Are wood burners traps?

[Chogathmainop]

Since lumber can be turned into ethanol, I'm not sure why you'd use a wood burner - while they are space efficient, they produce the least amount of energy of any of the generators and exhaust an incredible amount of CO2. While an argument can be made that the CO2 could be used to feed slicksters, I'd counter that by saying you could do the same with an ethanol/petrol generator.

Thoughts?

[VitaKaninen]

If you start a new game in a forest biome, it is an easy way to produce electricity with very little research while you get settled. It it similar to coal generators but for game starts where you have wood, but no coal.

Think of it like algae terrariums, mush bars, or hamster wheels. They are not meant to be long term solutions.

[Chogathmainop]

Originally posted by VitaKaninen:

If you start a new game in a forest biome, it is an easy way to produce electricity with very little research while you get settled. It it similar to coal generators but for game starts where you have wood, but no coal.

Think of it like algae terrariums, mush bars, or hamster wheels. They are not meant to be long term solutions.

Speaking of those biomes, what do you think of aluminum? I've always been bothered by it because it has no special properties when compared to other ores such as gold/copper (bonus to decor) and iron (can be turned into steel later). Much like how you describe wood burners, it feels like the kind of thing that's meant to be a placeholder until you find something better.

[VitaKaninen]

Aluminum has the highest thermal capacity and specific heat capacity of all metals, other than the space materials or depleted uranium. It has many uses for where you need to sink some heat.

[快乐地吸猫]

Originally posted by Chogathmainop:

Originally posted by VitaKaninen:

If you start a new game in a forest biome, it is an easy way to produce electricity with very little research while you get settled. It it similar to coal generators but for game starts where you have wood, but no coal.

Think of it like algae terrariums, mush bars, or hamster wheels. They are not meant to be long term solutions.

Speaking of those biomes, what do you think of aluminum? I've always been bothered by it because it has no special properties when compared to other ores such as gold/copper (bonus to decor) and iron (can be turned into steel later). Much like how you describe wood burners, it feels like the kind of thing that's meant to be a placeholder until you find something better.

Aluminium is particularly thermally conductive and is a good choice for use in some scenarios as a metal brick to conduct heat. And on some planets, aluminium is more accessible than steel.

[POWER WITHIN USER]

Originally posted by Chogathmainop:

Are wood burners traps?

No. That's algae terrariums and mush bars.
CO2 can also be turned into pH2O and that into clay or fertilizer assuming you manage to get sand or dreckos/balm lilies respectively.

[View The Phenom]

No, they're early game solutions for hands-free energy generation. Like anything else, eventually you'll move on to better technology.

[Rusky have sucked]

with pips and wild trees its possible that you will have much more lumber than you need even counting ethanol production. In this case some number of wood burners can add to your overall power generation

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by Chogathmainop:

Since lumber can be turned into ethanol, I'm not sure why you'd use a wood burner - while they are space efficient, they produce the least amount of energy of any of the generators and exhaust an incredible amount of CO2. While an argument can be made that the CO2 could be used to feed slicksters, I'd counter that by saying you could do the same with an ethanol/petrol generator.

Thoughts?

Wood burners actually produce more net power or almost as much net power per input wood (I don't feel like redoing the math), since turning the wood into ethanol eats up a LOT of the power you'd be getting.

The REAL advantage of the ethanol method is you get resources like polluted water and polluted dirt out of the process; this isn't quite enough to supply domesticated arbor trees, but if you have arbor trees you probably have pips for wild planting them anyways.

The DISADVANTAGE of ethanol is it takes a lot of duplicant labor, OR a fair bit of expensive automation, some of which will eat up even more of the power you were hoping to get from the process. WIth the former, if you just wanted power....you'd probably have been better off burning the wood directly and slapping a duplicant on a hamster wheel.

[Chogathmainop]

Originally posted by Rusky have sucked:

with pips and wild trees its possible that you will have much more lumber than you need even counting ethanol production. In this case some number of wood burners can add to your overall power generation

IIRC, it takes about 8 wild trees to keep one distiller going nonstop - if you're farming with pips as well, I imagine you'd have to be working on a large scale before leftover wood becomes an issue.

[Chogathmainop]

Originally posted by VitaKaninen:

Think of it like algae terrariums, mush bars, or hamster wheels. They are not meant to be long term solutions.

I disagree with you on that last part - considering they produce minimal heat and consume no resources beyond duplicant time, even into late game I've always considered them viable as a sort of backup form of power - doubly so once you get a few power plants going. Plus, once you streamline your living functions, it'll give the dupes something to do while saving you on other forms of fuel.

[Chogathmainop]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Wood burners actually produce more net power or almost as much net power per input wood (I don't feel like redoing the math), since turning the wood into ethanol eats up a LOT of the power you'd be getting.

Running the numbers, a wood burner consumes 1.2kg lumber/sec and produces 300w of power. By contrast, 1kg of lumber can be turned into 500g of ethanol/sec (each distiller costing 240w of power) which means that 4kg of lumber can be turned into 2kg of ethanol which produces 2000w of power.

1200g/300w = 4g/w for the wood burner and 4000g/2000w = 2g/w for the ethanol burner making it twice as efficient, factor in the power needed to run the distillers and the ethanol burner barely squeaks by with the four ethanol distillers being just below half the power produced by the generator.

The only two points I disagree with you on are the matter of dupe labor, as well as ethanol also being great for cooling areas that need to be supercold (it doesn't remove heat as quickly as running water through an aquatuner, but the freezing point is WAY lower) as well as serving as irrigation for noshbeans (if they're available on the map).

As far as dupe labor goes, the ethanol burner wins this one - in order to produce the same power as an ethanol burner, you'd need to have seven wood burners (2000/300 = 6.66...) as opposed to the four ethanol distillers which can automatically pump ethanol into the burner or a liquid reserve.

That being said, it's still a close call between the two - as far as power goes, I'd probably just cross my fingers I get a natural gas vent and build a power plant accordingly. Although I will say, that much polluted dirt would be great for pokeshell/sage hatch ranching.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by Chogathmainop:

Originally posted by VitaKaninen:

Think of it like algae terrariums, mush bars, or hamster wheels. They are not meant to be long term solutions.

I disagree with you on that last part - considering they produce minimal heat and consume no resources beyond duplicant time, even into late game I've always considered them viable as a sort of backup form of power - doubly so once you get a few power plants going. Plus, once you streamline your living functions, it'll give the dupes something to do while saving you on other forms of fuel.

On the minibase mod, I didn't feel i had the SPACE to really implement other power solutions. just...three ish dupes going to town on hamster wheels, keeping things cool via the STAQ-and as you say, they make a great backup form of power, in case something goes wrong with more complicated power setups.

Originally posted by Chogathmainop:

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Wood burners actually produce more net power or almost as much net power per input wood (I don't feel like redoing the math), since turning the wood into ethanol eats up a LOT of the power you'd be getting.

Running the numbers, a wood burner consumes 1.2kg lumber/sec and produces 300w of power. By contrast, 1kg of lumber can be turned into 500g of ethanol/sec (each distiller costing 240w of power) which means that 4kg of lumber can be turned into 2kg of ethanol which produces 2000w of power.

1200g/300w = 4g/w for the wood burner and 4000g/2000w = 2g/w for the ethanol burner making it twice as efficient, factor in the power needed to run the distillers and the ethanol burner barely squeaks by with the four ethanol distillers being just below half the power produced by the generator.

The only two points I disagree with you on are the matter of dupe labor, as well as ethanol also being great for cooling areas that need to be supercold (it doesn't remove heat as quickly as running water through an aquatuner, but the freezing point is WAY lower) as well as serving as irrigation for noshbeans (if they're available on the map).

As far as dupe labor goes, the ethanol burner wins this one - in order to produce the same power as an ethanol burner, you'd need to have seven wood burners (2000/300 = 6.66...) as opposed to the four ethanol distillers which can automatically pump ethanol into the burner or a liquid reserve.

That being said, it's still a close call between the two - as far as power goes, I'd probably just cross my fingers I get a natural gas vent and build a power plant accordingly. Although I will say, that much polluted dirt would be great for pokeshell/sage hatch ranching.

Almost as much power it is.

[Chogathmainop]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

On the minibase mod, I didn't feel i had the SPACE to really implement other power solutions. just...three ish dupes going to town on hamster wheels, keeping things cool via the STAQ-and as you say, they make a great backup form of power, in case something goes wrong with more complicated power setups.

And even more than that, the more you research the more options you have to be efficient to the point that coal/gas/petrol becomes more valuable than dupe time to the point that a few dupes are always going to have time that day to run the wheels. Considering the upsides to hamster power, I never really viewed it as something I needed to completely free myself from - that said, natural gas generators are amazing.

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Almost as much power it is.

It's funny that the deciding factor comes down to by-products produced rather than energy efficiency itself.

[Rusky have sucked]

Originally posted by Chogathmainop:

IIRC, it takes about 8 wild trees to keep one distiller going nonstop - if you're farming with pips as well, I imagine you'd have to be working on a large scale before leftover wood becomes an issue.

I prefer situations when equipment are not in operation for full time, so no distillers and generators going nonstop. For my actual base I have, approximately, 35-40 wild arbor trees wich have had farmed very early and I have tens of billions of lumber now with 10 distillers, 7 petroleum and 10 wood generators in operation (not to mention coal generators, geothermal turbines, solar, geyser turbines and natural gas generators and potentially additional petroleum generators on petroleum if needed)

[Chogathmainop]

Originally posted by Rusky have sucked:

I prefer situations when equipment are not in operation for full time, so no distillers and generators going nonstop. For my actual base I have, approximately, 35-40 wild arbor trees wich have had farmed very early and I have tens of billions of lumber now with 10 distillers, 7 petroleum and 10 wood generators in operation (not to mention coal generators, geothermal turbines, solar, geyser turbines and natural gas generators and potentially additional petroleum generators on petroleum if needed)

What cycle are you on, what asteroid are you on, how much RAM does your computer have, and good lord what do you need so much power for?