[0.5.3] strange boiler/steam engine behaviour

[LoSboccacc]

how is the water flow supposed to work?

I am making chains of 4 boiler / 3 steam engines

when there is one of such unit, everything gets to 100%

when I chain two, everything runs at 100%

when I chain three, the first one set of engines run at 50% end the second and third set (counting from where the pump is) runs at 100%

what is the relationship here? I guess it has to do with the water flow or something but if pressure is the problem it should show at the end of the chain not at the beginning. or maybe not I don' know

[n9103]

Water flow is initially related to power drain.
A rule of thumb that I follow is that 1 pump and 10 boilers will supply 8 engines up to near max capacity.
Past that point and the pressure/pump starts glitching.
I don't know if it's because there's not enough water or something, but engines at the end of the chain will read as 100 degrees, but no power output. (in which case, the temp should be below 100 in those left without water.)

Beyond that general guideline that I've stumbled across, I have no idea what's an actual ideal ratio of pumps:boilers:engines, and would love to hear from a dev on the issue.

[gr0mpel]

1 pump and 1,5 boilers per engine to a maximum of 10 engines (and therefore 15 boilers) per pump in a row.

what i build: 3 pumps 39 boilers 26 engines

[ssilk]

This theme was already discussed some times. Just search for "boiler" or "steam engine" and you will find the discussions.

[n9103]

There is no Dev-provided answer, therefore it's just speculation as I've done.

Decided to spend a good hour in sandbox messing with all of this and came up with some conclusions: (power draining with radars is particularly effective btw.)

Seems my answer was off, and indeed, the 1.5:1 ratio will work up to 10 engines in a straight line from one pump. (my 10:8 wouldn't reach peak output.)
Additional engines will either not be supplied, or will take water supply from other engines.
Non-linear layouts that aren't branches can result in minor power fluctuations, particularly if you use an extra engine. (i.e. using a branch layout that reconnects.)

However, there is a reserve of water pressure in the pipes of a non-linear setup that can supply extra engines for a very limited time. (I used a 10 pump front with a back end manifold, and could run 2 extra engines for a bit less than a minute.)
Things like this don't fit in the stated ratios, nor do additional pumps, or non-symmetrically balanced layouts; All of which result in deviations from the ratio.
Water mechanics is still a fuzzy issue from the player-side of things.

[n9103]

But to address the OP's initial question, there's two problems at work:
1) You're not using quite enough boilers per engine, you'd need an extra boiler in the first and every other set.
2) setting up all your boilers at the beginning next to the pump is more efficient, both with belts and power poles.

[ssilk]

Maybe this is also a good tip: when using pipes you can clearly see the flow in it and the color shows the heat. I begun to put always on or more pice of pipe in every level to have a better view, of whats currently going on. To find a bug in my layout, I also connected every steam engine at every "level" (directly after the pump, after the boilers and at the end) and surprisingly, even after founding my bug, there was a visible flow between the lines, sometimes in one direction, sometimes the other. So as conclusion: use pipes to see what happens in them! This information helps to see the lacks of pressure and help to debug any steam-engine layout...

[SilverWarior]

To find a bug in my layout, I also connected every steam engine at every "level" (directly after the pump, after the boilers and at the end) and surprisingly, even after founding my bug, there was a visible flow between the lines, sometimes in one direction, sometimes the other. So as conclusion: use pipes to see what happens in them! This information helps to see the lacks of pressure and help to debug any steam-engine layout...

General advice is to avoid creating cricled pipe designs. The reason for this is that such designs thend to cause eratic water flow at part of the pipe circle furthest away from the pumps. This happens becouse steam engines water consumtion may fluctuate and therefore cause different presure variation in different parts of pipe circle. This in the ends causes water on the furthers part of the pipe circle to run back and forth and usually prevents hot water from reaching that part.

So best choice is always to use branched designs.

[kovarex]

This is not a bug.

There is actually no sense in having other setup than first all boilers and then all steam engines, because the steam engine doesn't cool the water, it just takes part of the hot water and uses it to create electricity.

The reality is ofcourse different (engines actually make water cooler and, you need cooling towers etc).

But in Factorio, to keep things not too complicated, we have simplified model.
We might change that in the future, at least for some more powerful energy generation this could be required. But we would need some pumps that have input/output pipe and tweaks in the liquid moving mechanics.

In your case, when you have one unit, 4 boilers are enough to heat the water income that 3 steam engines consume, but with two units, the water flow is doubled, so the first set of 3 boilers can't warm it enough, so the first unit of steam engines is not working on full power.