Factorio Forums

Hi all I need help i can't seem to get thermal solar running right and also how do the molten salt heat accumulaters work cause every time i place them I loose all heat and steam production.
Running normal solar with no fuel burning back up is hard work.

[Koub] Moved to Gameplay help.
btw : is it vanilla, or modded ?

Using bigs bags mod

I don't see how you achieve thermal solar and molten salts with vanilla.

I never said it was vanilla.
Thermal solar ain't in a vanilla game.
So your posting for no reason

If you want help on a modded game :
1) list your mods.
2) post your save.
3) If you have custom mods (not the mod portal version) post them too.

And when I asked if your game was modded or vanilla, you just answered :

RabbitKiller wrote: Wed Feb 20, 2019 1:57 pm Using bigs bags mod

If you want help, just make the effort getting it.

Just a friendly reminder that there's a LOT of mods for factorio and random strangers on the internet won't automatically know what mods you're using.

Did you manage to make the thermal solar function properly ?

The molten salt accumulators are deceptively huge in capacity, especially when you place the >MK1, what it does is that when you place one, it will steall all heat accumulated in the network for himself to try and reach the average temperature. As if you place like 9 new cold reactors near the first 1 that is hot already. It can take a week or 2 like 7 ingame days, for the accumulator to reach a temperature >500°( or needed one it's a example figure. ) even during the night. if your setup prodce slightly more heat than it consume, the first day you reach 500° you will produce a little power, but it might be cut during the night, if it goes from 495° to 505° for example every day/night cycle.

From memory I had around 14 pannel per heat exchanger, and 1 accumulator per 10 exchanger as an order of magnitude. +/- 150 pannels mixed mk1/mk2 and 10 heat exchanger mk1 It would take maybe 3/4 days to heat 1 single molten salt accumulator to the desired temperature ( which is lower than 500° for the mk1 if i remember correctly).

What i would do for easier use is that i would place 2 or 3 accumulators on a new setup, knowing that it would take 2 hours before it is at 999° or so, and i would only add one other acculumators after the temperature is 999° on at least 2 accu, so that when i had the 3rd one, the temperature is still enough to produce power.