Idea: Steam, Diesel and Electric locomotives

[Cynimatic]

Just a thought about variations of locomotives that could be added.

Steam locomotive- Would function as trains currently do: you insert a solid fuel and the train runs off that. The crafting recipe would use steam engines and boilers instead of engine units or possibly a combination of the two.

Diesel locomotive- Would use any flammable liquid as fuel (Light and heavy oil and petrolium gas). Fuel could be loaded on using a liquid fuel loader whilst the train is stationary. They would be be crafted using the current recipe, and would have a higher speed and acceleration than steam locomotives.

Electric locomotives- Would be powered by electricity. Possibly could be charged up whilst at a station using a charger, or maybe electric poles would have to be placed over the rails to provide power, or maybe there could be something called a rail electrifier which provides electricity to the rail network from the power grid; the trains would pick up electricity from the rails. With the electric pole or rail suggestion, the locomotive would run slower if the power production is low. Electric locomotives would have a higher speed and acceleration than diesel locomotives. They would be crafted the same as diesel locomotives accept using electric engine units instead of regular units. They would be crafted with accumulators as well if they were charged at a station instead of provided power.

[ssilk]

In 0.15 there are only locomotives. No diesel-locomotive.



Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=17734 New types of vehicles (train, tank, car, plane, ship...)

[OdinYggd]

I've got a work in progress mod that implements steam locomotives. They require both fuel and water to operate, and need additional water added at regular intervals or they stop working.

There are already mods that implement electric locomotives, and even nuclear powered locomotives.

The default locomotive is styled to look like and sound like a diesel, so even if the name is being fixed for 0.15 to avoid confusion it still is a diesel-electric type.

[klonik]

Electric locomotives- Would be powered by electricity. Possibly could be charged up whilst at a station using a charger, or maybe electric poles would have to be placed over the rails to provide power, or maybe there could be something called a rail electrifier which provides electricity to the rail network from the power grid; the trains would pick up electricity from the rails. With the electric pole or rail suggestion, the locomotive would run slower if the power production is low. Electric locomotives would have a higher speed and acceleration than diesel locomotives. They would be crafted the same as diesel locomotives accept using electric engine units instead of regular units. They would be crafted with accumulators as well if they were charged at a station instead of provided power.

Use 2 or 3 Fussion Reactors, forget network electrification ...

Otherwise you would need different rails, that would require power connection every so often (substation of sorts) and that may require way too much change to game as it is


There are some issues with current tech tree for vehicles

1st Electric Engine should be on tree before Internal combustion one. there was even viable electric car before gas powered one (NY taxi at turn of century, killed by battery issues ofc). You can build working electric engine in a shed and it can be poweful and effective, technology for PermaMagnet on stator is somewhere between stone axe and alluminium smelting.

Combustion engine on other hand is very complicated to build to even work, more so to work reliably, with certain degree of effectivity (even Turbo or supercharged Internal combustion engines does not exceed 50% effectivity , while electric ones run over 75% easily). There are also some disadvantages over electric. Pretty mus only two advantages of ICE as it is cheaper building material (steel or aluminium, instead of copper, steel and iron (ferromagnet) ) and fuel density (or weight of fuel cell required to generate same output power )

Also building requirements for ICEngine should require lubricant for build or operation (much more reasonable) , you can ran electric engine on banana grease IC will seize without proper lubricant very very fast

As for IC Engine it can be powered by wood, there is thing called gasifier, takes a while to get running but it provides right gas to be used in petrol engines (hell there was tiger tank chassi powered by this for training purposes)


Diesel powered locomotives should use both ICE and Electric engine . Any commercially viable diesel locomotive uses diesel engine > electric generator > electric engine.
There are few reasons for that. It is very hard to build transmission that can handle 5kW + and thousands of Nm of torque, pull thousands tons and be any reliable. Hell they cant make proper ones for 70t tank rated at 1500Hp ....
You can give every axle its electric engine (6 smaller electric engines are more reliable and cheaper to run than one big, and if one or two fails you can still run on rest ....)

Also electric engine gives no damn about direction it is turning you either swap polarity or on 3-phase engine you swap P2 and P3, Plus electric engine generates almost all of its torque all the way through rpm range.

for robotics there could be advanced electric engine. Instead PermaMagnet on stator there is electric engine with Permamagnet on rotor. It has few advantages like no wear on carbon contacts, it can be run more efficiently, Small catch, it requires slightly complicated electronics to run it (thus giving a complicated recipe in game? )