Steam Engine Efficiency!

[Clanking Clocomotive]

I am trying to get an idea of how the Steam Engines function and how could their efficiency can be improved. My goal is lowest burn rate for maximum power. Just post your thoughts in this discussion.

[Admiral Obvious]

It's hard to say, but I've found that just a few cranks with a lot of steam pressure make some incredibly efficient engines, provided the shafts themselves don't explode from going over the magic 1800 RPM.

[Clanking Clocomotive]

Yea, I'm just trying to understand how all of the components interact with each-other. Kinda how we know the fuel engines, we know that the super chargers are for low RPM efficiency and turbochargers are for high RPM efficiency. If I can understand that but for steam engines, I can get on the right track for designing them... By the way, do you think for boiler efficiency should they be very big with a low burn rate, or should they be small with a high burn rate?

[Goobs]

Definately something we'll all get dialed in over the next few weeks.

[Matt]

I've got the steam engines down pretty well now.

turbines give you the best bang for your buck for charging batteries and for size, but they have a terrible startup time on larger systems.

if you use pistons, remember that their speed decreaces with load, make sure to set them so that at no load the will not exceed 1800 RPM, or they will explode.

Feel free to ask me anything about steam engines, I'll answer as best I can.

[/edit]
oh, for effecency overall, your best bet is to burn at low rates. lower burn rates in more m3 of boiler will produce more steam. burn rate of fuel is liniar with that graph, but steam production is not.

[Clanking Clocomotive]

Originally posted by sano:

I've got the steam engines down pretty well now.

turbines give you the best bang for your buck for charging batteries and for size, but they have a terrible startup time on larger systems.

if you use pistons, remember that their speed decreaces with load, make sure to set them so that at no load the will not exceed 1800 RPM, or they will explode.

Feel free to ask me anything about steam engines, I'll answer as best I can.

What is the most efficient setup for engine power? (AKA steam pistons). Personalty I want to get the highest steam pressure with the lowest burn rate.

[Clanking Clocomotive]

Yea, I was going to do testing myself. I just don't have the time for it currently, and I don't know how I would do it.

[Matt]

I've got a ship set up to test, and sometimes the pistons act....funky.

turbins are a bit more effecient, and there is a moderate effecency increace with size, but I don't think it's worth it. seems fairly consistant at 300-350 power per 0.2 resource. so 1500-1750 power per resource. definately not the most effecent in the world, but pretty good power density and no refining.

[Matt]

final post until next question. effecency doesn't seem to go up much, but it does seem that you can stack rounding errors. put multiple different steam systems each servicing one piston. all pistons on one shaft. piston force per steampressure rounds up when converted to shaft torque.

alternatively, you can hook a single piston up to your steam engine, and just make the shaft bigger/heavier to reduce speed <1800. seems really dumb, but it is simpler and close to the setup stated above.

oh, bigger systems get more effecient, very small increments. calculated effecency for my 200k+ power system is about 2030 power per resource. still not the best.

[Clanking Clocomotive]

Ok, thanks for the help. I think I might make an XL sheet with all of the different engine setups. I will compare the engine power and the electric power generated by each design.

[Goobs]

The most effecient setups I've found never use more than a single piston.

A single large boiler, and a single 4m piston on a single large crank puts out 3000 energy for 1 mat/sec.

Scaling up, no matter what I do, always creates less power per materiel input. It's become vexing.

[Matt]

I had one of my small setups glitch out and produce 19k power. Turbines seem to stay rather effecient, but the startup time's a killer

[Clanking Clocomotive]

Does making the boiler larger mean it burs more material?

[AOrocks]

yes

[Keyojin]

I used auto controllers to change the burn rate of my boiler.
-Not in combat, not moving= boiler off
-Not in Combat, moving = Burn just enough so my ship ca move at full speed
-In Combat= FULL POWER

[Clanking Clocomotive]

Dam, ok. Man, for a new engine type it doesn't provide many options to improve efficiency.