Tips, Designs, & Tricks

[MisterSpock]

Compact and clear all-science + important equipment like robotframes, repairkit etc.

Edit:

ScienceStuff

[Nova]

If possible don't upload pictures in the BMP format. It's only useful for very special purposes. On the internet, better use PNG or (if the file really has to be small) JPG.

[MisterSpock]

If possible don't upload pictures in the BMP format. It's only useful for very special purposes. On the internet, better use PNG or (if the file really has to be small) JPG.

Ah ok, dont know that.^^ Edited!

[wbykos]

Compact Green and Red Science Production by wbykos [update]

I've changed resource usage priority. So now, wheel factories cant take away all iron plates.

click to show images

1.jpg (215.71 KiB) Viewed 8552 times

[Skellitor301]

Updated:

• Updated Wbykos' Red and Green science module
• Updated contribution parameters

[Bart]

Compact Green and Red Science Production by wbykos [update]

I've changed resource usage priority. So now, wheel factories cant take away all iron plates.

click to show images

1.jpg

How does the upper red science lab get his copper plates?

[Skellitor301]

Compact Green and Red Science Production by wbykos [update]

I've changed resource usage priority. So now, wheel factories cant take away all iron plates.

click to show images

1.jpg

How does the upper red science lab get his copper plates?

oh wow, I didnt even see that till now. But following the pattern I figured the gear belt should be up by one horizontally so the iron and copper plate line can drop off the supply of copper for the top assembler gets it's plates. Fix should be uploaded soon

[Patric20878]

In response to seeing the "Compact Power Plant" steam engine setup, I designed one even more compact than that. Arranging them in triple rows allows me to use one electric pole to power like 6 steam engines, which really reduces on the amount of pipes and poles i need between them. Also with the extra space compared to the design on first page, can put in 4 tanks to store water in where the space is unoccupied, or alternatively just have it arranged in triple rows of 10-9-10 steam engines too. Ignore the oil tanks above it, that isn't part of the setup heh. Can retake the pic also if you need it on the original post.

http://i.imgur.com/Khm5OYG.jpg

[Skellitor301]

In response to seeing the "Compact Power Plant" steam engine setup, I designed one even more compact than that. Arranging them in triple rows allows me to use one electric pole to power like 6 steam engines, which really reduces on the amount of pipes and poles i need between them. Also with the extra space compared to the design on first page, can put in 4 tanks to store water in where the space is unoccupied, or alternatively just have it arranged in triple rows of 10-9-10 steam engines too. Ignore the oil tanks above it, that isn't part of the setup heh. Can retake the pic also if you need it on the original post.

http://i.imgur.com/Khm5OYG.jpg

One of the steam engine lines aren't connected btw, second up from the bottom. </nitpicking>

I like the more efficient placement in the power poles, nice job with that. As for the spacing at the end with the tanks I'd leave those out since the engines rely on hot water and by the time the water gets there it's already cooled a bit. I can see it be useful if you have the water at the end loop back and connect to the mainline using a pump to make it a one way valve. just be sure to keep the pump powered possibly with a solar panel as a just in case

[Patric20878]

One of the steam engine lines aren't connected btw, second up from the bottom. </nitpicking>

I like the more efficient placement in the power poles, nice job with that. As for the spacing at the end with the tanks I'd leave those out since the engines rely on hot water and by the time the water gets there it's already cooled a bit. I can see it be useful if you have the water at the end loop back and connect to the mainline using a pump to make it a one way valve. just be sure to keep the pump powered possibly with a solar panel as a just in case

Thanks, and appreciate the feedback. But eh, the second one up from bottom is connected. If you're talking about that space in between, there was an underground pipe before that which links over that space, same as the second one down from top. Might be hard to see, sorry. And actually, I don't remember why I even had underground pipes linking before the tanks. I think it's because I took off two from top and bottom or something for level 4 so I could have some driving space, but they don't need to be there as the storage tanks already can transfer water easily between the rows. So disregard the underground pipes column between the steam engines and storage tanks, none of that needs to be there.

And also, the water stays perfectly hot at the end also. Even after I was having like 100 laser turrets fire near constantly while tower pushing the enemy bases in level 4, the water was hot in the end. The water doesn't actually cool by the time it reaches the storage tanks from the boilers - I recall that the very reason steam engine setups are limited to 14/10/1 instead of like 28/20/2 or something is thanks to water throughput in pipes or something related, not because the water itself cools, so it's just a matter of if there's enough hot water around to be stored really. And storing some extra hot water as buffer is a good precaution.

And far as if boilers do run out of coal, the storage tank acts like a partial buffer to the major water cooldown fed from unboiled water. If the boilers are still connected when coal runs out, they would feed cold water into the steam engines and cool down the left side drastically. But with the storage tanks, the hot water from there also feeds hot water into the right side, since it does work with pressure instead of set direction. In fact, the quickest way to then reheat up all steam engines very quickly in emergencies is to just disconnect all boilers (and their cold water), allowing the storage tanks to take over completely for as long as it lasts.

I was curious to know why you thought the water cools though, so I played around and found that indeed, simply attaching a storage tank at the end of a row of 10 engines drastically cools down all steam engines temporarily, which in turn also ends up feeding the storage tank with a bunch of lukewarm water. And then when it's filled, it's only 75 degrees or so, so I see now why you are against the storage tank idea. For whatever reason though, when I setup the 4 storage tanks to all connect with each other and 30 steam engines though, doesn't cool the water nearly as much when it's filling, and in fact heats up gradually. That I don't fully understand actually, but it works. And I can have 50 beacons consuming power to mass exceed the power generation of one triple row of steam engines with their own power grid, doesn't change a thing - the water is always 100 degrees in the steam engines, and at least 97 in the storage tanks. Accidentally and unknowingly overcame the cooling issue I guess.

[Skellitor301]

I was curious to know why you thought the water cools though, so I played around and found that indeed, simply attaching a storage tank at the end of a row of 10 engines drastically cools down all steam engines temporarily, which in turn also ends up feeding the storage tank with a bunch of lukewarm water. And then when it's filled, it's only 75 degrees or so, so I see now why you are against the storage tank idea. For whatever reason though, when I setup the 4 storage tanks to all connect with each other and 30 steam engines though, doesn't cool the water nearly as much when it's filling, and in fact heats up gradually. That I don't fully understand actually, but it works. And I can have 50 beacons consuming power to mass exceed the power generation of one triple row of steam engines with their own power grid, doesn't change a thing - the water is always 100 degrees in the steam engines, and at least 97 in the storage tanks. Accidentally and unknowingly overcame the cooling issue I guess.

Interesting, That gives me an idea that would give those tanks somewhat of a purpose incase of a coal shortage. Lemme set up a build and I'll test the theory and if it holds we may have a great steam engine set up with back up heated water in a coal shortage

[Patric20878]

Yeah, you can just copy the picture basically. I thought the water tank battery thing was already known though, since the whole reason I even considered tanks after steam engines is because I read it on the wiki, at https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... _hot_water. Or are you saying that the storage tanks thing is known, but so is the associated cooling down of it? Anyways, take note that in order for the tanks to not drop temperature so much that it's full of water before it can get filled with hotter water, you should place the 4 tanks quickly. Haven't tested any specific time range for it to work, but I know that if I place all 4 in under 2 seconds or so, all tanks will heat to 97-99. The longer you take to place all 4, the less time the tanks have to get heated. And actually, with more testing, I think I'm starting to understand how this works.

Placing multiple storage tanks together in that setup significantly slows down the rate at which they get filled by water. That results in much lower water cooling rate, like instead of dropping to 74 degrees before slowly heating up, it drops to 87ish, then can heat up to like 97-99 degrees by the time it's full. With a slower rate of filling, the boilers also logically have more time to heat up the same amount of water before it goes in the tanks. And then of course, with the extra time it takes to fill, the tanks have more time for hot water to be filled in, and that mixing with the slightly cooler water in the tank would explain why it heats up slower the hotter the storage tanks' water is, and so never quite reaches 100 degrees in the tanks. Simply what happens when you average a lower and higher number, the result is the middle.

But yeah, it isn't hard at all to place 4 tanks in two seconds, and I can consistently set it up so all tanks are always at least 97 degrees. Easily reproducible setup, looks very viable to me.

[Skellitor301]

One thing that I wanted to add to the design was to add pumps right after the boilers. That way if there is a coal shortage the tanks can provide heated water going backwards through the system. Only thing I need to really test is if this occurs, how to shut off the pumps automatically so they dont feed cold water to the engines. I'm sure there is a wired system that can solve this, like there is a logic system I saw once that was used where incase the player's solar farm failed for what ever reason and not enough power was being produced, a logic system was set in so if this happened a back up steam line would start up to power the factory till the player could fix up the issue.

I'll try to look more into it tomorrow since it's getting late when I post this. But if that system can be made that would be quite a step in player creations in the game.

[Patric20878]

Yeah, that's also the aspect I'd like to improve on, when coal does run out. Though the existing setup is good for saving even more on the resources needed to set this up.
And for the pump after boiler thing, assuming it would work by turning off if there's no coal...I should do that heh. Too bad it needs oil processing setup first before you can even make one, kinda makes it inaccessible til then. Once pumps can be made though, I can see one awesome way to do this, and I'm almost sure you don't even need ANY wire systems for this

And hum, for some reason when I test the temperature thing in a clean sandbox game instead of level 4, it always heats up to 98-100 in the tanks and only initially drops to like 92 degrees instead of 88, which is a good thing. Slight variance or is sandbox different somehow...

[DerivePi]

Regarding the storage and use of hot water:
I used a setup where the unused hot water was stored at the end of the Steam Generators with a pipe return and pump/diode to the beginning of the boilers. Initial placement had 75 degree water, but overtime the water recycled until the temp read 100. When coal ran out, the hot water would be the only source of energy in the system. More liquid storage could easily be added as desired.

[Patric20878]

And it's done! Sorry, had to do it first, Skellitor xD. Just designed the improved steam engine setup with automated emergency water supply control. No return pipes, smart inserters/chests/wires needed at all, just a clean implementation using a boiler and steam engine as a coal detector to control the valves and radar with accumulator to burn the coal faster and set it to low power priority. Posted a thread about it here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =18&t=5553

[Skellitor301]

Updated:

• Added Patric20878's more efficient compact steam layout (Sorry it took a while Pat)
• Added the low power alert
• Added a link to the Wiki page (Should've added this sooner! :S If you do add something over there, drop a post in this thread to so I'll be more likely to add the tip into the TDT bank)

[Patric20878]

No problem, glad you got around to it.

I want to add on though, the 3 pics you linked from my thread are cut off for being too large. Best use the large thumbnail versions which i linked in my thread so it doesn't. Also, the first and second pic aren't the same build - the first pic is the main setup and the 2nd/3rd pics are the expanded low alert setups. Pic 2 is the picture on how to do the build with the low alert and pic 3 is a closeup of the detector that's used to do it. Please update that, and thanks for adding my design in.

[Skellitor301]

Sure thing Pat

Updated:

• Updated Patric20878's compact steam layout and low energy warning system of a few small errors on my part
• Minor Font changes

[Skellitor301]

Updated:

• Added a close-up of the pumps in Patric20878's low power alert system, which will cut fresh water to avoid cold water from reaching your steam engines and instead use your reserve water in the tanks at the end
• Made an addition to the clearing forest tip which included construction bots

Do note to put your tips here in the forum thread so others can give input on it, and I'll get an email of the post