Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Furnaces that are powered using heat pipes instead of electricity.

Why ?

There is a concept in science fiction of using the heat output by a nuclear fision/fusion plant as a direct energy source for furnaces, instead of using a fuel. This would provide a high-capacity, high-speed furnace at the very end of the game that further integrates nuclear reactors and their associated systems into the factory.
This may have the added benefit of further incentivising players to try their hand at and master the complexities of nuclear reactors.

Though being an interesting idea in principle. Heat piping as all fluid dynamics is UPS intensive. Eliminating wide spread use in the late game.
Also mods (e.g. from darkfrei)

conn11 wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:59 pm

Heat piping as all fluid dynamics is UPS intensive.

That's most unfortunate, not only for my sugestion becoming a reality, but also for nuclear reactors in general, as it adds a significant disincentive to their use. As a player who has played on and off since pre-Steam days, but only recently launched my first rockets in 0.17, I was unaware oif this issue.

As it currently stands, there is no real incentive to use nuclear reactors outside of truly massive setups, as most anything smaller can be run on coal perfectly well. Personally I feel that this is due to a lack of integration between nuclear reactors and the rest of the game's systems. I was hoping to provide such an integration with this suggestion.

EDIT:
On a fluid simulation side-note: Does this mean that the most UPS-efficient means of handling fluids is to directly connect every fluid source to an assembly machine that barrels the fluid, and then to un-barrel that fluid at each fluid-consumer? This would insure that no pipe would ever be more than a single pipe segment.
If the answer to that is yes, then it sounds like a thermal battery (Wikipedia article on Thermal Batteries) would present a posible solution to the UPS issue.
While it would be a stretch, as game-mechanics would render such an item an indefinate and perfect storage solution, it would match the ability to convert all other fluids between fluids and items... Just a thought...

T''heck with UPS, give me neat synergies like this one!