seablock - fuel oil

[DsnowMan]

I am still early red & green techs, and I am starting on farming. I know that fuel oil can be used for fuel, but I am wondering what is the best way to get power out of it. I found a couple discussions on reddit that didn't quite clear things up.

There is fuel oil, and liquid fuel, and solid fuel. And at least three different types of boilers and burners (one of which doesn't make steam at all). I don't have the game open so may not have all the names right. Anyone have a suggestion on the most effective path?

[Fel]

For starter generator that don't make steam are usually worse in terms of efficiency.

If you want to compare fuel oil with solid fuel (from fuel oil), 50 fuel oil in a fluid burning boiler and steam engine 2 makes 222MJ of power.
If you add 2.5 charcoal worth 4MJ each (so 10MJ in total) you get 5 solid fuel, in a boiler 2 and steam engine 2 you get 268MJ of power.
So in theory since you need far less than 30 MJ for the conversion it would be better to use solid fuel, but the production of charcoal as well as the conversion means that you need a large amount of extra space.

I'm not sure what "liquid fuel" refers to so I can't say for that but in seablock a lot of times you have to decide between recipes that are efficient in terms of resources and efficient in terms of space.
In a normal game where space is nearly unlimited it's not a concern but with seablock where space comes at a cost you tend to pick the slightly less resource-efficient option if the amount of required space is very different unless you have a full scale production of landfills (which is usually something for mid or even late game).

On the other hand, you most likely already have a production line for charcoal (either from wood or from green algea) and boilers, so it just means adding an extra step with fuel oil for even more power.
I tend to go for the solid fuel because it also helps to fuel the other machines that need fuel in a solid form (especially with metallurgy).



Sadly this might not be a clear answer to your question becase that's how seablock is, most of the time more advanced recipes are not that much more efficient when you take into account the extra steps and ingredients that are needed for it.
A bit like how you tend to pick the recipes that make only 1 type of ore instead of going through washing and so on because it's not that much worse and you have a much greater amount of control over the result compared to ore sorting that creates a large amount of side products that need to be taken care of as well.

[DsnowMan]

Thank you again Fel. If I was low on space and/or didn't have charcoal already, pumping the fuel oil into a fuel burner is ok. But since I do have charcoal, solid fuel into the burners is the clear winner.

The fuel oil into oil burning generator is a big space saver (and I bypass steam), but I lose some effectiveness, so it's a good 2nd choice. Am I right that they become better as I tech up, so that mk3 or mk4 might be better than burning solid fuel?

Liquid fuel is a thing in the game, but I took a peek this morning and I think it is just a step on the way to enriched fuel, so that comes much later.

[Fel]

As far as I can tell there is no such thing as mk3 or 4 for burner generators, they are really meant as a space-efficient but fuel-inefficient alternative for the early game.