Begin strategy

[gusmahler]

7) Make a decision what you want, either a steam turbine, either industrial steam engines.

Since you're talking about ultimate, just use Power Converters. It'll take steam directly and convert it to either MJ or EU. So you don't have to worry about 198 steel for the industrial steam engines or the 777 steel needed for 3 steam turbines.[DOUBLEPOST=1371750840][/DOUBLEPOST]

For startup, I build the basic TE machines plus one steam engine and a coke oven. From there, I aim for the minimum stone so I can get two liquid tesseracts, which result in a tank full of oil via a pump powered by redstone engines. Then, build a refinery with make a couple buckets of fuel, and follow it up with a fuel-powered combustion engine to make this loop self-sustaining. All the while you can be making coal coke for a blast furnace and the steel needed for a boiler.

2 geysers should run a pair of boilers for a couple days, giving you time to make a quarry and storage system. From there, everything points upward. I run on oil till I build nukes as its energy density far outweighs its renewability.

Couple of days? Once the boiler is up and running, it only uses 12 buckets of fuel per hour. So a large geyser (we found a 3,000 bucket geyser), will keep you up for over 10 days. More than enough time to get renewable fuel going.

 

[netchip]

Since you're talking about ultimate, just use Power Converters. It'll take steam directly and convert it to either MJ or EU. So you don't have to worry about 198 steel for the industrial steam engines or the 777 steel needed for 3 steam turbines.[DOUBLEPOST=1371750840][/DOUBLEPOST]Couple of days? Once the boiler is up and running, it only uses 12 buckets of fuel per hour. So a large geyser (we found a 3,000 bucket geyser), will keep you up for over 10 days. More than enough time to get renewable fuel going.

But is the converter as efficient?

 

[Poppycocks]

But is the converter as efficient?

The converters may be a little too efficient. In fact you can create power loops under certain circumstances with them.

 

[gusmahler]

But is the converter as efficient?

Yes, power converter steam consumer will take the entire 720 mB/t of steam and convert it to 144 MJ/t (the same rate as industrial steam engines).

Even better is the EU conversion. 3 steam turbines will turn a 36HP boiler into 225 EU/t. But a power converter steam consumer and HV producer will create 350 EU/t.

And it's much cheaper. 18 industrial steam engines is 198 steel (plus glass and pistons). A steam consumer is 4 gold plus 11 iron. An energy bridge is 4 gold, 1 diamond, 2 redstone and two glass. An EV producer is 4 gold plus an MFSU.

And don't even think about steam turbines--297 steel for the turbines (which have to be replaced once every 5 days or so) plus 480 steel for the casings

 

[netchip]

Yes, power converter steam consumer will take the entire 720 mB/t of steam and convert it to 144 MJ/t (the same rate as industrial steam engines).

Even better is the EU conversion. 3 steam turbines will turn a 36HP boiler into 225 EU/t. But a power converter steam consumer and HV producer will create 350 EU/t.

And it's much cheaper. 18 industrial steam engines is 198 steel (plus glass and pistons). A steam consumer is 4 gold plus 11 iron. An energy bridge is 4 gold, 1 diamond, 2 redstone and two glass. An EV producer is 4 gold plus an MFSU.

And don't even think about steam turbines--297 steel for the turbines (which have to be replaced once every 5 days or so) plus 480 steel for the casings

Well, I have a tree farm so the charcoal isn't a problem really. But yeah, if it's cheaper and better, then you should use it xD

I really should mess around with boilers in survival