total noob question about Boiler

[Gambit]

Iam very noob and this seems for me actually an easy question but iam struggling at the very beginning of the game.

I built a boiler and a water pump. They are both connected by pipes. If i click on the pump it says its working. I connected the water pipes to the water connector of the boiler.
On the steam side of the boilder i have some pipes and then the steam engine.

When i connect the boiler with the steam engine both are working fine for about 5-10 secs.
And then the boiler stops working. It says "Ausgang ist voll" (iam german) what means something like "output is full".
What am i doing wrong? Why the boiler always stops working?

HALP!

[Hurkyl]

I can't be sure, but it sounds like you aren't doing anything wrong at all. The boiler stops working because the output is full!

I.e. that fluid system is completely full. Your steam engine already holds as much steam as it can possibly hold. Any pipes between your steam engine and boiler are also filled to capacity. Furthermore, the boiler itself has filled up with as much steam as it can hold.

So, the boiler will idle until there's room to make more steam. Note that it doesn't consume fuel while idling, so you aren't wasting any coal/wood when this happens.

This is normal; your boiler can produce enough steam to keep two steam engines working at full capacity. And even your single steam engine is probably not running at full capacity! It will be a while before your factory uses that much electricity, so your steam engine will run slowly so as to produce just enough electricity as you need. You aren't wasting any steam energy when this happens.

Note that, unlike the real world, fluids in Factorio don't cool over time, so you don't have to worry about using steam immediately.

[Level 9 Hamslayer]

Each engine is affected by the electric grid and that grid is connected to your electrical network? Double check the line because somwtimes you just miss it. Also eletricity/power scales based on usage so if they dont need to produce anymore they don't. Such as a furance is it doesn't have anything to fire it will magically and instantly put out a d start fires. Only exception is nuclear but you can semi simulate stopping at low demand with circuitry.

[Hedning]

One boiler produces 60 steam per second. One steam engine only consumes up to 30. Steam engines will consume proportional to how much power is needed and will consume less if they are not powering enough stuff. This is not bad, it's good because that means you are not burning more fuel and creating more pollution than you actually need.

As long as you keep the ratio of 2 engines per boiler and have them connected correctly you are fine.

[knighttemplar1960]

Steam engines are also self limiting. If you don't need all the power they are producing the output will fill up and will only be used when you need the power provided. A steam engine produces 900 kW. If your current factory is using less than that the steam will back up and the boiler will slow down and only produce enough steam to replace what is used.

[robfilrhijar]

Build a research lab drop it next to the power pole by the steam engine and throw some red science into it and research something and you will start to use power and there by see how it works.