Steam engine question

[Name Lips]

I have a pretty standard setup of 14 boilers and 10 steam engines fed by 1 water pump.

It is set up so that 7 of the boilers feed 5 of the steam engines, and the other 7 boilers feed the other 5 steam engines, though they share the same water pump for input.

At first, I was connecting the hot water outputs of the boilers together, so that the 10 steam engines were sharing the hot water of all 14 boilers. But when I do this, the "available performance" of each steam engine drops to around 80%. Since my factory is a bit tight on power right now, that puts me at less than full satisfaction, slowing down my entire factory.

If instead, I keep the hot water inputs as I originally described, with each set of 7 boilers devoted to 5 steam engines, the "available performance" of each steam engine rises to 100%, and my factory is fully Satisfied.

Basically deleting those two pipes gave me 20% more electricity.

But I can't figure out why.

[<unknown>]

It's seem by connecting the output as they share the same input you create a "loop". So only a fraction of water go for steam engine and the other loop around the second line of boiler heating the water up to 100. If you check the connection between the 2 line you'll see 50 as the cold and heated water merge.

I check it and it's definately that. Here the math behind that.

First lane working at 100% = 7 x 390 = 2730
Second lane working at 50% = 1365

Boiler output power = 4095kw

4095 / 5100 = 80%

[Nailfoot]

Until the next update, which will rework steam also, it is best to just use the tried and true method of 1:14:10 in a straight line.

Well, technically, the line can bend and twist all over the place, but just don't have it connect back to itself anywhere.

[Warlord]

I'd imagine that the reason it happened is because the water tries to take the shortest route to the engines. In your case, where you split the water to two separate banks of boilers and then recombined them, picture the route the water takes.

Basically, it will leave the pump, go down ONE of these pipe paths through 7 boilers. Being half or so heated, it then goes through the rest of the pipe towards the engines. It ignores the path that loops backwards through the other 7 boilers, and tries to power the 10 engines off of 7 boilers.

This is all just some speculation on my part, but I imagine that the water is seeing one main path to 10 engines, and only 7 boilers along it. Some water may go down the other path. But since most of the water is going through only 7 boilers to reach the end, only those count.

Keep them separate, and there is no issue. Or do one long single-file line. Or do 14 boilers then split its output to two lines of 5 steam engines. Just do not recombine two separate paths after a few boilers.

[!?!]

That's probably because of the weirdo fluid mechanics.
I made a block of 50 steam engines and hooked it up to the appropriate ammount of boilers once but because I watered the engines with interconnecting pipes and just let the boilers run into that system rather than just having it be 1 line of pipe, the overall performance of the boilers almost halved.

[impetus_maximus]

there is a better raio in my option. 3 pumps (one in the middle) can supply enough water fro 2 rows of 20 boilers, and 15 steam engines.
they can run at full load producing 99.5% power. if you really want you can add another boiler (5% more coal) to get the last half a percent. lol

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by impetus maximus:

there is a better raio in my option. 3 pumps (one in the middle) can supply enough water fro 2 rows of 20 boilers, and 15 steam engines.
they can run at full load producing 99.5% power. if you really want you can add another boiler (5% more coal) to get the last half a percent. lol

The last boiler (in any situation) will only run if needed, so it isn't technically a waste.

[<unknown>]

Originally posted by impetus maximus:

there is a better raio in my option. 3 pumps (one in the middle) can supply enough water fro 2 rows of 20 boilers, and 15 steam engines.
they can run at full load producing 99.5% power. if you really want you can add another boiler (5% more coal) to get the last half a percent. lol

It's seem the lost of 0.5% are pressure issue more than boiler. Because you need 19.61 boiler for 15 engine.

Try placing 2 small pump from your middle offshore pump Line. One small pump connect your Up Line and one connect to the down Line. That Will ensure your middle offshore pump water are evenly distributed.

[impetus_maximus]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

The last boiler (in any situation) will only run if needed, so it isn't technically a waste.

if it's not needed then why use it then? lol 3 pumps, 2 rows of 20 boilers, 15 steam engines and your good to go. only brought it up for OCD people.

[edit] you don't want to use small pumps for steam. 3 offshore pumps will get the job done. if you need the half a % then you need another two rows of engies. lol