[0.12.x][v0.12.8] Bob's Power mod

[bobingabout]

I actually posted those figures in the first post of this topic.
Though, MK2 steam engines use more than 60 water per second, as a result, you'll get strange values if you use 7, you need to round down to 6, but can use a MK1 steam engine as the 7th, then it works fine.

[Degraine]

Oh you did update that, oops.

[iamwyza]

Have you considered a more compact steam engine? Basically something like a steam turbine that basically = 5x Input, 5x material cost, 5x output as 1 Steam Engine? (purely for space saving, though you could argue that you could do something like 5.25x output as it would possibly be more efficient).

[Chibiabos]

I was wondering/thinking that, maybe as a "sister step" to solar and a mid-step between coal-burning boilers and nuclear power coming (don't know if they're going with fission and/or fusion, given you get 'portable' fusion reactors as equipment for power armor and now vehicles), how about hydrogen combustion?

I don't know if you can change it so the steam generators don't pollute and, instead, the boilers do (which its confused me why they have the steam generators polluting, when they're just taking the steam to drive pistons or turbines to generate power) and have hydrogen burners boiling water to feed the steam generators, or maybe simpler to just have a 'hydrogen power generator' that just takes hydrogen (and maybe oxygen for higher power output).

Maybe comparable output to solar, but constant and to balance that, more expensive resourcewise to build the generators (especially given solar panels don't have to contend much with moving parts). It'd be another use for the hydrogen you already have from water electrolysis, with zero pollution (hydrogen combustion just produces water vapor).

[solntcev]

...
I don't know if you can change it so the steam generators don't pollute and, instead, the boilers do (which its confused me why they have the steam generators polluting, when they're just taking the steam to drive pistons or turbines to generate power) and have hydrogen burners boiling water to feed the steam generators, or maybe simpler to just have a 'hydrogen power generator' that just takes hydrogen (and maybe oxygen for higher power output).
...

Only boilers produce pollution. generators only produce electricity. You can check it by moving generators away from boilers and looking at pollution overlay.

[mexmer]

can you add to bobs power stronger version of offshore pump? it's matter of upgrading building (and space requirements)
for classic 14 boiler/10 steams you need 1 offshore, when you upgrade to steam mk2, you need 1,5 offshore (eg. 3 pumps for 2 lines), mk3 steam requires 2 offshore per line. so having at least mk2 offshore with double output will help (of course at appropriate tech level and research)

[bobingabout]

I have been considering additions in that area. I'm still not sure the pipes will properly be able to handle the increased flow though.

[Ratzap]

I have been considering additions in that area. I'm still not sure the pipes will properly be able to handle the increased flow though.

Dytech has upgraded offshores and this is exactly why they are fairly worthless. You're better off sticking to the cheap standard offshore and aggregating multiple pipes to get throughput. Trying to force much more through makes the falloff and repump issue exponentially worse.

Maybe the 0.15 fluid revamp with change things? Who knows.

[mexmer]

I have been considering additions in that area. I'm still not sure the pipes will properly be able to handle the increased flow though.

Dytech has upgraded offshores and this is exactly why they are fairly worthless. You're better off sticking to the cheap standard offshore and aggregating multiple pipes to get throughput. Trying to force much more through makes the falloff and repump issue exponentially worse.

Maybe the 0.15 fluid revamp with change things? Who knows.

well, we know that fluid mechanic in factorio is wonky at best. but if multiple paralel pumps can work? why, one that does exact same thing should not?
with current mechanic, should be only problem of storage capacity. otherwise internal pump storage will already break balancing, before you start pumping into network.

btw. current fluid system is why i don't use 20 unit tubes, they useless, in most cases they break balancing (unless you use tank buffers and pumps and break it by yourself already), because all factories factories have only 10u input.

[bobingabout]

Yeah, I feel the same way with my 20 size pipes... I've been considering changing all my pipes to size 10.

But yeah, the pipe generates 1 unit of water per tick, which is 60 units per second. this feeds exactly 10 steam engines, 6.66 MK2s or 5 MK1s.

instead of designing your system for rows of 10, try a configuration for rows of 5.

[mexmer]

Yeah, I feel the same way with my 20 size pipes... I've been considering changing all my pipes to size 10.

But yeah, the pipe generates 1 unit of water per tick, which is 60 units per second. this feeds exactly 10 steam engines, 6.66 MK2s or 5 MK3s.

instead of designing your system for rows of 10, try a configuration for rows of 5.

you need to consider upgrade path, and placement requirement, as you will require more and more energy, you usually add more lines, also splitting coal delivery and such.

i will do some experiments with that, tho, and will see.

btw. any idea, why is not possible to inplace upgrade steam engine with mk2?
i remember, when i started using your mods, it was possible, but i think since 0.14 it is not possible to just slap mk2 on top of regular steam engine, while for boilers, and other stuff it works.

[bobingabout]

Quirk of the game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and I can't figure out why. It does seem to be specifically with the base game steam engine though. The code to enable it is in place from what I recall, because the issue has come up previously, but it's worth double checking.

[Yinan]

Are the ratios of Steam engines to boilers still right?

I just tried it out and it doesn't seem to work.
10 mk4 boilers, 10 mk3 steam engines and 2 pumps.
Should work based on the ratios. But water only gets to 50°C, which is less than half!

Also, when looking at the depletion of the red bars in both normal and mk4 boilers they deplete at the exact same rate with coal.
Shouldn't the mk4 boilers deplete the coal much more faster as they need far more energy?

I'm currently playing with Bob's Power 0.14.0 and Factorio 0.14.9.

Edit:
Ok, somehow it all works out now after reloading the game. Strange.

[bobingabout]

the only advice I can give there is that you make sure that if you're running 10 MK3 steam engines that you use a separate pipe for each set of 5 from the offshore pump. the pipes themselves can only handle a throughput for one pump's worth.

[Elendiar]

Hello, is it a bug, that bopower acccumulators dont work wth bobpower poles? When i try make solar farm or isolation, using bobpowerk Mk* poles, accumulators doesnt charge. But when fulled accums connected to network without steam engines with any substation or MK poles, they dont discharge, but give electricity to network. Use steam version of game, some mods (accums work with mod "lighted electr poles".

[fractalman]

Hello, is it a bug, that bopower acccumulators dont work wth bobpower poles? When i try make solar farm or isolation, using bobpowerk Mk* poles, accumulators doesnt charge. But when fulled accums connected to network without steam engines with any substation or MK poles, they dont discharge, but give electricity to network. Use steam version of game, some mods (accums work with mod "lighted electr poles".

The mk power poles really aren't any different from normal poles (they're vanilla poles with a different range value; substations are vanilla and have an even bigger range), so this is much more likely to be a problem with your setup.

[bobingabout]

Yeah, my power poles are basically clones of the base game poles, with tweaked values to give longer ranges. Same with my steam engines, solar panels and accumulators, they're all base game clones with tweaked values. there's no reason why it should work with base game stuff and not my own.

[Nuklearfps]

Bob Please help I'm new to modding on factorio and I downloaded the Power mod and the two others that the mod loader said were required but nothing happened... No new research, items, or any indication at all. I've double checked to make sure that everything was as it was supposed to be yet still no items....

[fractalman]

Bob Please help I'm new to modding on factorio and I downloaded the Power mod and the two others that the mod loader said were required but nothing happened... No new research, items, or any indication at all. I've double checked to make sure that everything was as it was supposed to be yet still no items....

You also need bob's libraries mod, or the power mod won't load.

[pezzawinkle]

Just a few queries, first off, great mods, recently started playing, still wrapping my head around some of the things...

Anyway, on to the first query.
In terms of water usage per steam engine, why those numbers in particular?
If you base the water consumption on water energy (assuming the water gives up 5100 kW per pump), the numbers would sit:
MK1: 0.100 (same as yours)
MK2: 0.165 (yours in 0.15)
MK3: 0.235 (yours in 0.20)

As im writing this it occurs to me that basing the water consumption on "energy added" is kind of silly. But then again, the system is not exactly using "steam" anyway.

Second query.
In the interest of moving towards 0.15, would it be possible to move to a Steam based system, with temperatures ~150C (for the sake of the maths below, I have used this as the value) with an added energy requirement of (if we stick to the units given Cp=1 kJ/unit.C, 4.18 kJ/kg.C) ~520 kW/unit (to be in line with evaporation of ~2200 kJ/kg).
If we take this extended option, the energy use potential is from "condensation" which is then the 520 kW/unit on the base case, and the top tier with better energy recovery, i.e. recovering significantly more input, say (90->150+evap) of total energy fed to the system (15->150+evap).

Running numbers of assumed scenario:
1 pump can support (1 kJ/unit.C*(150 C-15 C)+520 kJ/unit)*60 unit/s= 39,300 kW
(the difference including evaporation and a few C makes)
Keeping boilers and engines with the same output stats means:
1 pump requires 100.8, 75.7, 50.4, 35.7 Boilers to reach 150 C steam.
1 pump can sustain 61.2 MK1 (31.2 MW use (just evap recovery)), 38.9 MK2 (32.7 MW use (+25C heat recovery)), 29 MK3 (34.8 MW (+60C heat recovery)) (based on same energy output numbers)

I guess the water usage should be based on the produced numbers as such:
0.013, 0.021, 0.031. (this does not take into account the actual water loss, this is "useful water")
, so i guess the used numbers would be more like:
0.016, 0.026, 0.034
This could be the basis for Steam engine efficency ratio's (in which case, 79.4%, 83.2%, 88.5%)

The energy consumption ratio in the boilers, and output from the steam engines would stay the same as at present or could be tweeked to drop the number of units to something people are more happy to manage.

Another option is the "top temperature" of the steam, the higher it is the more efficient, not sure if you can play with that though...

And finally
Thanks for the massive work in getting this awesome mod package up and going, it adds a significantly more challenging mode to the game. I hope my queries/ideas are not overbearing.