Factorio Forums

you should make electric boilers so late in the game you don't need coal

piggy2 wrote:you should make electric boilers so late in the game you don't need coal

You burn the coal to make boiled water to generate electricity in the steam engines.
If you have electricity why do you need to spent it into the boilers to generate LESS energy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

Congratulations, you have just solved the energy crisis.

Be right back, phoning Nobel prize committee.

For modding purposes though, adding a heater that works on electricity may be interesting for recipes that would require heated fluids.
I tried modding it myself very quickly, but the game won't have it, boilers requiring to be burners is hardcoded.

Gammro wrote:For modding purposes though, adding a heater that works on electricity may be interesting for recipes that would require heated fluids.

You can still heat up fluids with coal powered boiler.

Panis wrote:

Gammro wrote:For modding purposes though, adding a heater that works on electricity may be interesting for recipes that would require heated fluids.

You can still heat up fluids with coal powered boiler.

I know that, but having the boiler type not be as rigid in power source would be nice for modding purposes.

After that we can work on solar powered flashlights.

Phy wrote:After that we can work on solar powered flashlights.

They already exist actually. They simply require more light than they produce when turned on. They store said light as energy for use later.

I concur with more flexible boilers though. Hot water might be useful for other purposes than just power. Also you are ignoring such things as solar water heaters (quite large, but still effective at boiling water) and liquid fueled boilers.

I think it is a pretty good idea.

It's like a perpetual cycle but it can be a make-or-break situation.
Electrical boilers can require a little amount of energy.
But if you do it too early and don't have devices to store electricity and your system broke, then to launch the system again, you need to put a coal boiler again !

This can be really interesting to play with !

To make this work without wasting massive amounts of electricity you'll have to beat the laws of thermodynamics first.

I am chaotic evil. I don't care about some laws:P

Laws are made to be bent

We should also have magnet generators that attract themselves into spinning, generating large amounts of electricity for free.

piggy2 wrote:you should make electric boilers so late in the game you don't need coal

You could just swap coal out for solid fuel, that's a lateish game thing.

If you're complaining about thermodynamics, you should start with complaining about the fact that steam engines don't run on water of 100°C, but on pressurised steam.

That said, as long as there are no other uses for steam/hot water, there is not much point in using electric boilers.
Using coal to heat water, to produce electricity to heat water is pointless.
Using solar power to produce electricity to heat water is currently pointless, since capacitors are more efficient.

Solar boilers, to pre-heat water could be useful for reducing the coal consumption.

Making things more flexible for modding is always good. If a mod comes up with more uses for hot water, then an electric boiler should also be possible.

DrNoid wrote:If you're complaining about thermodynamics, you should start with complaining about the fact that steam engines don't run on water of 100°C, but on pressurised steam.

That said, as long as there are no other uses for steam/hot water, there is not much point in using electric boilers.
Using coal to heat water, to produce electricity to heat water is pointless.
Using solar power to produce electricity to heat water is currently pointless, since capacitors are more efficient.

Solar boilers, to pre-heat water could be useful for reducing the coal consumption.

Making things more flexible for modding is always good. If a mod comes up with more uses for hot water, then an electric boiler should also be possible.

You just made every point I wanted to make

Electric boilers are useless ATM because we have no liquids needed to be heated instead of water, and heat water is used only to produce electricity.

Neatly same thread as https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=3396