Factorio Forums

From http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steinkohleeinheit
1 kg SKE = 7.000 kcal = 29,3076 MJ = 8,141 kWh = 0,7 kg Oil unit

I try to translate: 1 kg of coal is about 30 mega joules or about 8 kilo watt hours. 8 kilowatt hours are 28800000 wattsecond or joules or 28.8 megawatt seconds. so burned down in 10 seconds (producing steam) is 2.88 megawatt! Believable, if you imagine to burn one kilo of care coal in 10 seconds. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sab2Ltm1Wc ... ab2Ltm1WcM

So what I suggest is to multiply all energy based stuff with factor 1000 to make it more real. Or maybe much easier just replace the display of it (kW -> MW, w -> kW etc.).

Yes, these values are not related to real life values, so the multiplication by 1000 or so will be necessary to make it more realistic

http://xkcd.com/1162/

Edit: he uses 24 mega joules instead of 29 for good ol German coal.

Edit 2: when at some point uranium is maybe introduced it should be enriched (in reality only one part of a million is useable) and the remainings are very dangerous.

I think we need to be careful on the realism. Taking Minecraft as an example. With the power mods set up the majority of people I have played with stop before creating reactors simply due to it being such a pita to manage safely without destroying your world. I'd rather see something unrealistic but fun than something I just end up not using because the down sides outway any possible benefits. I'm not saying this would definitely be the case, but it is something to consider.

ssilk definetly made a point..
im electrician and im always thinking: hmm 90w for a drill..thats not even a hand-sized electric motor.
the stuff i work with is 5kW+++++..and these engines are much smaller than a beer barrel (but still produce a HELL of a lot tourque!..try to stop a 1kw engine with your hands...yeah good luck there)

Balinor wrote:I think we need to be careful on the realism. Taking Minecraft as an example. With the power mods set up the majority of people I have played with stop before creating reactors simply due to it being such a pita to manage safely without destroying your world. I'd rather see something unrealistic but fun than something I just end up not using because the down sides outway any possible benefits. I'm not saying this would definitely be the case, but it is something to consider.

i hope i understand what you meant..
the point is that in factorio it would just be a cosmetic adjustment since it wouldn make any difference if a steam engine produces 510W or 510GW.
it wouldnt have any consequence to the gameplay itself because there is no such thing as "electric pole may only take 1MJ or it will explode thingi" (not yet :p )

Yeah I'm not arguing against changing the text, I'm just pointing out that sometimes realism for the sake of realism can hurt a game. In this case it obviously doesn't apply, just always something to consider when making changes.

Balinor wrote:Yeah I'm not arguing against changing the text, I'm just pointing out that sometimes realism for the sake of realism can hurt a game. In this case it obviously doesn't apply, just always something to consider when making changes.

We are aware that the realism must be less important than gameplay.
I doubt that in reality someone would take iron plates and copper plates and build automated robotic arm in few seconds out of it

kovarex wrote:We are aware that the realism must be less important than gameplay.
I doubt that in reality someone would take iron plates and copper plates and build automated robotic arm in few seconds out of it

I was planning to do exactly that ... do you think it will not work?

"Factorio - World Domination"

Sounds good

this game about sci-fi and some magic, just can't understand how possible to care about coal output?

Because it tries to behave a little bit like reality?

I was going to suggest the same idea, seems like I'm not the first one to think about it It's no big deal really, but I can't help but be tickled by the low power display in the game (I guess it would be like a roleplaying game where the weight of a iron sword would be a few grams, as much as a toothpick...); simply putting kW instead of W and MW instead of kW would help a lot for the immersion - at least for people with some background in electrical engineering...

That said, keep the good work - if there are people picky enough to suggest such a minor change, it means that there are so many things right elsewhere

Using real world terms is a way of likening something to the real world. It doesn't have to translate beyond that. It doesn't have to be accurate. IE using joules and watts rather than using factons and factorions for your units of power. I mean they can make up whatever they like, but humans know that joules and watts equal energy. Thus it makes sense to use those for power. Doesn't have to be realistic at all. Just has to make 'sense'. The only people with whom it won't make sense are people who are experts in the field and question it. So to those people. Stop questioning it! Bow to your Factory based overlord master that is the Player Character! For if you do not. He will build a laser tower next to your bed and burn you! BURN!!!!

Ouch! That will leave a mark!

TGS wrote:Using real world terms is a way of likening something to the real world. It doesn't have to translate beyond that. It doesn't have to be accurate. IE using joules and watts rather than using factons and factorions for your units of power. I mean they can make up whatever they like, but humans know that joules and watts equal energy. Thus it makes sense to use those for power. Doesn't have to be realistic at all. Just has to make 'sense'. The only people with whom it won't make sense are people who are experts in the field and question it. So to those people. Stop questioning it! Bow to your Factory based overlord master that is the Player Character! For if you do not. He will build a laser tower next to your bed and burn you! BURN!!!!

I knew this and im not an expert of that field.
Just because education and life.
And since the only thing that needs to be changed in this is a simple number... Why not to make it more realistic?

I can't help, but when I read eg 510W from steam engine, than deep in my brain I always link that to something that has only enough power for my mixer in the kitchen or an electric bicycle ^^ It's just too much difference

ficolas wrote:

TGS wrote:Using real world terms is a way of likening something to the real world. It doesn't have to translate beyond that. It doesn't have to be accurate. IE using joules and watts rather than using factons and factorions for your units of power. I mean they can make up whatever they like, but humans know that joules and watts equal energy. Thus it makes sense to use those for power. Doesn't have to be realistic at all. Just has to make 'sense'. The only people with whom it won't make sense are people who are experts in the field and question it. So to those people. Stop questioning it! Bow to your Factory based overlord master that is the Player Character! For if you do not. He will build a laser tower next to your bed and burn you! BURN!!!!

I knew this and im not an expert of that field.
Just because education and life.
And since the only thing that needs to be changed in this is a simple number... Why not to make it more realistic?

Because 'realistic' does not consider the abstraction of a game. Nor is it particularly needed. This is a game. I don't know why everyone needs it to be 'realistic' in so many ways I mean really... why is that so important to so many people? I'm genuinely curious.

TGS wrote:Because 'realistic' does not consider the abstraction of a game. Nor is it particularly needed. This is a game. I don't know why everyone needs it to be 'realistic' in so many ways I mean really... why is that so important to so many people? I'm genuinely curious.

Just my view of these things:

Because the game uses a lot of items (nearly all) from the "real world". We are soon going to use oil for burning, are using coal, iron, copper and so on. Gaining "electricity" with steam engines, water and steam. All that things are "realistic" and not really abstract.

I think no one would argue about watt or kilowatt if we would use elirium-115 as energy source, smelting pink alien stones and the unit for energy would be somethink like "Mega-Fonzies"

BurnHard wrote:

TGS wrote:Because 'realistic' does not consider the abstraction of a game. Nor is it particularly needed. This is a game. I don't know why everyone needs it to be 'realistic' in so many ways I mean really... why is that so important to so many people? I'm genuinely curious.

Just my view of these things:

Because the game uses a lot of items (nearly all) from the "real world". We are soon going to use oil for burning, are using coal, iron, copper and so on. Gaining "electricity" with steam engines, water and steam. All that things are "realistic" and not really abstract.

I think no one would argue about watt or kilowatt if we would use some unknown pink alien stone for gaining energy and smelting elirium-115.

Some abstraction is good and necessary. Others... is just silly. I mean they could literally make up anything for anything and create the only 'link' being "You are generating 5000 Factons of power" for example. But that is a level of abstraction that would detract from gameplay. Whereas having realistic 'values' for electricity would be intriguing from one angle, it would be difficult from another (Balancing). IE what's the point of having a Steam generator generate say... 5 kilowatts vs say 510 watts? A realistic up scaling of everything would serve very little purpose in the long run other than to seem 'realistic'. But it would create issues with balancing. Because there isn't really a 'balance' in real life with power usage. There is a fairly wide variance to it with many things.

Same as we dont use horses as fuel and chairs to mine...
Also we arent talking about a little thing like changing 100 to 200, no is much bigger and seems weird, also it is easy to change im sure.