Offshore Pumps not working at 100%

[Superego]

Hello!
I'm having some trouble with the water supply for my steam engines and would greatly appreciate some assistance!

I currently have three Offshore Pumps - each one is feeding a separate pipeline of the standard 14 Boilers and 10 Steam Engines. In these three pipelines, hovering over the Offshore Pumps shows a water supply of 10 and the water supply for the Boilers and Steam Engines is anywhere from 10 nearest the Offshore Pump to as low as 9.6 for some of the Steam Engines.

I am in the process of expanding my steam generation by adding a forth system. I have constructed all the relevant components in the same layout as the others. But as soon as I connect the Offshore Pump to the system, the water supply drops to below 2.

I am using the same large water source for all pumps. Would this suddenly affect the Offshore Pumps water supply?

I could just supplement my electricity generation with solar power, or use multiple Offshore Pumps for each group of 14 Boilers/10 Steam Engines, but it's frustrating not knowing why this is happening. I've looked on the wiki and searched these forums and cannot find any mention of a maximum pump count per body of water.

Testing I have carried out amounts to placing multiple pumps next to each other, connecting a single pipe section to each (but keeping them all separate). This shows the pipe sections have a water supply of 10. But as soon as I connect any of them to the newly-constructed boiler/engine cluster, the supply plummets.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[DaveMcW]

Water sources can support unlimited offshore pumps, that's not your problem.

Try to keep all water lines separate, a strict 1 offshore pump and 14 boilers with no connections.

[BlakeMW]

Hello!
I'm having some trouble with the water supply for my steam engines and would greatly appreciate some assistance!

I currently have three Offshore Pumps - each one is feeding a separate pipeline of the standard 14 Boilers and 10 Steam Engines. In these three pipelines, hovering over the Offshore Pumps shows a water supply of 10 and the water supply for the Boilers and Steam Engines is anywhere from 10 nearest the Offshore Pump to as low as 9.6 for some of the Steam Engines.

That number is the volume of the water in pipes. A steam engine only needs a volume of about 0.1 to operate and can even be operating fine at 0.0 (due to quirks in the fluid simulation and display). A steam engine with 9.6 is working more than fine.

The main thing you care about is the performance and available performance bars. If the available performance bar is full green then the steam engine is operating optimally. If the available performance bar is not full green then the causes of that can be insufficient water or a water temperature less than 100. The performance bar will be shorter than the available performance bar if not all of the power is needed, steam engines automatically scale their output to meet demand.

[Shokubai]

The supply plumits because you added a section of pipe that has to fill up...

The better question is, after some period of of time does it level off? IIRC it takes two offshore pumps to fully compress a pipe but that isn't necessary when feeding 14 boilers.

[Xeorm]

You should be fine doing what you said. I can't see any reason why such a setup wouldn't work out right, given that its' a setup I use all the time myself.

Therefore, the most likely problem is that you've done something unintentionally that you aren't telling us (likely because you didn't realize it yourself)

Best bet there is there's some connection somewhere that you didn't mean to put in which can screw the whole system up. If you can, best solution to that is merely to give us a screenshot or two of the situation.

[Ellenia]

Hi

I am having exactly the same problem - the pumps are connected in a 1 to 14 to 10 ratio, definitely not interconnected. It has been driving me up the wall trying to work out what is going on - this is the only other post that has mentioned the same issue. I have even tried putting one of the pumps into a separate lake - it still currently only gives me 2.6 water, and the steam engines are limited in their performance by this.

I had thought it was linked to using Bobs mods, but even when noting the ratios for the better boilers and engines, as discussed on the power mod thread, it makes not a blind bit of difference. And I have had this issue in a non-Bobs game.

I have also tried changing the layout to mix the pumps - to deliberately have interconnections and having like 20 pumps feeding a dozen boiler lines, but this also make no difference. I've tried with pipes that have a 20 capacity and pipes that have a 5 capacity. No improvement.

And leaving it for a while doesn't help, as Shokubai suggested

I feel like I've tried everything, and nothing works, and my factory is ground to a halt, and I'm starting to froth at the mouth with frustration on this.

This thread is 2 months old - has anyone come up with an answer/suggestion/solution?

[DaveMcW]

Ignore steam engine water level.
Ignore steam engine performance.

Mouse over a power pole - is the electricity bar 100% full? Great!

If the electricity bar is not full, you have a real problem.

[Frightning]

Upload your save, and lets us take a look at it??

[Veterans001]

Use extra pump.That solved the problem for me...

[kingarthur]

the offshore pump only produces so much water at a time. 60 water units per second. steam engines consume water even if its unheated it will consume more when running at full power. 10 steam engines will consume the full out put of an off shore pump at full output and thats why you can find pipes with varying amounts of water in the pipe. the only way to "fix" it is to add more off shore pumps to each boiler chain

[Lupoviridae]

Hello!
I'm having some trouble with the water supply for my steam engines and would greatly appreciate some assistance!

I currently have three Offshore Pumps - each one is feeding a separate pipeline of the standard 14 Boilers and 10 Steam Engines. In these three pipelines, hovering over the Offshore Pumps shows a water supply of 10 and the water supply for the Boilers and Steam Engines is anywhere from 10 nearest the Offshore Pump to as low as 9.6 for some of the Steam Engines.

That number is the volume of the water in pipes. A steam engine only needs a volume of about 0.1 to operate and can even be operating fine at 0.0 (due to quirks in the fluid simulation and display). A steam engine with 9.6 is working more than fine.

The main thing you care about is the performance and available performance bars. If the available performance bar is full green then the steam engine is operating optimally. If the available performance bar is not full green then the causes of that can be insufficient water or a water temperature less than 100. The performance bar will be shorter than the available performance bar if not all of the power is needed, steam engines automatically scale their output to meet demand.

This. The amount of water in the pipes is determined by what order you build the components in. If you build the pump first, then connect the engines one at a time, the net water in is greater than water consumption, so the pipes fill with some excess water. If you build everything else, THEN add the offshore pump, net water in will equal water consumption off the bat (with all engines running at max). This means no excess water will be left in the pipes.