger doesn't produce output unless the input temp is > 800C

Rationale:
- Early game, you can tune the HT Boiler so that the cycle isn't over unity
- Late game, you can use a reactor to provide the heat, and get copious fuel energy, BUT you have to design a reactor specifically to get hot enough to run the cycle. You can't just tap some "free" steam of a power-producing nuclear plant (which will typically be too cold to produce HT Steam)
- Basically, it's implementing a thermochemical cycle for fuel production (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_ ... ical_cycle)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_ ... ical_cycle
Requiring very hot steam to make hydrogen isn't a good idea IMO. For starters... why? For the current system we're doing electrolysis, it requires pure water, which can be made from 100C steam. Secondly, that would become insanely expensive. 3rd, although you can specify a minimum temperature requirement for a fluid, the game doesn't tell you, nor limit this, so if you did feed it with 500C steam, you'll be stuck with 500C steam in the structure that you can't get back out. Steam or no steam should be all you need in a recipe.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by Aeternus »

Incidentally, a similar "free energy" setup at a much slower pace is possible with the greenhouses. Basically a row of 16 or so greenhouses feeding 3 boilers, with a chest as wood buffer, and a filter inserter that kicks the saplings back onto the belt feeding the greenhouses. An additional advantage with those is that they can act early on as a big accumulator, storing energy in a crate of wood and burning that when you need additional power. Takes a while for the wood chests to fill however... the solid fuel or enriched fuel from oil is far more efficient once you've got access to that. But greenhouses don't cost a whole lot, and take only water... so why not?

[Edit2] Oh, and electrolysis works best when the water isn't 100% pure. Adding a little salt to increase conductivity of the water as a catalyst greatly improves the process. This catalys does not get consumed.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by British_Petroleum »

Aeternus wrote: [Edit2] Oh, and electrolysis works best when the water isn't 100% pure. Adding a little salt to increase conductivity of the water as a catalyst greatly improves the process. This catalys does not get consumed.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by BlackMoon »

bobingabout wrote:
BlackMoon wrote:Oh ok, Maybe i'll just look into modding the cost of electrolysis way up then.
I do keep making electrolysis more and more expensive in every major version.

if you actually look back a couple minor versions of bobplates, pure water (which is an option for electrolysis recipes instead of normal water) was created by condensing steam, making it VERY expensive (to the point where creating a fuel block from hydrogen and coal would contain less energy than the coal and the cost of producing hydrogen)

Although that's not making electrolysis more expensive in itself, it could be a viable option to make electrolysis more expensive indirectly.

Would you want me to make it an option to change the ingredient of the pure water recipe from Water to Steam?
BlackMoon wrote:Id like to see some aluminum or titanium or plastic used as a container, just as a symbolic resource use.
I think my T2 logistics chests take titanium. I suppose I could add more tiers of normal chest too.
That could work, using steam to increase the energy cost. Or just an option for 'really expensive (slow or energy wise)' electrolysis, but I am totally for adding a reason to add a steam tap to my nuclear powerplant.

I meant using aluminum/titanium as a container for your hydrazine fuel blocks (Change to hydrazine fuel cans? I am totally OK with not getting the can back after its burnt), just so you can't get unlimited energy without using some limited resources (Could use more aluminum sinks to balance out all that sodium hydroxide produced, bauxite seems very plentiful)
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by BlackMoon »

I wouldn't mess around with high temp steam. just regular steam is OK I think, because you can get it at 100cish from a regular boiler, or 500c from a nuclear powerplant at a higher 'energy cost' but technically still lower resource cost since nuclear energy is so 'cheap'

Compact free energy is rather tempting otherwise. Greenhouses seem bulky enough that it makes sense (Plus, its technically just a form of solar power) to get free energy from them.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by loganb »

Requiring very hot steam to make hydrogen isn't a good idea IMO. For starters... why?
I'll toss out two reasons/mechanics I think it's worth considering before deferring to your better judgement on playability and balance:

- Early game, the goal is to make it impossible to setup a free energy machine by raising the input cost
- Late game, the goal is to leave the energy machine viable, but force the player to add depth to the nuclear reactor by requiring a purpose-built design

To expand on the second point, one disappointing aspect of nuclear is that with KEP, U-235 is infinite and free, so there's no incentive to build interesting nuclear plants. I have a blueprint for a 2x2 reactor that I can just stamp out forever. Sure, I could build a 2x4, but the extra efficiency doesn't matter because fuel is infinite and free.

Maybe high-temp steam isn't the right way to achieve the goal, but the suggestion was my attempt to make it so the player has to come up with a different nuclear design for a different use case. Right now, any time I need steam, I can just tap an infinite supply off my cookie-cutter reactor, and that's not fun.
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Re: Free Energy [No modules]

Post by Eketek »

If you want to control energy production so that energy can only be extracted from specific power sources, you might consider taking reduction and oxidation into account when defining chemicals, reactions, and the fuel values of output products. And make sure any productivity and/or efficiency bonuses are either disabled or limited so as to only reduce inefficiencies (or adding fixed power costs if it can be defined directly as part of a recipe or hacked in by requiring the use of charged capacitors [which may plausibly have the added benefit of preventing machines with high speed bonuses from inadvertently causing brownouts]).
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