Boiler Effeciency?

[Scribe of Alara]

Yeah, I can't spell, but how does boiler efficiency work? it seems that simply adding a bunch of boilers gives you more, and you still only burn the same amount of materials. If this is so, then rediculously efficient angens can be created, burning .1 materials and creating thousands of Power.
Please correct me if I am wrong, I just want to understand the game.

[FourGreenFields]

Any chance you're only testing for small boilers (small volume that is, not the "small boilers")? Might be that it's burning more material, but not showing because it's like 0.05 vs 0.14

[hellatze]

Originally posted by PositiveAnion:

Yeah, I can't spell, but how does boiler efficiency work? it seems that simply adding a bunch of boilers gives you more, and you still only burn the same amount of materials. If this is so, then rediculously efficient angens can be created, burning .1 materials and creating thousands of Power.
Please correct me if I am wrong, I just want to understand the game.

there are visual guide in game.

[Chris]

With two big boiler parts (working at 10%) and six small pistons I create 1000 energy per material and second. Biger boilers are even more efficient. I do not know the conversion rate for material -> fuel, so I cannot really compare the results with fuel engines.

[J-Curwen]

Originally posted by Chris:

With two big boiler parts (working at 10%) and six small pistons I create 1000 energy per material and second. Biger boilers are even more efficient. I do not know the conversion rate for material -> fuel, so I cannot really compare the results with fuel engines.

I also got 1000 energy per material at 100% demand with small and big boilers on three different sized piston-engines. It think that is an almost fixed rate, you will get that in most cases (or atleast the way I build them).

Compared to fuel, its like an injector engine (around 80 energy per fuel). Youll get 10 fuel per material, if you simply build a fueltank. Using a efficient refinery gets better rates.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Sandor:

Originally posted by Chris:

With two big boiler parts (working at 10%) and six small pistons I create 1000 energy per material and second. Biger boilers are even more efficient. I do not know the conversion rate for material -> fuel, so I cannot really compare the results with fuel engines.

I also got 1000 energy per material at 100% demand with small and big boilers on three different sized piston-engines. It think that is an almost fixed rate, you will get that in most cases (or atleast the way I build them).

Compared to fuel, its like an injector engine (around 80 energy per fuel). Youll get 10 fuel per material, if you simply build a fueltank. Using a efficient refinery gets better rates.

Thank you, Sandor. 10 fuel /material makes my steam engines less efficient than I thought. I made a big boiler (85m³, 10%) and connected it with a similar Turbine (64m³). This combo uses 1,7 material/second and produces about 2800 energy. That is about 1647 energy/material. Or with a 10/1 fuel conversion an equivalent of 165 fuel per energy. Unfortunately It takes a long time to ramp up.

[Scribe of Alara]

Okay, I did some testing, the controller controlls how much you burn PER BOILER, so if you have 4 boilers, it burns x4 than one boiler. I am now going to test Large Boilers vs Small ones, updates in bound I hope

[Scribe of Alara]

Okay, it seems that small and large boilers have the same amount of steam volume per burn material, and are simply useful for different sized crafts, I believe.

[Scribe of Alara]

Another notable finding- It is slightly more efficient to use 3 separate boiler with separeate boiler controllers than one boiler controller with 3 boilers. This is a slight efficiency increase of about 2%, with the added initial cost of 50 resources. Compared to what you will be saving in anything like the long run, this is very signifigant, and you will save a lot. However, there are space considerations to be had, as it does take up 2 more blocks. The next thin I will test is how much extra pipe length effects the power output.

[Scribe of Alara]

It turns out, contrary to my hypothesis, that Pipe Length does not effect power output. A pipe 4 pipes long put out as much power as a pipe 1 pipe long.

[Scribe of Alara]

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!! TURBO ELECTRICS ARE REALLY POWERFUL
a single piston-sing boiler setup will put out 40 power when put to the max stress, as the output power without any use(81) is much more than the actualy power uptur when under full use. (40)

HOWEVER:
a single boiler hooked up to a one-block long Turbine with a 4 block long battery and an electric engine can output Just under 100 engine power.

NOTE- these are all with .25 burn rates (stock)

[Scribe of Alara]

Alright so looking a Turbo-Electrics now, it seems you can very easily add much more power output by simply adding more Batteries. I am going to see if I can find some numbers.

[Scribe of Alara]

Another 4 battery blocks adds about 15 more power. However, another 4 adds only about 12. It seems to go down from there, in an exponential drop. Infinity efficiencies will not be found here. However, if you want a steam engine, make a Turbo Electric one.

[Scribe of Alara]

A note on turbine efficiency- Yes, longer turbines are more efficient but not much.
running of the same boiler setup, a 1m turbine produces 310 electrical cahrge per second. A 3m long turbine produces 316.7 electrical charge per second. that is about 2.1% more efficiency for an extra 2 meters. Not much, but again very useful over time.

[Enderminion]

you can edit posts
EDIT: it is the pencil icon in the corner

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by PositiveAnion:

It turns out, contrary to my hypothesis, that Pipe Length does not effect power output. A pipe 4 pipes long put out as much power as a pipe 1 pipe long.

Try comparing a 1m long pipe vs a ~100m long pipe.
Go big, else the effect you wanted to test may disappear due to small numbers.

I think I'll test this myself now.


EDIT: Tested.
6 large boilers, 0.25 burn rate. 4 large pistons on a 4m crankshaft.

One has 4 metres of piping. Steam pressure 189, volume 151.
Rotation speed of pistons is 599°/s.
Power generated is 4193.1.

The other has 334 piping components, steam pressure 265, volume 17718.
Rotation speed of pistons is 599°/s.
Power generated is 4192.4.


Difference for sustained power output really is too low to matter. However, it'll significantly increase the time it takes to rev up, and you'll waste material simply filling the pipes with steam.