Optimized Steam Engine Setup

[Patric20878]

I already acknowledge that it isn't 15% difference, but the point is, mine is higher in power by area, not lower. By 0.7575..% exactly. Not counting the offshore pumps, the size is also exactly 6.0606% smaller, and I haven't measured the difference between yours and mine's resource cost.

[Aru]

Regardless of the appearance, half of it is in the unbuildable water, half is on buildable land. What do storage tanks have to do with it? They don't shrink, can't be repositioned in such a usage, they have a square shape, can't be built inside, and do block movement. And I did say how a wall of labs can occupy that space. You move the poles out, they not only get power from the engines, but would also then power the labs and inserters for the labs.

[Patric20878]

Oh, you're right on the offshore pumps. Sorry, didn't remember they occupy a tile on land too. Then yes, mine is 67 tiles, yours is 71. Updating the math post to reflect that then.

You can't just move the poles out. They don't have that kind of range (4 tiles from center) to power both the labs and connect to the steam engines. And there's no way to attach storage tanks to your design without placing them from after the power pole column either. Your design's 71 tiles wide, whether the power poles on the ends can power other things has no relevance at all to its actual physical width. And in the same way, both our designs are 3x+1 tiles high, where x = number of steam engine rows, not 3x+0.25 or whatever.

[Aru]

The heights are the same, that's why I didn't bother. And yes, you would have to use medium poles, or occasional gaps, to put buildings immediately on the edge. You can use 71 if you want, but I consider area with movable power poles to be more useful than area occupied by steam engines and boilers, especially since you need poles to cover buildings anyway.

[Patric20878]

Medium poles can connect to the 3 steam engines circled in red? I don't think so

Like said many times, how useful the poles are on the 71th tile doesn't change the fact that it's 71 tiles. See the stone wall structure? That isn't 3 tiles wide, it's 4 tiles wide, even if you can place 4 laser turrets in the gaps!

[Aru]

You're right it can't stretch over the buildings, I thought the range was bigger. You could space out each pair of labs and put a small pole there. Personally I still consider the poles to be more useful than the edge of the steam engine.

[Patric20878]

Yeah, but once you space out the labs, you're now making the labs occupy another tile wider. No difference in combined width than if you had simply shifted all labs right of the power poles. While I agree the power poles can and often are useful, utility is simply a nonfactor in measuring physical width. I have so many redstone designs in Minecraft that look a full tile shorter than it's actual size since redstone is flat and doesn't block movement, but in no community, the MC wikia or ORE (the expert redstone community and server), are my designs counted as 1 block shorter, no matter how useful having them on the edges instead of the middle is (and they're almost always useful on the edge)

[Aru]

I did not count it as one block shorter, but rather somewhere in between. I thought it was a logical compromise, I was trying to get the most useful numbers I could. And 0.67% difference is still pretty close, for "pretty much the same". And it occupies more area if you shift the buildings over, and adds 1 width.

[Patric20878]

I know. But my redstone designs aren't counted as anything more than 0 blocks shorter either, no less somewhere in between. Refer to my last post in the tips, designs, tricks thread - this partial concept you're thinking of is concerned with area density, not area. Partially occupied 1 tile-wide column, but still 1 tile-wide. The partial part is on its rows.

[Aru]

The partial concept is concerned with "a logical compromise, I was trying to get the most useful numbers I could", not area density.

[Patric20878]

Then start by making a logical compromise that states it's 71 tiles wide, but the power poles on the right can be used for powering other things, rather than saying its width somehow varies between 70 and 71 tiles wide, depending on how useful the power poles on the right is. See something wrong with the 2nd statement? If so, we're good lol.

[Aru]

I never made the second statement, I made a statement that the power per area is about the same. The usefulness of the poles is circumstantial. The only reason I cared about length was to compare power per area. The measurable length of the posted pattern is 71, yes, but I was never really emphasizing length anyway, but more, low research, low cost, simplicity, reusability, and lastly compactness, because there's not much that can be done to make it more compact (per power). Yours does yield very slightly more power per area, in the only objectively measurable way, at the expense of either not being able to walk through the left side, or the expense of an underground belt for each row of engines, neither of which I think is worthwhile enough for me to prefer it to my simple original.

[Patric20878]

K cool, with that understanding, that wraps up the topic then.

Our three designs (including my variant) should cover everything there is, with yours being 10/10 engines per 2 rows (for those who like all engine rows to have the same number of engines) and covering the aspect of using the steam engines as backup to a different source of power, different from mine that adds a backup to the steam engines themselves. No advantage on the original compact power plant whatsoever now, made obsolete beyond shadow of a doubt.

[Aru]

The variant to mine adds 2 small pumps per row, to control water flow.

[Patric20878]

It actually seems like my water battery variant's small pumps could do the same thing as your backup system, but the difference is, it'd have to turn ON the small pumps when power is low, instead of turn them OFF. Power would come from solars or some other power source in your backup system, while power would come from the coal detector's steam engine in mine. So unfortunately, I don't think the same small pumps would be able to control both. In order to have both backup systems, you'd need 2 sets of 2 small pumps each, per engine row.

Also, I just counted the raw resources our designs need. Yours uses ~834.36 raw resources for each 2 rows, mine 809. 834.5/20 = 42.125, 809/19 = 43, so mine does indeed use more resources, at ~2.06% more. And yeah, the underground belts is what pushes cost to be higher than yours, otherwise it'd be 791.5 raw resources, or ~0.14% lower resource cost.

Resource Table

Mine:

Offshore pump: 8 * 2
Pipe to ground: 7.5 * 4
Splitter: 23.5 * 1
Underground belt: 8.75 * 2
Transport belt: 1.5 * 16
Inserter: 5.5 * 24
Burner inserter: 3 * 3
Boiler: 6 * 27
Small electric pole: 1 * 8
Pipe: 1 * 7
Steam engine: 20 * 19

Total: 809


Yours:

Offshore pump: 8 * 2
Pipe to ground: 7.5 * 4
Splitter: 23.5 * 1
Transport belt: 1.5 * 20
Inserter: 5.5 * 28
Boiler: 6 * 28
Small electric pole: 1 * ~7.86
Pipe: 1 * 5
Steam engine: 20 * 20

Total ~834.36

[Aru]

It actually seems like my water battery variant's small pumps could do the same thing as your backup system, but the difference is, it'd have to turn ON the small pumps when power is low, instead of turn them OFF. Power would come from solars or some other power source in your backup system, while power would come from the coal detector's steam engine in mine. So unfortunately, I don't think the same small pumps would be able to control both. In order to have both backup systems, you'd need 2 sets of 2 small pumps each, per engine row.

My backup has a 0.2 second activation delay, and a configurable minimum backup run duration before being able to turn back off, to power large laser arrays quickly and without cycling off. And I think, yours would be most helpful in early game to keep cool water out, and mine during the transition from a large steam array to a large solar array, so they work for different parts of the game.

Since you put your table in the TDT thread, I responded there.

[Patric20878]

Eh, I think there'd be a period where both are useful. My backup system is useful anytime steam power is used, so it'd be intended for after fluid handling is researched and before the player switches completely to solar power, so during that transition time to solar power, one may actually choose to use both backup systems.

[Yes-Man]

Um, I'm absolutely new to Factorio (currently trying to get blue science^^) but maybe I found something interesting for you.
About your problem with the boiler from the detector storing 5 coal, why not just use a normal inserter to get the coal in
and a fast inserter (just to make sure) to get the coal out again.
I just happened to read two topics at the same time. I'll post a link in my next posting, apparently I'm not allowed to do this in the first one.

[Yes-Man]

So I was reading this topic (for energy generation) and this other one.
If it works, pass on some credit to SusiQ

[Qon]

Intresting topic. Though I don't agree that optimising for power/area is the best solution. If your steam setup is massive enough to need a compressed setup then you are going to do it on a designated location outside of your base where you have no real limitations on far out from the shore it reaches. If it takes twice as much area but is 5% shorter then it would be less unwieldy since you need less shore and it's easier to find a good locaion for it. A powerplant that is 1km will be hard to fit in anywhere even if it has almmost 0 area. So it's good that you found a way to compress it so it uses less space between the engines. But limiting it to 9 engines is pointless, imho. I would slap on one more steam engine at the end to get 10 in all rows. Using only 9 of them mean you need more rows of steam engines to reach the same amount of power, which is less compressed then optimal. I might try 25 steam engines in each row if the extra pumps needed don't use too much power.