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Edit: You'll need the opening to be about as wide as your gates on a single dam on the same river system. There is some leeway in this but you'll have to experiment to strike a good balance.
So will I get more total power by narrowing the channel and using fewer wheels?
Honestly depends on how naturally wide the stream is and the normal flow rate, so it's hard to say with 100% certainly. BUT in the vast majority of case, yes.
For example, in the example I gave earlier, I could technically fit 5 wheels into the stream. On a good day they'll give 200, on a bad day they'll give 60. I can reduce that to three wheels and consistantly get 400hp from each of them just by narrowing the stream from five wide to three wide. That's a huge difference. It's the consistency that really clinches it though.
I can't really do the experiment for you though. So there's no way to tell exactly how much you'll get until you've done it. All I can tell it is that for the vast majority of cases, narrowing the stream and using fewer wheels with a more powerful current is a noticeable improvement.
I might be able to help you more if you provide a screenshot of where you want to put the wheels and narrow the stream.
Edit: If you do provide a screenie, make sure I can see what your gate settings are as well. It'll help a lot. and don't take it during a drought -.-
This is the problem. This is really not a case of me being so lazy that I can't be bothered trying it myself. But I don't find much rhyme or reason for how much power each wheel is going to deliver at any point in time. Right now, it's 75hp. In five minutes, it might be 120hp and I don't know what changed. So if I set up an experiment and the 3-wide layout is delivering more hp than the 2-wide, is it just because that's a better layout, or is the river just running fast today?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972136325
I'd like to add more wheels toward the lower-right, below the batteries.
Sorry, what are gate settings?
Nice, you're on the same map I am on. That makes things simpler. On the other hand, I can see what the problem is. I'm surprised if you get any consistent power output at all from those wheels.
First off, the dam gates. If you don't know what the settings are then they're probably on default and they look like first tier, so you've got them set on 0.5. You've probably tweaked 'em a couple times when droughts come about to keep as much water in the streams as possible (If you really don't know I can give you a screen shot too). Actually it kinda looks like you built nothing but gates for your damns. If you click on one of them you'll see the settings pop up. You can adjust any gates that are directly next to each other as a group by adjusting one of them. That's the default, fyi.
Second, the water wheels. Honestly surprising you get 75HP from each one but that might be due to faction selection. If you put rows of wheels in front of each other like that they actually counter each other and that's probably what is causing the inconsistancy in power production in your case. At most, you want one row. You gotta remember that the water wheels actually siphon the power from the streams flow, so the more you build in one spot the less flow you're gunna get down stream of them (up until a point, and then they don't make a difference).
Third, on to your main question for the topic. IF you are consistantly getting at least 75hp from every single one of those waterwheels then you could probably get a minor gain from getting rid of some of them and narrowing the stream. Do two - three in a row instead of 5 AND space out each row of water wheels a little more.
Also, you're got the water wheels on river corners. You wanna try and find a straight section if possible. The bend itself is probably contributing to the inconsistancy in your power production. You might even see a sufficient enough boost just by finding a straight part of the stream and spreading out your rows of water wheels.
I typically get about 1500 hp from the wheels, and I have a couple of engines as well.
On the left are the dams that I installed before the first drought arrived. These are just basic dams with no settings. A little later in the game, I built the floodgates on the right edge of the screenshot. I leave these at 0.5 and when I'm just about to run out of water in my dammed area during a drought, I can open these and refill.
I make a temporary district near where the water dumps out of the map and dam the river with floodgates set at 0.5. This creates a huge permanent lake in the middle of the map.
And then once I get to a point where I can create a deep mechanical water pump, I create this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972367953
This constantly pumps water up and around making some nice farm land and ultimately the water empties into my original area, behind the dams. Once I get this set up, droughts mean nothing to me aside from the loss in water wheel power.
I don't understand why this would be. If a million gallons of water needs to pass by, the wheels aren't going to stop it. There's probably going to initially be some turbulence while the stopped wheels get turning, but once they *are* turning, the water will get past the first ones and turn the next ones.
One row? That'd be barely enough to power a single factory.
Third, on to your main question for the topic. IF you are consistantly getting at least 75hp from every single one of those waterwheels [ ... ][/quote]
I'm sorry - my bad. I just pulled a number out of the air to make a point. Some of those wheels are getting over 150
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972380233
...and others only 25
Yeah, I know that's not a great idea. This is the problem with posting screenshots. Everyone can see all of your experiments, including the failed ones.
I'll try some more experiments with straightening out the river. And thanks for all the help!
Consider the tighter your water path means its easier to choke your total flow rate at your reservoir upstream which will mean it takes longer to run it down in times of drought as well. I much prefer three fast-turning wheels in serial, every unit of water is forced to power each wheel you've got, rather then three wide where only a third of the water is influencing one wheel each.
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Don't really know what the max output on those wheels are for sure, however, 4 - 6 of those compact wheels, placed properly, will give you a pretty similar amount of power to what all of your compact wheels are currently producing together.
'bout the gates: Sounds like you have a system that works for you so I'll say no more on it except that if you moved your gate downstream a little, you'd be able to reserve a lot more water for yourself and this would render the upstream reservoir redundant because everything between the water source and that upstream damn will fit into the channel you have where your water wheels are. That probably didn't make much sense >.> i'll just show you with a screenie in a little bit <.< Dunno how to explain that one well. Very wordy for a guy that said I'd say no more on it <.< I'm like a chatty old man now T.T
The million Gallons thing: It's because you're applying real world physics to the game, which does do well to mimic but doesn't really work the same way. Water wheels siphon the power out of the water to power other things so the waters current loses some of that energy as it pushies on through the water wheels. The water has to then rebuild that flow speed back up as it continues down the river.
The game represents that by showing you the flow intensity and direction on the surface (basically it's showing you water turbulance on a 2d level). You'll notice some spots are flowing quickly, the rest, not so much. It's probably most noticeable around your water pumps (for drinking water), especially if they're clustered in groups of two or three +. That's why having so many water wheels so close together is actually counter productive. Bumpinthenights scheme probably works by taking advantage of these mechanics. If he'd post a screenie, that might just give you what you need to get your power flow sorted >: ]
You're probably getting some wheels that give you really low outputs and occassionally high outputs from others. It's because they're all feeding and choking each other with the water turbulance they generate.
Your idea to place them further up stream is a really good idea. If you got rid of the dam you have, place it further down stream (I'm talking about the down stream dam, the first one you built) and then moved the drinking water pumps further down to, that would also make a really good spot for a second row of water wheels, if you need it. You MIGHT even be able to get away with 6 wheels in total, while still maxing out their power generation capacity in those areas.
You've got 23 water wheels there. If you're getting an average of 1,500 from them then 75hp isn't far off from the average mark for each wheel. You had the right idea, just wrong implementation. Just remember too much of a a good thing is bad :D
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Like I said before, you've got 23 wheels, generating 1,500hp, but you could very likely achieve the same amount of power using only a quarter as many wheels. That's the summary TLDR version.
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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972604260
Creating the damn further down stream allows for a much greater reservoir capacity.
I intentionally didn't connect any of this to my main power grid so that I could see what the total power production was.
I tried making one row of 3 wheels. Each wheel delivered ~95 hp with a total of 285 hp. There is always a little bit of fluctuation, so these numbers are averages of what I saw after watching for a minute or two.
I built a second row of 3 next to it and the total power was 550 hp
3 rows: 825
4 rows: 1110
5 rows: 1400
6 rows (18 wheels): 1650
At this point, with all of the wheels affecting the water flow, the fluctuation was fairly high and the total power oscillated between 1580-1710.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972671537
In the right direction but not there yet. I'll have to show ya what I mean once I get around to making some wheels on my map. Might be a week or two though.
I don't see how one row is going to do much at all. I've got six rows and I'm getting six times as much power as one row.
You can make water faster by reducing the overall width of your waterway.
You may have plenty of flowing water but if your wheels are only moving 70% of their capacity then your water isn't flowing fast enough, place a levee near them to increase the water flow rate.
Dual high flow rate single width double depth channels can outproduce a 6 wide channel that is only fed by 4 water producer blocks. Because they're using the full flow rate of those 4 producer blocks unlike the 6 wide channel that is only using 4/6th (2/3rd) of the flow rate.
You can also creatively place levees in front between waterwheels to increase flow rate or direct flow to low producing wheels (like on corners).
Additionally, you can exploit the water simulation by placing levees/dams behind waterwheels to force the water to turn creating a vortex that keeps the wheels moving all the time, even in droughts.