A few game mechanics questions

[Wingnut]

Ive got a few questions about the new game mechanics changes, can someone help?
1. The boilers are now capped at 2.5. Does this mean that boilers can no longer explode if over-pressurised above 10 like before?
2. Has anyone done a test on what the variable fluid vale setting is to maintain firebox temp when used to regulate air intake?
3. How many boilers can a single large firebox feed efficiently?
4. How many large steam pistons can a single boiler provide enough steam for?
5. How many turbines can a single boiler provide enough steam for?
6. What is the temperature that starts to cause player injury?
7. What happened to the black coal smoke?

Thanks.

[Nitty_Gritty1]

I am afraid that steam is (all forms and power plants as well) broken. The devs have seemingly put very little effort in fixing steam, as seeing by the lack of diesel firebox exhaust still being broken after 3 weeks of promised firebox fixes, and nearly 1:1 water to steam ratio, to name a few. I would wait until they actually put some effort into fixing steam. As of now they have shown no compunctions to.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally posted by Nitty_Gritty1:

I am afraid that steam is (all forms and power plants as well) broken.

From what I tested last weekend, it seems that open loop steam setups are borked due to the water to steam ratio, no change to it yet. Wonder why they went down to 1:1 from 1:100...

All my regular condenser based setups work rather well, seeing a ridiculous power increase for the pistons (same setup went from 7.5k generator output to 25k), while turbines got a 3x power increase which was long overdue.

As to the thread starters initial questions:
1:
Boilers no longer explode. Apparently not possible to fix this:
https://geometa.co.uk/support/stormworks/22715

Because the fluid system is now based on pressure, the knock on effect is that this impacts steam boiler pressure value. the old value is without units and meant to reflect the internal state of the boiler. If we change this to use Atm units, then the values will no longer be compatible with old creations. If we reintroduce over-pressure mechanics, then many existing creations will go over-pressure because they are not designed for the new mechanics. So I think we have to take the steam boiler exploding out because reintroducing it is not backwards compatible. We can also remove the "pressure" value from the boiler.

2:
You can check out my steam guide, use the PID controller from one of the examples, they still work. Typical setting around sawyer would be around ~0.44-0.46 from the top of my head, should keep the large firebox at ~130°. The small firebox seems no longer be worth using, since it doesn't heat up as fast as you'd expect...

3:
3-4 should be doable until the flowrate for heat exchange suffers. However it's not necessary in any case to use more than a single boiler, since it will provide more than enough steam. Now even more than ever.

4:
As long as you provide enough fresh water in order to keep steam circulating, there's no limit. You can daisy chain 4 steam piston engines with 5 large steam pistons each to get ~100k output from a large generator, enough to power ~30 large motors at full throttle and load.

5:
See 4.
Note that flowrate begins to suffer when putting the turbines in series, don't think more than 4-5 steam turbines in series are worth it, since it takes almost 10 minutes for the last turbine in the chain to spin up.

6:
No exact number comes to mind, should be around ~120°. Take with a grain of salt.

7:
Gone with the wind, unfortunately.

[Wingnut]

Thanks for the replies :)
Got another question: Does more water in the steam circuit produce more pressure at a given temperature? ie reality, lol (ikr this is Stormworks). And vice-versa of course.

I just updated my little Steam Brig :).
She does 14kts now which is twice what she used to be able to do, since the game update.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945434612
I do miss the black smoke. It looked great for an old steam ship.

[Wingnut]

Originally posted by GrumpyOldMan:

Originally posted by Nitty_Gritty1:

I am afraid that steam is (all forms and power plants as well) broken.

As to the thread starters initial questions:
1:
Boilers no longer explode. Apparently not possible to fix this:
https://geometa.co.uk/support/stormworks/22715

Because the fluid system is now based on pressure, the knock on effect is that this impacts steam boiler pressure value. the old value is without units and meant to reflect the internal state of the boiler. If we change this to use Atm units, then the values will no longer be compatible with old creations. If we reintroduce over-pressure mechanics, then many existing creations will go over-pressure because they are not designed for the new mechanics. So I think we have to take the steam boiler exploding out because reintroducing it is not backwards compatible. We can also remove the "pressure" value from the boiler.

So they wont re apply boiler pressure/overpressure exploding because it will wreck a lot of existing workshop builds but the update wrecked them anyway. Hmm... I wonder if the dev realises that doenst make sense.

[GrumpyOldMan]

There seem to be some more incoming changes with fridays update, maybe steam related as well.

Odd that with a water to steam ratio of 1:1, and a water level of 175l of the boiler, it's possible to have quite a few seconds where the steam output vented into the open will exceed 1kl/s. Something doesn't add up there as well.

[Captain Oveur]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

Originally posted by GrumpyOldMan:

As to the thread starters initial questions:
1:
Boilers no longer explode. Apparently not possible to fix this:
https://geometa.co.uk/support/stormworks/22715

So they wont re apply boiler pressure/overpressure exploding because it will wreck a lot of existing workshop builds but the update wrecked them anyway. Hmm... I wonder if the dev realises that doenst make sense.

This is the first time I’m seeing this too. I kinda suspected this is part of why they keep fudging it all up every update, but wasn’t sure. Now I have confirmation, I forgive them a little bit. Only a little bit, though, because, as said, they already fudged up existing creations anyway.

[Wingnut]

Just when i thought i had built a decent steam reciprocating engine powerful enough to push a large ship hull... :/

[GrumpyOldMan]

That power reduction definitely wasn't intended or an oversight changing piston output being dependant on pressure rather than volume...

My testing rig was able to push a large generator to 100k output, now it's barely above 20k, output reduction down to a fifth...

Makes one think they're doing this just out of spite?

No way they tested this, saw this huge power difference and pushed it to live no matter what.

What happened to using the experimental branch? Tossed out the window again? Too much work?

[Wingnut]

From what i can see. Needs more testing.
Yeah the power output has been lowered.
You need higher boiler temp to maintain 2.5 boiler press to get higher pressure to the pistons. You can raise the power output by increasing boiler temp. Dont know yet how much higher you can get it though, whether you can get back to old power output levels. Shockingly it actually makes sense how the steam circuit now works, lol, ie temp now matters more than it did.

EG my old piston rig could get around 2k power before, after it could get around 500 (all at 104 boiler temp and 60 pipe press, 3 piston press). I increased boiler temp to 130 and the power got up to 900 (11 piston press).
Needs more testing.

Try increasing boiler temp?
Bottom line is if this is the case it means a pretty large hike in fuel consumption.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Pistons reach 60atm pressure within a few seconds, not possible without using large electrical pumps it seems.

Firebox stays at ~130°, no issue there.

At least the boiler still goes from spawning in to producing steam within ~10 seconds, so goofing around with different setups doesn't take too much time.

Motivation however is lacking, who's to say all of this doesn't change a few months down the line? Space DLC went live 2 months ago, just for the devs to push these sledgehammer changes out time and time again.

[Einsty]

Originally posted by GrumpyOldMan:

That power reduction definitely wasn't intended or an oversight changing piston output being dependant on pressure rather than volume...

My testing rig was able to push a large generator to 100k output, now it's barely above 20k, output reduction down to a fifth...

Makes one think they're doing this just out of spite?

No way they tested this, saw this huge power difference and pushed it to live no matter what.

What happened to using the experimental branch? Tossed out the window again? Too much work?

I don't think they used the experimental branch once, I also doubt they are versioning in any way so it would be a moot point altogether.

[Captain Oveur]

My personal guess (which has a minimal 95% chance of being wrong) is they lowered the pistons’ power to more closely match pre 1.9, but I haven’t tested steam in a while. Last time I did check, though, pistons were way overpowered comparatively.

[edit]
Just read the patch notes and yep, I’m wrong lol

[Wingnut]

Another couple of questions if someone can help.
1. Is cooling still based on flow rate?
2. Do you still need a pump between every cooling component (manifold - pump - heat exchanger - pump - manifold. Port in - pump - radiator - pump - port out. etc) to get highest flow rate?

[Nitty_Gritty1]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

Another couple of questions if someone can help.
1. Is cooling still based on flow rate?
2. Do you still need a pump between every cooling component (manifold - pump - heat exchanger - pump - manifold. Port in - pump - radiator - pump - port out. etc) to get highest flow rate?

Yes, and yes. To the best of my knowledge, keeping a high flow rate narrows the temperature difference between the radiator and the manifold, enabling a higher heat transfer rate, cooling engines better. So yes. Also, GOM released a new image of the best cooling setup post gas update, which includes a fluid tank connected to the INLET of one of he coolant pumps, which fills the coolant loops with coolant, for better flow.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

Another couple of questions if someone can help.
1. Is cooling still based on flow rate?

Most likely, however there seems to be such a thing as too much flow:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3116851747

This didn't cool my engine as good as a less pressurized version with ~360l/s.

Note that I just goofed around a bit and didn't look into it that much, not as long as there's (apparently) still fixes/balancing going on, such as the steam piston power output reduction down to 20% of its previous level...

Originally posted by Nitty_Gritty1:

Yes, and yes. To the best of my knowledge, keeping a high flow rate narrows the temperature difference between the radiator and the manifold, enabling a higher heat transfer rate, cooling engines better.

From what I recall you get better heat exchange if the temperature difference between radiator and manifold is as big as possible.

If they're close, there's not much heat being exchanged.

Originally posted by Nitty_Gritty1:

Also, GOM released a new image of the best cooling setup post gas update, which includes a fluid tank connected to the INLET of one of he coolant pumps, which fills the coolant loops with coolant, for better flow.

Jury is still out on that one, the default pressure of ~30atm in the tank increases the flow, not the volume of fresh water.

As long as the tank still has some water in it, the gas content won't enter the coolant loop. Definitely needs more investigating, motivation to do so is low due to the reasons mentioned above, heh.

Adding the fresh water tank significantly increased cooling performance on my ship, however since 1.9.20 I can't replicate the result on a testbench in the hangar, flowrate also is only ~250l/s compared to 368l/s on the ships radiator. Very inconsistent.