KS Power

[Koub]

I like to take my time too. but what's hidden behind your few lines is that whatever the cost, as long as it's power without upkeep, it's unbalanced. So you're probably against solar, wind, any kind of power production not requiring fuel, Fusion reactors for power armor, ... My opinion is that trading a small upkeep for a high one shot cost is a fair trade.

[Vas]

No, thats not what I said. It neds to have a proper balance or realism to it. Wind mills do not take a huge amount of upkeep or resources to create, their downside is that you need wind and in some areas, wind is not always given. As I seen today, no matter where I place the wind mills, its all the same and every single one works as if the wind is all over the planet going at the same speed everywhere. Sure I know its just a basic thing but, it would be nice if it could get more complex. Wind that is more variable than this and such. Perhaps higher winds around lakes or larger bodies of water, steady winds in a desert, frequently changing and lack of winds in forest areas. Etc.

[Roktaal]

I think wind turbines have to be larger, like 3x3, produce more power and cost more to make.

[NoriSilverrage]

I'm not sure how you haven't had the wind be variable. I've built 15k of them and they vary greatly from as little as 30% output all the way up to 100%. I guesstimate that they are reasonably reliable for 50% power. For my field that is 465MW max and 140MW minimum and I do see these extremes pretty frequently.

At 2x2 they provide a max of 7.75kw per tile with a average of 3.875kw. Solar provides 6.67kw per tile. I'm not sure what Solar averages out to including night, but wind is probably better on a per tile basis.
Given this I don't think it would be bad if wind was 3x3, but if that was the case it would need more power and would probably end up feeling just like solar, which would be lame. 2x3 would be interesting though I don't know how that would work in game.

Anyway, I don't think Wind is overpowered compared to solar. But yes it is a infinite power source and that will always be contentious.

[Vas]

The advantage of wind, is constant power generation based on "wind". Solar only works during the day, while wind works day and night. Solar is more complex to build and provides you with more energy while Wind takes a fair amount of resources to build and only works if there is a good source of wind, and works at night too.

[BlakeMW]

This is how I'd like it if wind turbines worked relative to other options:

Boiler/Steam: Reliable, consistent power generation. Low cost makes suitable standby power. Main cost is fuel cost rather than construction cost.

Wind: Almost as cheap per (average) MW as Boiler/Steam but high variability means it's mainly only good for saving fuel or in situations where you don't need reliable electricity (for example with mining outposts you can overbuild on mines and have enough buffer for several days worth of ore so you can mine ore when the wind blows)

Solar: Expensive per MW but predictable power generation, while it doesn't generate all the time you can size your power storage so as to guarantee availability of electricity.

[Vas]

Now that I've had the chance to test it in other areas, I think my first time was just a fluke or I missed something. However, I like the wind mills as they are now at their 2x2 size.
I do wish they were more variable though, not all of them all having the same wind production value all over the place. Perhaps like, wind in a sector? Calculate differently in each sector that has a wind mill in it?

[Klonan]

Now that I've had the chance to test it in other areas, I think my first time was just a fluke or I missed something. However, I like the wind mills as they are now at their 2x2 size.
I do wish they were more variable though, not all of them all having the same wind production value all over the place. Perhaps like, wind in a sector? Calculate differently in each sector that has a wind mill in it?

The problem with this is that the mod is already very CPU intensive when you have large numbers of wind turbines,
Adding extra logic for more randomness to me isn't that important,
As any random fluctuations in any individual turbine/are will average out anyway

[seronis]

The problem with this is that the mod is already very CPU intensive when you have large numbers of wind turbines,
Adding extra logic for more randomness to me isn't that important,
As any random fluctuations in any individual turbine/are will average out anyway

A fun thing to do to please these types of people is to fake it. Have your desired non random production rate that is actually used, but have the GUI elements display a value that takes into account what the randomized production might be in a given area. That way the randomness code only causes a CPU hit when being viewed in the gui and not during normal processing. Players get their 'feels' and actual code is still efficient.

[Vas]

The problem with this is that the mod is already very CPU intensive when you have large numbers of wind turbines,

So, it would be too CPU intense to make it calculate differently per sector? (Like pollution does, those big huge squares of areas that change red)
Just out of curiosity, is there a hotkey I can use to display the sector lines on the terrain so I know where my pollution buildings will add pollution? If I'm going to use some of the power production buildings here that produce pollution, I need to know where to place them so as to not pollute too much of an area.

[Vas]

Also, can you separate wind turbine construction into two parts so that they can be crafted via assembler 1? I want to automate the construction of wind turbines for early game. I was thinking of two parts, Metal Pole, and Wind Turbine, to make a wind turbine.

EDIT: My thoughts on separating the turbine into two parts:
Turbine: 4 gears, 8 iron sheets
Turbine Pole: 6 iron stick, 8 copper wire
Wind Mill: 1 Turbine Pole, 1 Turbine.

This will let you auto craft it in an assembler 1.

[Sean Mirrsen]

After using this mod as a basis for my own burner-generator implementation, I have to wonder - why was the boiler chosen as the main item in the boiler-generator pair? I managed to get an animated sprite working for it by switching it around:


I can't seem to get smoke to appear, though.

Thank you for showing me what lunacy lies ahead of me if I want to learn to mod this game.

[KitsuneSamurai]

Do you have any intention of updating the individual mod pages to match the updates in this modpack? I ask because I'd really like to use the burner generator and wind turbine, but not the oil boiler or diesel engine, but I also don't want to sacrifice the updated recipe and more efficient wind turbines.

[Klonan]

Do you have any intention of updating the individual mod pages to match the updates in this modpack? I ask because I'd really like to use the burner generator and wind turbine, but not the oil boiler or diesel engine, but I also don't want to sacrifice the updated recipe and more efficient wind turbines.

Nope sorry,

I combined them so i don't have to maintain these individual pages

[KitsuneSamurai]

Makes sense, kinda leaves us picky folks out in the cold though.

Is there an easy way to crop out individual subparts of the mod? Delete a line of code or something? I'm no modder, so I wouldn't know what to do on my own...

[Klonan]

Makes sense, kinda leaves us picky folks out in the cold though.

Is there an easy way to crop out individual subparts of the mod? Delete a line of code or something? I'm no modder, so I wouldn't know what to do on my own...

Yep, just delete the lines in the data.lua (I made it very easy in this way)

[KitsuneSamurai]

Ah, okay! Thanks very much.

[Afforess]

Do you have any intention of updating the individual mod pages to match the updates in this modpack? I ask because I'd really like to use the burner generator and wind turbine, but not the oil boiler or diesel engine, but I also don't want to sacrifice the updated recipe and more efficient wind turbines.

Nope sorry,

I combined them so i don't have to maintain these individual pages

Oh! Your other pages have no notice that I saw about this. I made a post a while back about improving the mod performance, you might want to check it out: viewtopic.php?f=93&t=16734&start=20#p156506

[Anson]

btw: when you (Klonan) combined the power mods into this single one "so you don't have to maintain those individual pages", it might be useful to add a big hint at those threads that the mods and all discussion about them should be handled in this "new" thread, maybe also locking the other threads, or else you and we all will still have to check the old 4 threads in addition to this new one to stay current ...


first an idea about the wind turbines, their CPU usage and the space they take up ingame:

maybe we could get three versions of the turbine ?

1. a small one which we already have, with footprint 2x2 = 4 tiles
2. a bigger version with footprint 3x3 = 9 tiles (2.25 times as large as the small one),
   that replaces 3 or 4 small turbines, producing 3 or 4 times as much power and is built from 3 or 4 small turbines (maybe plus a few easy extra resources), and
3. a really big one with footprint 4x4 = 16 tiles (1.77 times as large as the medium, or 4 times as large as the small one),
   that replaces 3 or 4 medium turbines, producing 3 or 4 times as much power and is built from 3 or 4 medium turbines (maybe plus a few easy extra resources)

shouldn't that reduce their number (eg 1000 or 1777 big turbines instead of 16k small turbines) and thus also the computations and CPU usage to almost 1/3 and 1/9 (or 1/4 and 1/16) of the small ones, and at the same time reduce the space requirement ?

The increased power generation could be explained by their bigger size, by bigger generators being more efficient, and also by having more space around each of them (bigger gaps between the poles).

[Anson]

In answer to a post in the Diesel Generator thread :

Yes, exactly what I needed, thank you Klonan

I completely agree with that, no matter whether it is wind turbines, diesel generators, or anything else. more options to get power in different ways in factorio are always nice, but when it comes to "air cleaners" and producing power or plastic from the CO2 or from methane out of the air, a minimum of reality should be respected and a sanity check should be made before building a mod around it.

Well, hydrogen as fuel because it doesnt pollute (now), and i make it during the day with solars, so any excess electricity gets used to make hydrogen which is stored to be used as emergency generator fuel, if I ever need it.

that would be a nice idea ...

a biomass tank that produces hydrogen which is stored and later burnt without creating pollution (eg CO2), but only produces water when burnt. and this probably would pass the sanity check too, if the tanks for algae or bacteria are big enough to hold a multiple volume of the produced H2 volume for water, nutrients, and the algae/bacteria.

But when the H2 is generated by directly splitting water into H2 and O2, you need as much energy as you will later get back from burning the H2 (or more energy when efficiency is not 100%). It still is a good method to store energy in tanks instead of using accumulators and get almost no pollution, *IF* you have a method of generating the energy to split the water with as little pollution as possible in the first place (eg surplus energy from solar panels during the day), as Michelle has suggested.

... if you have heard about the E-diesel that Audi makes? It is basically the same as Bergius process, the difference being that not coal is used, but CO2 from the atmosphere. In factorio, maybe that could be achieved by creating some kind of an air filter that cleans the pollution and feeds CO2 to the chemical plant instead of coal. That is what i want to make basically, so wish me luck

Hey i think thats a really good idea! My sucking up pollution (in the form of CO2) and turning it back into usable energy.
Theres a method called the Sabatier Reaction whereby CO2 and H2 are turned into Methane and water, perhaps something like this would be good to model in the game, and be able to burn methane in a diesel generator, or even solid fuel...
I might have a look at making something like this, if you've not already done so, could be very interesting gameplay (ie turning pollution into oils)

And here is the problem ... for some part, i don't understand how such a system can work, and for another part i know that such a system can't work

I looked at the Sabatier reaction in the wiki, and it is said that converting CO2 and H2 into Methane produces energy. And when you burn methane you later again get some energy ... making a loop from that would give energy and more energy and even more energy ... with TWO big *IF* :

the first problem is the same as above: you need to get the H2 somehow which costs a lot of energy, but could be solved eg by using the solar panels and surplus energy during the day.

the second problem is how to get the CO2: getting it "from the air" sounds nice and would even remove some air pollution. but that process requires a lot of energy too and thus makes it quite unefficient. recently i accidentally found a video on youtube that describes how to "get plastic out of the air". those inventors speak of cleaning the air and getting CO2 from the air, but their working prototype seems to run only with methane (which is much more efficient than CO2) which they get already in a concentrated form from biogas generation and not directly from the air that we breathe, and even then, they get only a small amount of plastic in a gigantic machine.
If someone wants to get enough CO2 from the air to produce one kg of plastic, he needs to suck in and filter one million kg of air which is roughly one million cubic meters (37 million cubic feet, the volume of the Empire State Building). besides the problem how to extract the CO2 from one million cubic meters of air and how much energy that extraction would require, the pumps alone (to suck in the air) would use up roughly 100 kg of oil, and from that oil 100 kg of plastic could be made instead of only 1 kg from the CO2 in the air. btw: with that pipe they used when showing their "revolutionary invention" (maybe 5 cm or max 10 cm in diameter), they would have a windspeed of 30 km/s (kilometers per second !) or mach 100 (100x the speed of sound).

Even when game mechanics are different from real world mechanics, they should not be the opposite of reality. Maybe on another planet, there is 1000 times more CO2 in the air and we would need only 1000 cubic meters for 1 kg of plastic, and/or maybe we don't have only CO2 in the air, but can filter small particles of coal (soot?) directly. It still would be stretching reality quite a bit to give some explanation for those air cleaner machines, or for generators running with "fuel from thin air". I won't use the air cleaners any longer in my maps, and hope for machines that enable me to use H2 as storage instead (or in addition to) accumulators.

Options that might be possible ingame could also consist of one biotank for creating H2 and a treefarm or a greenhouse to make wood which could be used first to create some energy, using filters directly at the burners and thus keeping the produced CO2 in a closed circuit (not emitting it into the air), offering players two methods of power production, either using the H2 directly for clean energy (without the trees), or using additional steps like the Sabatier process and then eventually producing plastic too.

mfG Andreas

ps: to see those videos yourself, google for "plastic from air", or go directly to the critical analysis Plastic from the Air, Global Warming Solution or SCAM?