hydrogen fuel rods for power generation

[yes]

do you think the extra 10MJ we got with yesterdays patch make them viable as fuel source for factory power generation (for mecha its clearly superior due to the faster charge rate)? or is it simply not worth the hassle of setting up the production.

the Ti production to supply one plant* consumes something in the range of 130kW - depending on inserter and assembler level (i took mk2s) - plus 0.1Ti ore/s.
as return you get about 20% less H2 usage or 25% increased burn time (depending how you want to look at it) - which in turn actually makes it about 200kW cheaper assuming you get your hydrogen from xray cracking - and ofc a way higher energy density per stack (1.5GJ vs 160MJ) meaning if you consider shipping the stuff in quantities its the better option (but thats nothing new).

sources:
just Ti
https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwFwTkKwkAAQNHbTDGFTOJygB9QG5dCydIIiViYIGJQjMU.u-89p5hmabkI7TbcsgthTDGLK8llLjvZy0nOUkoltTTSyV16GeQhLxkt1hYbDx4traxtbO282vv26-QvfPI.6-4ntQ__
total fuel rods
https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwFwTkOgkAAQNHbTDGFGXA5wLfQxqWQsDQmaCzEGAPRCMU.O-99xpgWab0K7T48sithSDGLG8llKQc5ykUKKaWSWhp5SicveUsvg9udJ8-WVtY2tt682.n17-gUfvkMDugliw__
total just hydrogen
https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwFwbkOgkAAANG.2WILA2zUfiy08Sg0HI0JGgshxEgkaDHf7nuvOWaLlNbL0O7CI78SxizmcSWFJNnLQc5ykVIqqaWRp3TSyyBvGd1sPXqytLK2sfXm3c6Ps19.YSr-JmQlww__
energy values
https://dsp-wiki.com/Energy_Sources

*ofc assuming full load, but it doesnt really matter

[Bobucles]

Hydrogen fuel shows up at a tricky point in the game. It needs hydrogen, which is initially available only on the starter world, and titanium, which only exists outside the starter world. So hydrogen fuel can't be automated until interstellar trade is set up. I mean, you can still manually fly the titanium ingredients and completed fuel on your own.

Let's say you really want to be a fuel delivery service. 6 rows of inventory space will hold 1800 hydrogen rod fuel, worth 90GJ. An early game, modestly developed second planet burns somewhere around 100MW. It will eat all the fuel in 15 minutes. More advanced planets will eat it even faster. QoL tip: Don't become a fuel delivery service. Set up renewable power!

So basically the tech unlocks, but the campaign setup makes using hydrogen power as a planet fuel unfeasible. Then you unlock deuterium at yellow tier, which blows hydrogen fuel out of the water (hehe). Of course, deuterium is not a trivial setup like hydrogen/gas collector is.

Interstellar logistic towers are yellow tier. Gas Giant Hydrogen collectors are yellow tier. By the time you can set up the trade routes, there is no real reason to be using Xray hydrogen any more. An Ice giant renders both Xray outputs redundant, doubly obsoleting the process.

[Nasabot]

Simple answer: No
Because Hydrogen is infinite, while titanium is not.

For me the hydrogen fuel rod balance change was a bad sign.

[1045278974]

Bobucles eredeti hozzászólása:

Hydrogen fuel shows up at a tricky point in the game. It needs hydrogen, which is initially available only on the starter world, and titanium, which only exists outside the starter world. So hydrogen fuel can't be automated until interstellar trade is set up. I mean, you can still manually fly the titanium ingredients and completed fuel on your own.

Let's say you really want to be a fuel delivery service. 6 rows of inventory space will hold 1800 hydrogen rod fuel, worth 90GJ. An early game, modestly developed second planet burns somewhere around 100MW. It will eat all the fuel in 15 minutes. More advanced planets will eat it even faster. QoL tip: Don't become a fuel delivery service. Set up renewable power!

So basically the tech unlocks, but the campaign setup makes using hydrogen power as a planet fuel unfeasible. Then you unlock deuterium at yellow tier, which blows hydrogen fuel out of the water (hehe). Of course, deuterium is not a trivial setup like hydrogen/gas collector is.

Interstellar logistic towers are yellow tier. Gas Giant Hydrogen collectors are yellow tier. By the time you can set up the trade routes, there is no real reason to be using Xray hydrogen any more. An Ice giant renders both Xray outputs redundant, doubly obsoleting the process.

I do want to point out that deuterium fuel rods are much harder to make(cost 1 super magnetic ring + 1 ti alloy). Before you unlock space warp and find supply for sulfuric acid, ti alloy is pretty difficult to produce is mass quantity.

[yes]

Bobucles eredeti hozzászólása:

stuff about how it gets outresearched quickly

while not wrong, you still can use ealier tech, there are a lot of people that keep using thermal power plants burning hydrogen. it usually is from gas giants, true, so the savings in energy are just savings in H2 since orbital collectors pay for themselfs, but you still use 20% less H2 for an amount of Ti which is "about nothing".

Nasabot eredeti hozzászólása:

Because Hydrogen is infinite, while titanium is not.

it is infinite for all practical purposes, also its very little Ti, even if it would be finite, its miniscule in the big picture.

Nasabot eredeti hozzászólása:

For me the hydrogen fuel rod balance change was a bad sign.

please explain how changing a single value is a some sort of sign in the first place? need some tinfoil?

edit: please consider i just play devils advocate here. im not advocating for it to be the next big ♥♥♥♥, im still undecided wheter id use it myself or not. just wanted to hear other opinions.

[sinoplez]

I think it confirm the interest of the hydrogen rod for Icarus Core generator. It's really a nice upgrade from graphite and the titanium cost is acceptable for this purpose (either if it is imported manually).

For the power factory, I don't think it add anything. Most player burn hydrogen as an overflow product, adding some MJ with the rod is counter-productive in this case and the titanium supply is really an issue in this case !

[Bobucles]

there are a lot of people that keep using thermal power plants burning hydrogen

Thermal hydrogen is more important for balancing hydrogen supply/demand. The energy production is very underwhelming when oil/Xray hydrogen is involved and is not really worth the effort. When gas giant hydrogen enters the picture, hydrogen burners can be a respectable band aid for base design. Nothing spectacular, but it has its time and place.

Hydrogen rod and Deuterium fuel are at flaky positions in the tech tree. Hydrogen rod fuel is flaky because the unlock happens way earlier than a viable base setup is possible. Deuterium fuel is indeed a very involved setup and I haven't seen the math behind it yet. From winging it, the deuterium cost (particle accelerator) is 120MJ, the hydrogen fuel value is 160MJ, and the other processing steps total around 20MJ-30MJ. The overall energy value roughly doubles, and gets vastly better with fractionators. But why not skip directly to dyson power? That's the name of the game, after all.

The mid level fuels are very well suited as Icarus upgrades. The amount of effort required for each upgrade has a good payoff, thanks to the exponential storage capacity of fuel. A generator full of Graphite is 2.5GJ, Hydrogen Rod 6GJ, deuteron 48GJ, and antimatter 600GJ. Each step up is worth taking for that alone.

[yes]

hydrogen rods always have been an upgrade for icarus, both due the higher energy content per stack and the higher conversion rate, thats nothing new - they just got better by 25%.
that never was part of the question though.

the numbers for deutron fuel rods are a bit more tricky since they heavily depend on where you get the D2 and the sulfuric acid from (plus the calculator fails for using h2 from ice giants for fractionating but oil for acid, but D2 production is the biggest energy sink here anyway, acid from oil only costs something like 260kW per plant)

worst case: everything produced from oil and generating D2 with colliders (over 40% lost to production)
https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwFwTEOgjAAhtHbdOhAWoge4GeQBXWQQFlMimGgxhAIBhy-s.veHKzLnD-ZWJnRP2VWZ709owLV6IoeqEEt6lBAPZpQQm.0QQtaKS.cuNPSEYgMvEhs7Bz8zDf.A1rNI54_
best case: D2 directly mined from gas giant and using sulfuric acid oceans (the loss is well below 5%)
https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwFwTsKwkAAQMHbbLGF7Eb0AC-gNn4KJdk0QiIWRkQMiFq8szvzLDHNUl6EfhOu-UyYUsxxKZXMZSs7OcpJGmmlSCeD3GSUuzzkJZP1ynrt3oONrcXO3sGLox-..sK7-gONHiaf

edit: also all these numbers only are valid per plant and with a 100% load - if its less, its less by that amount.

[Urban Shaman]

I've never considered them for anything but a stepping stone in powering up the mech when you're starting to explore other planets (much easier flying with them vs those coal rods). Once I got nuclear I stopped using them entirely and only keep a small supply for sentimental value, I guess.

[yes]

until yesterday they had no advantage - or actually a disadvantage since you need one extra titanium ingot - over burning just the hydrogen as the fuel value was exactly the same (considering 1 fuel rod takes 5 hydrogen for production) - yesterday it got a 25% increase from 40 to 50, thats the sole reason why i thought it might be interesting to talk about it.

in general i think coal is be the best fuel for thermal plants early on as long as you cannot orbital mine h2, because it barely has any investment (a miner, thats it). if you have orbital collectors h2 becomes the best because its energy content is superior (or now it might be hydrogen rods if you have access to titanium).
but ofc there always is the question of why use thermal plants in the first place - the answer usually is to get rid of excess hydrogen (something you should not have produced in the first place, but different story), which is true, but you can just throw a bit of Ti into the mix and get a 25% extra for barely any additional cost.
ofc in lategame on big ass prodction planets those miniscule amounts of power mean nothing anyway, you are better helped by other means.

[sinoplez]

But when you just want to get rid of an excess, you don't want the fuel to last longer and certainly not with adding the price of titanium in the process.

Once you have logistic, I think you move directly to deuterium rod and nuclear power plant.

Hydrogen rod is definitively only an Icarus upgrade, this patch won't change my mind on this.

[yes]

sinoplez eredeti hozzászólása:

But when you just want to get rid of an excess, you don't want the fuel to last longer ...

cant argue against that i guess ^^

i think i will try it once there is a sufficiently large content update to make me start new. i do think it might not be as bad actually, but its probably also dependent on my starting world, if its a gas giant it sure isnt a good option, if its an ice giant, ill def try it. even tho fractionators are cheaper than colliders, they arent free and a decent amount of D2 takes quite some power and has better uses (read strange matter for lenses) than to just burn it.

[Sagi]

It would be a big changer if we could recycle the fuel rods.
However then the accumulator and energy transmittor would be out of a job...

But if we could recycle hydrogen deuterium and antimatter fuel rods i would definitly use them alot more!
Now i only set up minimal production for fuels to fuel my mech.
(apart from deuterium rods who are obviously needed for dyson sphere components)

[Sekzon]

I don't like using oil hence I don't use hydrogen fuel rod. I think they are good early game to get rid of the hydrogen because they are quite quick to burn through your mech and can swallow a lot hydrogen for production.

it just sucks because you always have sideproducts when you dont need them. like when the demand for graphene and those tubes rise eventually you switch to fireice which produces a ton of hydrogen too but at that point I dont really have a need for hyd fuel rods anymore and eventually you need to buff up deuterium too because strange matter and deuterium rods.

tl;dr: my first 2 playthroughs I did not even once craft hydrogen rods. now I use them early game to get rid of excess hydrogen.

[Sagi]

Sekzon eredeti hozzászólása:

I don't like using oil hence I don't use hydrogen fuel rod. I think they are good early game to get rid of the hydrogen because they are quite quick to burn through your mech and can swallow a lot hydrogen for production.

it just sucks because you always have sideproducts when you dont need them. like when the demand for graphene and those tubes rise eventually you switch to fireice which produces a ton of hydrogen too but at that point I dont really have a need for hyd fuel rods anymore and eventually you need to buff up deuterium too because strange matter and deuterium rods.

tl;dr: my first 2 playthroughs I did not even once craft hydrogen rods. now I use them early game to get rid of excess hydrogen.

Burn the excess fuel and byproducts when you have excess.
All those products are consumed by thermal power stations so it is very easy to setup a good logistic design for this.

[Chicken Gamer]

I don't product it in the second game.