Balancing this mod is an interesting question. As there's a lot more than simple numbers to consider, like space used, and pawn workload involved.

In effect, Rimefeller provides power with out requiring several pawns putting in work effort, and doesn't require space for boomalopes and hay farming to fuel chemfuel generators to get a comparible amount of power.

So far I see problems in the research tree. Only requiring electricity seems too easy and doesn't even make a lot of sense for what's going on in the game.

I'd lock Rimefeller behind the deep drilling technology. It makes sense after all, how do you drill for something as volatile as oil, if you can't even drill for steel or rock yet?

This would also give players a reason to drill, in order to more easily acquire the resource heavy costs of setting up an oil rig. Freeing up pawns to do other things is an end-game goal, so they can focus on more important tasks than feeding 10+ chemfuel generators.

This also leaves chemfuel generators in a position where they are still an attractive power option for early game. They are cheap to make, and farming for a few boomalopes isn't that hard.

The materials produced by Rimefeller, while inferior to alternatives, are cheap and easy to acquire, perfect for more late game colonies who just need building resources or fabric for basic clothes.

I'm unsure if Dubwise checks or will notice this thread, but I figured I'd post my two cents here, given how much text those two cents have.

So far i have changed the deep wells project requirement from fabrication to ground radar, reduced the radius on deep wells, doubled the well life but halved the max pressure, you now have to man a console for the refineries and cracker to function, i increased the tick interval by 50% on the refineries, increased the fuel to synthylene ratio, increased the drill time on wells, increased it a lot on deep wells, added a constant steel cost as fuel during the drilling process on deep and shallow wells, the console is required to see the shallow oil patches, and a ground radar is required to see deep oil patches, added more mod options, blocked all the materials from being sold by traders or spawned in as stuff for raider camp buildings.... ummm what else

I have plans for a mod which would link this to rimatomics and bad hygiene, which would then require you to have to pump thousands of litres of water to wells, crackers, and refineries, so that would add some optional difficulty.

The ground radar research is only 1000 points more than fabrication but maybe the 2 advanced components to build the radar is enough to feel like deep wells took effort, but i have to keep shallow wells as an easy project to have any chance to compete with biofuel, people have already complained that the expense for setting up the wells and refineries is garbage compared to just cutting down some trees or using bug meat, and i have so much excess food on my test map from a patch of rich soil that i can craft twice as much chemfuel than i have in my tanks, and biofuel crafting is pretty damn fast and only costs 700 points of research and 170watts and its tiny, some people say chemfuel in general feels unbalanced in the game.

The piped chemfuel powerplants use the same amount of chemfuel per watt as chemfuel generators and you need at least 1 to cover the huge power cost of the buildings plus you need the extra space for tanks.

If i make wells so they produce lots of heat to prevent people putting them indoors then people can just use them like geothermals for free heating, which is what i do on cold maps, so its unbalanced on cold maps but then its too extreme on hot maps. Also forcing something indoors or outdoors doesn't really change balance because walls still exist, and raiders crash through roofs, and people that build in mountains do it because they want to, they picked a map with mountains to do that, so forcing them to build outside just makes them not want to use your stuff, if you think building inside mountains is unbalanced then you are already the kind of player that doesn't pick a mountain map, so just build your wells out in the middle of nowhere if thats the kind of risk you want.

In the end there is no such thing as balance, because the logic and reasoning behind why something costs more or less than equal is all just opinion, its not like its an online fps shooter where 2 guns with different stats have to be 1:1 dps, all that really matters is feel, and as long as most people feel like they put in enough effort in their scenario then job done

Personally I'd make it so Rimefeller, once set up, requires little to no pawn workload.
If a single pawn is required to run a cracker, that's still far less work effort than the chain of pawn workers needed to supply materials for chemfuel generators, which generally include growers, plant cutters, haulers, and refiners. Or Animal handlers, growers, and refiners, Or all of them!

Comapred to a single pawn operating a cracker now and then. Not to mention the side benefit of having easy cloth and building materials which doesn't require a pawn to cut hundreds of blocks, or cut down 50+ trees. The first thing I did with synthelene was stuff my prison full of the stuff. It's cheap and easily replaced!

Point is, Rimefeller is pretty balanced as it stands. It provides interesting mechanics, and I personally can't wait to see intigration with Bad Hygiene, which is one of my favorite mods.

I would not mind seeing a research down the tree for it however that allows for smart valves. Valves that open/close based on oil pressure behind them. Even if pawns had to come flick them, it'd still be better than having the player micro-manage oil pressures.

I would recommend heat generation be added to some of the structures at least. I have a fully setup production area inside a cave and I feel its not right. There should be immense heat generation to the point that the refineries catch fire, and I should have to use some advanced cooling to keep it nice and cool, but thats not the case.

It honestly feels like hyperweave is a bit too simple to get to - as it stands, it only requires a ton of fuel and a manned resource console. Maybe having it require intermediate stages like composite or plasteel and adding time-costly chokepoints should be best. Or maybe it's just using Rimefeller with Rimatomics being kinda op, seeing as nuclear power gives almost infinite power to keep refineries running through the night.

i only added it because people wanted it, else it wouldn't be there

This is neither here nor there, but an average 5kW generator goes through about 38 L of fuel in 24h. If we assume future tech means the equivalent of a high-quality modern 2019 generator, that consumption falls to 20.44L/day. Tack on a 9% efficiency gain from being The Future with spacer tech, and we get the 18L/day seen in the mod. So that part is balanced with regard to realism if anyone cares. :}