Factorio Forums

Yet another "using steam as backup power only". My variation shuts down the first stage with cold water.


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Not sure if it's in any way practical, or better than other methods. I just wanted to test the idea, and didn't see it posted here already (sorry if I missed one). Working fine for my smallish factory, and should be easily scalable.

It's not a 100% off switch though, the first stage continuosly consumes hot water, keeping one boiler on. I guess that's the price for avoiding pointlessly moving items in a circle.

Also, my first post here. Hello all!

Looking at it again, the combination of the control blocks look a lot like a transistor. I wonder if it's possible to build water logic gates?

Well, it is a very smart contraption in my mind, but why don't you just use combinators?
They don't work when there's no power so you can connect one of them to the pump that works when the signal is zero.

hitzu wrote:why don't you just use combinators?

Just bought the game and downloaded the "stable" version, haven't got 0.12 yet
OR
building logic with hot water is way more awesome

Both apply, choose your favorite.

Yeah! We don't care about usefulness or "we can do better with combinator".
Playing with toy is fun!

Great concept! I think I will try the cold/hot water switch idea with my multi stage steam factory. It s way more élégant than "moving item around"!
The engine running always on is not an issue at all! It s like the keep alive light on natural gaz boiler.

Way to go!

I'm pretty sure if you kill power to a pump it'll open up and let the water flow backwards. Players were using that behavior to make direct hot water valves.

bobucles wrote:I'm pretty sure if you kill power to a pump it'll open up and let the water flow backwards. Players were using that behavior to make direct hot water valves.

Small pumps without power are blocking any flow. At least thats my experience with them.

I know for a fact that small pumps block fluid movement when they don't have power. I've used them extensively in 0.12 as on / off switches, now that they'll take conditions like smart inserters. Mainly I do this with the steam engines (the topic at hand) and chemical plants (to control things like cracking light oil -> gas based on current supplies).

I've done something very similar a few months ago. Why use water mixing instead of combinators? Instantaneous pickup in a very simple manner. I like your design... it reminds me of mine

cool =]

Clever setup you have here. I use a similar system for my 500+ boiler setup using pipe valves (mod) - same concept as pumps (in terms of turning on/off the flow of water), but without the pump itself.

I then use a system to turn the water off when items are lacking - so i set up the "brains" which calculates how much stuff if low, and if it is i know that my factory is going to be working over time (for example mega research as well as robot and blue circuit production) and then the power is there ready for such events when my solar setup is struggling (under attack and/or on accumulators). Obviously the downside is that you have to keep updating the brains