Boiler temperature is dumb.

[Sirveri]

Nope, not complaining about temperature drop leading to decreased output. I actually have run real life steam boilers, albeit fired with a different material than coal. Generating steam requires the water to be heated to 100C... It then requires an additional thermal input of apx 930 BTU (yes I'm mixing imperial and metric, BTU is easier than Joules (because 1 BTU will increase the temperature of one lbm of water 1F)). Now here comes the problem, if the water remains at exactly 100C, then when the steam volume begins to lose thermal energy it will instantly form into condensate, causing impingement damage to the turbine blades. So what is the real life solution, boilers that boil at much greater pressures, which causes the required temperature to actually boil water to rise. Basic Steam Physics. So at 400 psi, water will boil at around 400F (which is apx 200C). You then draw a vacuum on the condensor (atm pressure is 14.7psi), and then you have a huge pressure drop. As the pressure drops less energy is required to create steam (as the boiling point of water decreases as pressure decreases), and thus you don't get your turbine blades trashed by water. If you want to get really complicated you could install a super heat unit and increase the temperature of the steam after you boil it, but that's beyond the basics.

Long story short, just change the C to a %, in game it's the same damned thing anyways.

[Dovaiikin]

I didn't read this, except your TL:DR, thats a contradiction...

[KatherineOfSky]

There really is no need to add all of that complication to the game... and a percent makes much less sense in this context. Most people who have had a basic education know that 100'C is the boiling point of water, so it makes sense in the game to do that.

[profitX10]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

There really is no need to add all of that complication to the game... and a percent makes much less sense in this context. Most people who have had a basic education know that 100'C is the boiling point of water, so it makes sense in the game to do that.

No, this has always bothered me. Steam engines should only work on water over 100c. Now if they renamed then to stirling engines i might roll with this, but sub 100c water powering things wrecks the immersion.
Nuclear power mods boilers at least make steam.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by profit:

No, this has always bothered me. Steam engines should only work on water over 100c. Now if they renamed then to stirling engines i might roll with this, but sub 100c water powering things wrecks the immersion.
Nuclear power mods boilers at least make steam.

You're not getting what I'm saying.... making things super over-complicated makes the game less acceessible to people. I don't know how often you read the forums, but there are quite a few new players who ask why their steam engines aren't working .... which is inevitably due to poor setup, insufficient boilers, etc. Making that even more complicated doesn't make sense.

Remember, this game is played by all age groups, 95% of which have no specialized knowledge of steam engines, etc. When you ask someone "At what temperature does water boil and make steam?" You will get "100'C" nearly all the time.

[Fire Miser]

So? A lot of things in this game would be dumb. But that word... "game".
Let's build a tank by hand and sick it in our 6th dementional backpack.
Let's go full speed in a train to the end of these tracks.
Let's build a metal shaping 3d printer with a few hand made circuit boards and some baked iron slabs.
At present rate of infestation. This planet should have had every square inch eaten by biters long ago. #bitersareainsidejob
I need bug meat for a fusion reactor.

If you have to bring up one over simplification, gotta bring them all up.

[BiniBean]

I Think They Should Be Changed And Have Poupuse Or Just Strait Up Remove It!
#Change/Remove

[Fire Miser]

They have purpose. 4 in a row and 3 generators are at peak performance. Cheep dirty power.

[Sirveri]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

You're not getting what I'm saying.... making things super over-complicated makes the game less acceessible to people.

Which is why I said the Celsius should be changed to percentile. Because then you're talking about efficiency as oppossed to temperature. I'm not asking for an import of steam tables and full pressure temperature tracking. Also, at atmospheric, anything less than 100C is no longer steam at all. It's 180BTU to increase to boiling, and 930BTU to convert the liquid water to steam (per pound mass). Way more energy, the second the temperature drops under 100C it has lost all 930BTU to turn it into steam.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by Sirveri:

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

You're not getting what I'm saying.... making things super over-complicated makes the game less acceessible to people.

Which is why I said the Celsius should be changed to percentile. Because then you're talking about efficiency as oppossed to temperature. I'm not asking for an import of steam tables and full pressure temperature tracking. Also, at atmospheric, anything less than 100C is no longer steam at all. It's 180BTU to increase to boiling, and 930BTU to convert the liquid water to steam (per pound mass). Way more energy, the second the temperature drops under 100C it has lost all 930BTU to turn it into steam.

You answer me with a wall of text. You STILL don't see what I am saying: simplification is NECESSARY in games. As to percentage -- reread what I already wrote on that topic.

[Kai]

Water boils at 100C, but it simmers before that point and still generate a milder amount of (non-visible) steam.

[The Chaotic Coder]

I agree with OP. I always rationalized it by mentally replacing "steam engine" with "stirling engine" which is a type of engine that only needs a (relatively small) temperature difference between A and B. Steam engines require a pressure increase, which means way more heating that just what's necessary to bring it up to 100C.

Katherine, I totally get what you're saying about simplification, but this is a case where it doesn't need to be made more complicated to be more realistic. Changing "degrees celcius" to "percent of maximum temperature" would do it. Or changing 100 to something like 250. Just a small UI change would be enough.

I use the "Nucular power" mod (intentional misspelling), which has a much more realistic treatment of boilers. Steam is treated as a separate fluid from water. A boiler receives water on one side, burns some kind of fuel (wood, coal, solid fuel, etc.) and produces steam out the other side at 250C. You don't daisy-chain them like the vanilla boilers, so the setup is a little more complicated, but it's (somewhat) more realistic.

[Acarin]

At the end of the day, you can make the suggestion to the Devs in the Factorio forums (there is an entire sub-board to that end). I get what both sides are saying, and it would be a relatively simple change to make "Water Temperature 100%" instead of "100C".

However...

The (cold) water would then be entering the system at (IIRC) "25%", which would trip the "Aaaaah!" Switches of multiple other players.

My solution?

Get someone to write a mod to make the change. Then you can use the mod if it bothers you, or not if it doesn't :-)

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Acarin:

At the end of the day, you can make the suggestion to the Devs in the Factorio forums (there is an entire sub-board to that end). I get what both sides are saying, and it would be a relatively simple change to make "Water Temperature 100%" instead of "100C".

However...

The (cold) water would then be entering the system at (IIRC) "25%", which would trip the "Aaaaah!" Switches of multiple other players.

My solution?

Get someone to write a mod to make the change. Then you can use the mod if it bothers you, or not if it doesn't :-)

Simple enough to make cold water come in at 0% when you also change the max to 100%. Makes more sense to me to do it this way.

[daniel0674]

Originally posted by Acarin:

Get someone to write a mod to make the change. Then you can use the mod if it bothers you, or not if it doesn't :-)

Mods are not able to change the contents - like °C to % - in the right info pane.

[icanfly342]

About the confusing new players, I was confused that the steam engines where working with water below 100°C. If it could be changed to % it would make much more sense.

Or go way above 100°C and stop working when ever it falls below 100.