Aquilo - what resource/building to generate electricity and heat?

[YourMomWouldBeProud]

How am I suppose to generate electricity and heat at Aquilo? I think I should build Heating towers, connect them to Heat exchangers and Steam turbin, right? And what should I feed them?

[Marosh]

There is a solid fuel and rocket fuel recipe for Aquillo. To kickstart Aquillo, you need import fuel.
A lot of people import Nuclear. Later you can switch to Fusion reactors.

[SciFiGuy]

i set down a few solar panels and accumulators (not viable except for some initial starting power). I used that power a chem plant to make ice to water, then I use REGULAR boilers and steam engines to produce the next 'starter lvl power', which was enough to let me get heat and turbines running. You gotta snow ball it and get it rolling somehow.

As others mentioned, importing fuel also works

[YourMomWouldBeProud]

Originally posted by Marosh:

There is a solid fuel and rocket fuel recipe for Aquillo. To kickstart Aquillo, you need import fuel.
A lot of people import Nuclear. Later you can switch to Fusion reactors.

Originally posted by SciFiGuy:

i set down a few solar panels and accumulators (not viable except for some initial starting power). I used that power a chem plant to make ice to water, then I use REGULAR boilers and steam engines to produce the next 'starter lvl power', which was enough to let me get heat and turbines running. You gotta snow ball it and get it rolling somehow.

As others mentioned, importing fuel also works

Thank you!

[Das Trojanische Pferd]

you can produce quiet a lot of rocket fuel on aquilo you even unlock a new way to craft it....

[RuneGrey]

Yep, generally the most stress free way of generating power is to just import a small nuclear setup, thaw some water using solar to prime the pumps, then get some turbines running. This also has the advantage of providing heat to thaw your base as well.

You can do it with heating towers, but it's going to take a lot of fuel at first, and generally using them to power heat exchangers for electricity is best saved for when you're able to self sustain solid or rocket fuel production on site. Once you hit that point you're good for power, and it's more about the craziness of providing heat everywhere on your base.

[Zukabazuka]

Keep in mind the factories producing Ice is creating a liquid you either have to use or purge from time to time. Using it to make solid fuel to feed heat tower is one way, other is just empty all the tanks. Because if the system get full they stop producing ice which in turn will stop the flow of water to your plants.

[Joman]

So there is no other way than using solar power to melt water first, to get it all started?

[Hurkyl]

If you're going with Heating Towers for power, you also have the option to bring fuel with you to get it all started. In a pinch you could even drop carbon from orbit.

(edit: this response is focusing on the "heat" aspect, and ignores the "electricity" aspect)

[oyssoyss]

I brought level 3 green module and solar panels used on chemical plant to produce the first water.

the very first two things need power are chemical plant and its inserter if you don't want to do it manually.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Das Trojanische Pferd:

you can produce quiet a lot of rocket fuel on aquilo you even unlock a new way to craft it....

Ever since the recipe re-balance that was introduced in one of the recent patches, it's actually better to just produce solid fuel and run your heating towers producing power on that. Buck-for-buck it's just more energy-rich; and has smaller footprint to build.

[GAMING_Alligator]

Once you've unlocked it, fusion power for electricity. Nuclear is great for heat (and initially electricity), but there's also an abundance of oil that you can turn into solid fuel and feed into heating towers.

But while you get set up, nuclear is the path of least friction, for sure.

[CasualGamer]

[/quote]
Ever since the recipe re-balance that was introduced in one of the recent patches, it's actually better to just produce solid fuel and run your heating towers producing power on that. Buck-for-buck it's just more energy-rich; and has smaller footprint to build. [/quote]

I was thinking this yesterday. Solid fuel comes cheap and you need to burn a lot of ammoniacal solution to keep from maxing out the storage for it. Early on, I was building a ton of ice platforms to keep from doing the same.

[Khaylain]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by Das Trojanische Pferd:

you can produce quiet a lot of rocket fuel on aquilo you even unlock a new way to craft it....

Ever since the recipe re-balance that was introduced in one of the recent patches, it's actually better to just produce solid fuel and run your heating towers producing power on that. Buck-for-buck it's just more energy-rich; and has smaller footprint to build.

Pretty sure that's very dependent on how many rocket fuel production sciences you've researched. Last time I and some others looked at it (while watching someone play on Aquilo) we got that it required 6 researches for rocket fuel production to give more energy per ammonia than solid fuel. Don't think we looked at the oil requirements, but you can figure that out too.

When you end up making a lot more rocket fuel per solid fuel and such it eventually overtakes solid fuel in energy output per inputs and footprint.

[Chindraba]

It seems that Factorio has found the secret to life.

With the addition of quality and the new collection of infinite research targets nothing is stable. The "answer" for a good base, or factory, in one set of conditions changes drastically when the next set of conditions is met. We can't 'just build it' and move on to making more. We have to keep adjusting what we have built for what it can do.

Just like life: as soon as you know the answers they change the questions.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Khaylain:

Originally posted by RiO:

Ever since the recipe re-balance that was introduced in one of the recent patches, it's actually better to just produce solid fuel and run your heating towers producing power on that. Buck-for-buck it's just more energy-rich; and has smaller footprint to build.

Pretty sure that's very dependent on how many rocket fuel production sciences you've researched. Last time I and some others looked at it (while watching someone play on Aquilo) we got that it required 6 researches for rocket fuel production to give more energy per ammonia than solid fuel. Don't think we looked at the oil requirements, but you can figure that out too.

When you end up making a lot more rocket fuel per solid fuel and such it eventually overtakes solid fuel in energy output per inputs and footprint.

The recipe for rocket fuel from ammonia changed from requiring 3 solid fuel per rocket fuel produced, to requiring 10. It's a (slightly over) x3 increase to thwart a positive feedback loop when recycling rocket fuel back to solid fuel (which uses the stock recipe and produces 5 solid fuel).

To compensate, the recipe for solid fuel from ammonia was also boosted, such that if you combine both they still equate out to the same throughput as before.

However, the balance tipped far more towards using solid fuel for heating towers with these changes. I'd actually be interested if the latest time you looked into this, was taking those recipe changes into account or not. Might be some interesting data pertaining to when to rebuild for another solution. (Though probably; by that time you'll have fusion power unlocked and you'd only need a drip feed of fuel for heating.)

Originally posted by CasualGamer:

Solid fuel comes cheap and you need to burn a lot of ammoniacal solution to keep from maxing out the storage for it. Early on, I was building a ton of ice platforms to keep from doing the same.

If you want to get rid of ammonia, then there's an efficient way to void it:
When you use the circuit-network recipe-switching, items move to trash slots - but fluids are voided (provided they can't flow back into the fluid network).
So, place a pump into a chemical plant configured to set recipe via circuit, and set a decider to emit the solid fuel from ammonia recipe. But on a timer of something like 60 ticks, blank the decider. (Basic timer reset to 0.) The chem plant will blank its recipe and ::poof!:: the ammonia goes.

This basically works everywhere you want to get rid of some fluid. You can e.g. also use it with advanced oil processing and totally trivialize the balancing act by just voiding excess petroleum gas.