Solar Thermal Mod Inquiry

[Chthon]

I've got a mod idea, but before I work on it, I want to ask a few questions of the community, as I haven't made a mod before.

First, lets get it out of the way, are there any solar thermal mods out there that I'd be copying? I'm talking about both mods that focus large areas of mirrors on a tower, and ones that use a long line of parabolic mirrors to focus light on a tube of fluid that flows by. My precursor search for solar+thermal yielded no results, so I am assuming this hasn't been done.

My motivation: Solar photo-voltaic is boring as you simply plaster down a large area with panels, connect to power, and bam, you're done. It's also the least efficient form of solar available. A solar water heating system saves you more electricity than a similar sized solar panel will gain you.

My objective:
1) Create a system that is more engaging for optimization strategies, and works well within the current framework. Make it more of a choice: Do I want just some simple, easy to set up power now, or do I want to invest time and effort building a system that will last me longer?
2) Preferably the system will convert water into steam to be used in Steam Engines, and later on, you can manufacture a special mineral oil that will take much more heat without bursting the pipe to be used in a massive solar plant and convert that to steam to use more efficiently in steam turbines. In effect it replaces both boilers and nuclear plants in the current vanilla setup, but with varying degrees of efficiency vs. space and resources.
3) This power is not without cost, while there is no chemical emissions to be had, there is heat pollutions. Biters may not like the local area becoming excessively warm. The highest tier also will require some input of resources to make the oil based fluid.

Obstacles to my completion of this mod:
This would be my first mod for Factorio. I am familiar with working in Java, and do so as an intern at my workplace, but I hear that the documentation for modding is not very user friendly.
I do not know if the mirror on tower approach can be done. I envision it using proximity like a power pole, any mirrors in that area increase the wattage of heat focused on the tower, but two towers cannot be placed close together.
I do not know if I can have an object heat only when the sun is shining, and gradually increase and reduce heat as the sun rises/sets.

Detailed breakdown of how this mod will work:
Tier 1 Solar Thermal: 20% power per meter increase over photo-voltaic. Produces some heat pollution (1/4 the normal pollution of a steam engine) Relative tech level: beyond basic solar
Water pump pumps water through long line of parabolic mirrors, each one heats the water slightly as it passes until it reaches 165 degrees, then no further heating is done. 21 3x3 blocks of solar mirrors are required for each steam engine, plus a 1x3 steam converter before the engines that converts water over 100C to steam at that temperature. Total space required in 3x3 blocks = 21 + 4 (for the steam engines) + .33 (for the steam converter) = 25.33. Solar panels required to produce 1800 kilowatts is 30. Effective wattage per 3x3 = 71 kilowatts. Some techs may be provided to further improve the heating of the mirrors up to 30% (77 kilowatts per 3x3)
Hot water or steam can be stored in tanks for more efficient energy storage for night. No batteries required.

Tier 2 Solar Thermal: Doubles the power per meter over photo-voltaic. Produces much heat pollution (about the same as normal steam power). Requires small amounts of light oil and stone to mix with a large amount of water to create the oil compound to work. Relative tech level: Beyond nuclear
Oil will pump into a large solar tower, and will rise quickly in heat based on the number of mirrors placed around said tower. Mirrors not fully in the area will not contribute. Trees, rocks, and cliffs in the area will reduce the efficiency. Once the oil rises to a temperature high enough it will be pumped out and converted to high temperature steam, and replaced with more oil. This steam may be stored in tanks for high capacity power storage, or sent to a steam turbine (from nuclear) for normal steam turbine power output.
Total area needed for one full steam turbine output: 21x21 area surrounding the 3x3 tower, with only one row of mirrors gone in one of the cardinal direction for water in, and steam out. One additional ring of mirrors directly adjacent to the tower also will be missing as these are too close to contribute. Comparable 3x3 area to solar panel: 115 kilowatts, 119 kilowatts if you move the turbine into the gap in the solar panels.
Some research for better molding of mirrors and robotic focusing will be available to move this up to 250% improvement over photo-voltaic by reducing the required number of mirrors needed for full output.

Please give feedback positive or negative, but at least try to be helpful. If you are willing to help me learn the API that would be greatly appreciated. I do intend to do the coding work myself though, and I'm not asking for help coding, but I will need help with graphics if I get to the point that I can implement this.

[eradicator]

Hi. I'm the evil guy that jumps at new modders, telling them how impossible their idea is :P. (Mostly because i want to see them do it anyway, but that doesn't seem to happen often...).

So. Didn't read the whole post, assuming the title says enough. The problem with any kind of fluid simulation in factorio is that it is...slow. People (==Megafactory people) don't build solar because it's so easy to build (ok, that too, but not just that), but because it has no performance cost regardless of how large you build it. No fluid solution can ever achieve that. Thermal Solar could still be feasible enough for small to medium factorioes though if you're into that.

3) This power is not without cost, while there is no chemical emissions to be had, there is heat pollutions.

From a gameplay perspective sure. From a physical perspective...hihi. Solar Arrays don't produce heat :P.

This would be my first mod for Factorio. I am familiar with working in Java, and do so as an intern at my workplace, but I hear that the documentation for modding is not very user friendly.

The API documentation (the scripting part) of factorio is quite good infact. But the data phase (before starting the game) is not officially documented, and the wiki only has some parts. But. Lucky for you, your work will involve a lot of scripting, and not much data. Because...you'll basically have to implement and optimize all of the time-of-day based heating logic yourself :/. I recommend leaving balancing aside and concentrate on finding a solution that feels good without having large amounts of individual heating cells (cos performance). A tower with mirrors should work well for this if the "production speed" is only updated when changing the mirror layout.

[Chthon]

3) This power is not without cost, while there is no chemical emissions to be had, there is heat pollutions.

From a gameplay perspective sure. From a physical perspective...hihi. Solar Arrays don't produce heat .

I didn't say it created heat, I said it causes heat pollution. The collected light concentrates heat into an area, that is notably warmer than the surrounding area. This would be noticeable to the biters, and cause them to target them to stop the area from being hot.

Case and point, solar ovens. They heat their contents. The large solar plants often ignite birds flying through the rays, etc.

Edit: Thank you for the links. If I have any more questions though on how to do things, I'll bring them up here. Hopefully you or someone else will respond. I'll also post results.

Second edit: To clarify the pollution levels this is what I imagine: Parabolic mirrors will attract any biters already in the chunk on an attack mission, but won't actually draw attention to the chunk otherwise. Solar collector tower will attract attention from about 2-3 chunks away, but not much farther.

[eradicator]

The collected light concentrates heat into an area, that is notably warmer than the surrounding area. This would be noticeable to the biters, and cause them to target them to stop the area from being hot.

Well. No. That area is tiny, which is the whole point. Solar power converts solar energy/heat into electrical energy, thus looking at a solar plant from the outside it should be cooler than it's surroundings, not hotter. It's called conservation of energy ;p. But for gameplay anything works.

Second edit: To clarify the pollution levels this is what I imagine: Parabolic mirrors will attract any biters already in the chunk on an attack mission, but won't actually draw attention to the chunk otherwise. Solar collector tower will attract attention from about 2-3 chunks away, but not much farther.

Either you're talking about custom scriped biter interaction there....or about pollutions levels that are so miniscule they'd never have an impact on a real factory. In any case you should concentrate on getting the actual power aspect working, and worry about balancing later :P Looking forwards to see the result.