Planned: Fuel values on fluids and Hydrogen balance. Give opinions.

[bobingabout]

I had no idea that crude oil had a commented out fuel value in the game files.
the 3.8MJ is after the x10 balance. if you actually look at real values, it's 38MJ per... whatever the value is, I forgot. comparing values of other objects in the game, I decided that the old fluid values would have made it pretty well balanced to reality, so if you x10 the fluids, you need to /10 the fuel values, so it became 3.8MJ.
Yes, I did quite some heavy research.

I guess it is possible to add a fuel value to crude oil, but a better solution would be if the game told you fuel values of fluids, like it does with items, then you'd be able to see what fluids were usable as fuels.

[Light]

I guess it is possible to add a fuel value to crude oil, but a better solution would be if the game told you fuel values of fluids, like it does with items, then you'd be able to see what fluids were usable as fuels.

Just thinking aloud here, but flamethrowers display the fuels they accept alongside a percentage to the base damage value.

Is it possible in theory to create generators of differing power values (2MW, 5MW, 10MW) and then having the fuels each generator accepts relative to their power creation with percentages for fine tuning these values? It would be ugly as sin, but the thought crossed my mind.

I'm hoping that burning fuels is something Klonan will look into further supporting though. It would be a lot nicer if we could burn excess fuel for power than voiding it, especially where Angel's petrochemical mod is concerned. The limited selection and not knowing the fuel values is certainly a road block for those unfamiliar with the generators.

[bobingabout]

I guess it is possible to add a fuel value to crude oil, but a better solution would be if the game told you fuel values of fluids, like it does with items, then you'd be able to see what fluids were usable as fuels.

Just thinking aloud here, but flamethrowers display the fuels they accept alongside a percentage to the base damage value.

Is it possible in theory to create generators of differing power values (2MW, 5MW, 10MW) and then having the fuels each generator accepts relative to their power creation with percentages for fine tuning these values? It would be ugly as sin, but the thought crossed my mind.

I'm hoping that burning fuels is something Klonan will look into further supporting though. It would be a lot nicer if we could burn excess fuel for power than voiding it, especially where Angel's petrochemical mod is concerned. The limited selection and not knowing the fuel values is certainly a road block for those unfamiliar with the generators.

Flamethrower turrets have the fuels they use defined on the turret itself, so it's fairly easy for the internals to just say "Accepts these fuels".
Unless the generator has a specific filter set on it's fluid box, there's no similar thing for them, since they fuel value is defined on the fluid, and you'd have to check every possible fluid to see if it has a fuel value set.

I have been speaking with Klonan and Rseding about burning fluids as fuels. Klonan mentioned just how different fluids are internally to items, Items have their own information popup, Fluids do not, they're only referenced when something such as a recipe or fluid box wants to display their icon.

[imcute]

That reminds me of oxygen not included. I did make the an Electrolysis setup to vent oxygen and burn hydrogen to make power, but then when I ran the numbers realised that you don't get enough power back from the hydrogen even to power the electrolysers, it's just a bit of bonus power returned while destroying the otherwise useless hydrogen, in a process to produce oxygen for your replicants to breath.

The easy solution is to just make hydrogen not have a fuel value. I mean, you can still use it to make fuel blocks out of coal, or mix with Nitrogen to produce Hydrazine (through a chain where you make Ammonia and hydrogen peroxide first, which requires some oxygen.)

And then I did a rant thing

Actually, that whole Nitrogen/Oxygen production system is a one of the things that bugs me, but not as much as the Hydrogen, Chlorine and Sodium hydroxide recipe. Considering both come from the same recipe from free to obtain air, in theory you could just pull Nitrogen, or Oxygen straight from the air... however, whilst this may be okay to do for just Nitrogen, it kind of defeats the purpose of going through all that Electrolysis to produce the Oxygen to get the Hydrogen by-product.

Take that Hydrazine loop for example. 2x(5 Nitrogen + 12 Hydrogen -> 10 Ammonia.) 10 Oxygen + 8 Hydrogen -> 10 Hydrogen Peroxide. 2x(10 Ammonia + 5 Hydrogen Peroxide -> 4 Hydrazine + 2 Water.)
0.4x of an Electrolyse cycle on the 4 water = 4x water -> 8 Hydrogen + 10 Oxygen.

Total in = 10 Nitrogen, 32 Hydrogen, 10 Oxygen.
Total out = 8 Hydrazine, 8 Hydrogen, 10 Oxygen.
Total change = 10 Nitrogen + 24 Hydrogen -> 8 Hydrazine.

The Oxygen in this cycle can be considered to be a closed loop, but you also need to put Hydrogen and Nitrogen to make the Hydrazine, both of which have Oxygen as a by-product.

One Nitrogen factory gives 20 nitrogen and 5 oxygen. that's also twice as much nitrogen as you need for this process, so, we need half a nitrogen factory per everything else so far.
one Electrolyser gives 20 Hydrogen and 12.5 Oxygen, so we need 1.2 Electrolysers for this.
All these recipes have a speed of 1, so if you're using MK4 factories, the all have a speed of 3.5, so everything is in a 1:1 ratio.
Nearest whole numbers puts 6 electrolysers for 5 cycles, and 1 nitrogen plant for 2 cycles, which means for perfect 100% performance, you need 12 Electrolysers and 5 Nitrogen plants to supply 20 Ammonia plants, 10 Hydrogen Peroxide plants and 20 Hydrazine plants. This gives a total of 175 Oxygen as an output per cycle, or assuming all the MK4s, 612.5 Oxygen per second, to produce 80 Hydrazine per cycle, or 280 Hydrazine per second.

That's just the smallest with a 100% activity on all factories.


So, instead of having an issue where you want to dispose of Hydrogen from your oxygen factory, you instead end up with excess Oxygen from your Hydrazine factory, which can be used to smelt your lead... which gives Sulfur Dioxide as a by-product, which can be used to make Sulfuric acid to use to make your batteries....

Also, one of the reasons why I love this cycle... Bots vs belts? well, doesn't matter, this entire process uses only fluids, and therefore, only pipes!

Needless to say, whatever route I take, testing will be required. The implementation of this might be so laughably low due to the low fuel value of hydrogen, or even Hydrazine compared to Petroleum gas, that it wouldn't be worth all the trouble. The burning entity can have a power output limit and a fluid flow limit, meaning that Hydrogen could be producing only 10% of the power per entity than something with a higher fuel value.

offtopic but if you ever try to use some high pressure hydrogen setup and some steam engines(those which use steam and condense them for power) you will actually make more power than to electrolyse.
same on steel smelters

ps:its a duplicant not a replicator