Fuel Efficiency

[p3st|cIdE]

How's this for efficiency?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1791035533



This thing scales like mad too. Gets more efficient the bigger you make it. Even a few cylinders is really good though.

[Silamon]

I will be impressed when someone makes an efficient steam engine

Heres hoping that overhaul comes before long...

[DivineEvil]

Originally posted by Silamon:

I will be impressed when someone makes an efficient steam engine

Heres hoping that overhaul comes before long...

As far as I understand, steam engines are not about efficiency, but sheer power per volume. Just look at the size of this thing and think what kind of power you can get from a steam engine this size. This is why steam engines really have no efficiency modificators apart from the boilers used.

Also I find it strange to desire a change, that would effectively make one item obsolete over the other one.

[p3st|cIdE]

And now I find all the crazy engines people have made. This one would I guess be categorized as a T2 (2 turbos / carb) engine, at 1342 ppf at 100%, at 3x4x(3+2n) the 2000 power version is about 7.25 PPBB; really small for something so efficient, but not that power-dense overall. Best I've ever made though. Just figured out the trick today! I'd been puttering around with injectors and really inefficient designs for, like, forever. Also I just found out about the bidirectional turbos feature so, maybe it can be improved further.

[Space Commander Nemo]

Originally posted by Silamon:

I will be impressed when someone makes an efficient steam engine

Heres hoping that overhaul comes before long...

I have... kind of... managed to make a worthwhile steam setup. The trick is boiler burn rate. Large boilers at 10% are (were? Still are?) more efficient than small boilers running at max. My battleship Jormungandr has a large steam engine that ramps up in battle but still sips on resources.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by DivineEvil:

Originally posted by Silamon:

I will be impressed when someone makes an efficient steam engine

Heres hoping that overhaul comes before long...

As far as I understand, steam engines are not about efficiency, but sheer power per volume. Just look at the size of this thing and think what kind of power you can get from a steam engine this size. This is why steam engines really have no efficiency modificators apart from the boilers used.

Also I find it strange to desire a change, that would effectively make one item obsolete over the other one.

Power at a greater cost is fine, but when you look into the exact numbers.... Steam is not actually that much more power dense than fuel, while costing a GREAT DEAL more resources to run.
Making steam viable would not make fuel obsolete. You can't even just have a small steam engine for propellers and run everything else on fuel because everything takes power from steam engines first, which slows the prop down to the point of uselessness unless you build a steam engine big enough to power everything.

Last I heard steam was due for an overhaul but its been a while since then, I look forward to it eagerly.

Originally posted by Space Commander Nemo:

Originally posted by Silamon:

I will be impressed when someone makes an efficient steam engine

Heres hoping that overhaul comes before long...

I have... kind of... managed to make a worthwhile steam setup. The trick is boiler burn rate. Large boilers at 10% are (were? Still are?) more efficient than small boilers running at max. My battleship Jormungandr has a large steam engine that ramps up in battle but still sips on resources.

Yeah for sure, you have to have acbs to control the burn rate. But you cannot make a steam engine more efficient, because you always get the same amount of power per material burned, which iirc is about 1000 power per material per second. Even just running steam engines in combat for a few minutes can cost material that would let a fuel engine run for hours.

Edit:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/203757940102922241/545912672114180107/Unbenannt.PNG
Thats from the developer, posted many months ago but still no update :(

[p3st|cIdE]

I *really* noticed the steam engine material burn rate when I restarted the campaign and tried using my new small steamer right off the bat; got into combat while a ship being built was taking all my few initial resources, and it just... couldn't move, or do anything. I had to reload and build fewer ships to ensure I had materials available to burn for steam power. Then I could actively watch my materials decrease when ship was moving, increase when ship stopped. Sad. I'm going to have to re-think this whole steam engine thing, which sucks because steam propellers produce a lot of force and look cool.

[Silamon]

Let's say my bote needs 60k power to run. A steam engine at 1000 power per material per second would cost me 60 materials per second.
Now lets say I have a slightly larger fuel engine that gets about 500 power per fuel, not the most efficient engine ever but it is fairly small. That engine costs me about 120 fuel per second. But it takes fuel, not material to run. A fuel refinery can get 300 fuel per material, so that ends up being... .4 materials per second. That makes the fuel engine 150 times more efficient.

Would you rather have the slightly smaller steam engine, or the fuel engine that is 150 times more efficient? And that is not even as efficient as it can get! That is why steam is borderline useless right now.

[p3st|cIdE]

Which is precisely why I've been working on fuel engines! I cut this one in half, more or less, making a 1000 power version that's 3x4x12, good size for modular building and redundancy (don't want all your power to go out when you lose your only generator). But It's obviously got empty space in the bounding box, and surely I can make a better one. :)

[Silamon]

Originally posted by p3st|cIdE:

Which is precisely why I've been working on fuel engines! I cut this one in half, more or less, making a 1000 power version that's 3x4x12, good size for modular building and redundancy (don't want all your power to go out when you lose your only generator). But It's obviously got empty space in the bounding box, and surely I can make a better one. :)

Yeah I was just throwing some maths at Divine to show how horribly inefficient steam is compared to fuel. I kinda stopped playing ftd until they update steam, I like the sound of that devpost I linked but from what I understand that update might not even come out this year.
I will not go back to having walls of propellors on the arse of me ship again, I will only use steam props. SO basically I only build ships now, I dont really play the campaign anymore.

[p3st|cIdE]

Aww, c'mon, steam-rollering (pun intended) over the DWG should get you enough materials to burn for your steamers to run on for most of the rest of the campaign; I just mopped up White Flayers and now have enough materials I'm not worried about materials anymore. The nice thing is, with my modern ironclad steamers with good general purpose loadouts, HESH, and LAMS, I don't really lose any ship or battles, so I tend to gain materials fairly quickly, unlike the prior two stabs at campaign, when I was essentially just sticking my toes in the water seeing what I'm up against, and trying to build basic units that work at all!

[Silamon]

Originally posted by p3st|cIdE:

Aww, c'mon, steam-rollering (pun intended) over the DWG should get you enough materials to burn for your steamers to run on for most of the rest of the campaign; I just mopped up White Flayers and now have enough materials I'm not worried about materials anymore. The nice thing is, with my modern ironclad steamers with good general purpose loadouts, HESH, and LAMS, I don't really lose any ship or battles, so I tend to gain materials fairly quickly, unlike the prior two stabs at campaign, when I was essentially just sticking my toes in the water seeing what I'm up against, and trying to build basic units that work at all!

It just hurts me to think of all the ships worth of materials I burn using steam over fuel in the campaign. Then I go back to trying to make a more efficient steam engine, then I realize it is still hopeless and stop entirely again lol.

[p3st|cIdE]

Originally posted by Silamon:

It just hurts me to think of all the ships worth of materials I burn using steam over fuel in the campaign. Then I go back to trying to make a more efficient steam engine, then I realize it is still hopeless and stop entirely again lol.

I hear ya. I keep needing the steam propellers but I'm trying to avoid steam now. Someday! For now my ships look stupid with big dedi-blades on the back, but that's the only way I can move 'em effectively at present.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by p3st|cIdE:

For now my ships look stupid with big dedi-blades on the back, but that's the only way I can move 'em effectively at present.

Normal props. They can overlap (only the middle m² checks for clearance), so you can spam them quite a bit. Or cover them in the hull, and maybe use a mimic to hide the hole, if you don't want that.

Or just internal dediblades. Dediblades work just fine internally.

[p3st|cIdE]

Dedi-blades work so much better when the blades are longer, but then they don't fit well internally. I'm hoping by time I get around to working on it, steam props will be viable.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by p3st|cIdE:

Dedi-blades work so much better when the blades are longer, but then they don't fit well internally. I'm hoping by time I get around to working on it, steam props will be viable.

Dediblades don't need any space to rotate, so you can just fill rooms with them entirely, even if their visuals clip.

And I've never heard anyone say that dediblade-blades work better further from the spinner, which does suggest that the dediblade-pole-extension is just as good as another blade.