[BC / RC]Losing steam in pipes

[Jugg3rV]

Hey guys,

I was wondering what causes my common steam engine only to work with 1,2 MJ / t.
I used waterproof pipes to transport steam to it, about 30 block away or so. From conductive pipes i know that i loose power, but i don't know what causes the loss of 0,8 MJ in this case.
Is it the pipes from BC? I don't think it is, cause in this cause, oil pumping through large systems of pipes would also be lost. Didn't notice that.
So it has to be RC related. Any rules on this? I did a quick research but didn't find any ...

Thanks

 

[Omicron]

What kind of waterproof pipes are you using?

Regular (stone, cobblestone, iron etc) waterproof pipes transport enough steam for 2 MJ/t worth of engine power. Golden waterproof pipes transport enough for 8 MJ/t.

- If you use one regular pipe to supply two or more engines, you're still only getting 2 MJ/t in total while each individual engine runs slower. Similar things happen if you hook too many engines to a golden pipe, though they will have to be very large (or very many) engines.
- Sometimes the capacity of liquid pipes is lower than it should be because somewhere, some liquid is backflowing. This backflow consumes part of the pipe's capacity and leaves less room for transport in the proper direction. This happens especially when you hook up the pipe while the engine is switched off. The engine will fill up on steam, and once it's full, extra steam coming in will hit the end of the pipe with nowhere to go and reverse direction. If you then switch on the engine in this half-filled pipe condition, you'll get less steam than you'd expect. Solution: switch off the engine, wait till the pipe is completely full everywhere, then switch it back on.
- Is there enough steam to be transported to the engine? If you have other engines hooked up to the boiler, they may draw off more than it can supply.

If none of these explains your issue, post a screenshot of your installation.

 

[Jugg3rV]

The pipe did hit the firebox, thus some steam flow back up to the tank. I changed pipe setup, and now the engine runs at 2MJ smoothly. Should have figured that out myself... Thx nevertheless