Boiler output info

[durzolr]

There is a mismatch of information between the boiler and Steam engine. The Steam engine lists its fluid consumption (30/s) maximum temp (165.00C) and maximum power output (900kW) which seems like all the info I need. HOWEVER, the BOILER simply shows energy consumption as 1.8MW, and nothing else. is that how much fuel it needs to run? is that per minute? per second? the info panel doesn't tell you. how much steam does it output to match up with your boilers? it doesn't tell you. what's the temperature of the steam output? one assumes 165C (it is) but again, that's not listed. This issue becomes a lot more noticeable when you start messing with mods such as Bob's Power, that adds multiple levels of boiler/steam engine/steam turbine.

p.s. please dont reply with saying bob needs to fix his mod, or suggesting I should know this stuff if I'm playing a modded game. this bothered me long before I ever started modding.

[Ranakastrasz]

Well, there is a little bit of information, and you can calculate it, but yes, this is a problem and I would prefer clear information. Just being able to glance and know instead of mathing is always preferable.

1.8MW is 1.8 Megawatts, and a Watt is a Joule every second. So it requires 1.8 Megajoules per second. Fuel items have Megajoule fuel values, so that information is there. You can know how fast a Boiler eats fuel items as a result. There is no longer an efficiency modifier (Although I think mods can still have one) so multiply the fuel value of the item by the efficiency and you get the effective fuel value. Coal has 4 MJ, so lasts about 2.22 seconds at full steam (Ha) and thus you can determine how long X coal lasts in a saturated power system.

As for the rest, Lets see

A boiler consumes 1.8 Megawatts with 100% efficiency. So it produces 1.8 Megawatts worth of steam.
A steam engine consumes 900 Kilowatts of steam to produce 900 Kilowatts of electricity.
A steam engine consumes 30 Steam/second.

A steam engine's power production compared to steam consumption gives you a ratio to use.
30/s steam = 900KW. Or 30 steam = 900KJ. Or 1 steam = 30kJ. So steam at 165 degrees has a power of 30kj per unit.

The boiler consumes water to produce steam. It consumes 1.8MW of power to produce steam (from water) and water to steam is a 1:1 ratio(For some reason)
Divide 1.8MW by 30kj, to get steam produced every second.
1800 KW / 30KJ
1800 KJ/s / 30KJ
60/s

So 60 steam every second is produced.
Since steam engine eats 30 each, its a 2:1 ratio.

This also checks out since
0.9 Megawatts * 2 = 1.8Megawatts.

So, given a few extra notes, like efficiency not existing anymore and 100% conservation, and a few other factors you have to just KNOW, you can calculate the correct values.

But again, I agree, it should have all this information anyway. Power consumed, liquid consumed, liquid produced.

[durzolr]

yes, I suppose if I wanted to pull out a calculator and do all the math you just did, but that's not my idea of fun. It should be as painless as possible, and that is what they're trying to do; see them finally fixing belt pixel size to round belt throughput capacity down to a whole number, and an easily factored one at that.

[Ranakastrasz]

yes, I suppose if I wanted to pull out a calculator and do all the math you just did, but that's not my idea of fun. It should be as painless as possible, and that is what they're trying to do; see them finally fixing belt pixel size to round belt throughput capacity down to a whole number, and an easily factored one at that.

Oh absolutely I agree. Also I did that in my head + scratch paper. Which is something I find fun, and find fun in this game in general, but I absolutely use tools when available to simplify calculations.

[Koub]

[Koub] Moved to Ideas and Suggestions.

[weaknespase]

Alien water of Factorio is also bothering me from the beginning. Water vapor with specific heat at 0.214 KJ/(kg*K) is something out of this universe. (It should be more among the 1.93 KJ/(kg*K)). Otherwise, if 1 liter of steam doesn't weight 1 kg, where boiler loses other 27 liters of water it uses?

[ssilk]

I think one unit of water is more or less about 10 liters, not one. The rest is freedom of balancing.

[BlueTemplar]

You'll like this thread :
viewtopic.php?p=408205#p408205

[weaknespase]

I think i should make a mod which turns all liquids into different kinds of incompressible magic smoke

[Ranakastrasz]

I think i should make a mod which turns all liquids into different kinds of incompressible magic smoke

That's a horrible idea. What do we do if the magic smoke escapes from all our machines?

[weaknespase]

Just pump more from underground and feed the tech with pipe network and build the most glorious magic smoke pipe network spaghetti megabase, of course!

[BlueTemplar]

Heh, and use "smoke filters" to capture it from the air for logistics?

[Ranakastrasz]

This thread is totally disrailed, but eh.

There is apperently API for making machines run on liquid fuel. We could totally make a mod that has you manufacture "Magic Smoke" and fed it to your machines for them to function.