Hobbyist's or TE steam engine?

[estilen]

Hello everyone!

I created a new world and decided to get started with the thermal expansion setup. In order to do that I need sufficient power source. I looked through all the engines and decided to get on with the steam engines, as I know they output 2mj/t which is pretty cool. I don't know which one should I use. I think that the thermal expansion one is more efficient and slightly cheaper.

But I don't know what's the coal consumption and I'm bad at testing this out. Does any of you know which one is better? By better I mean coal consumption, efficiency.

I think I put this thread in a wrong place, woops. :L

 

[Summit]

The Hobbyist's is much, much, much, much, more efficient but only if used continuously. It is horribly inefficient if used in short bursts. The TE steam engine provides better "instant on" short term use power. I like the TE one in the beginning until I can put my first Energy Cell together then switch to Hobbyist's to fill the energy cube.

 

[Exadi]

I just tested 8 charcoal in each. The Hobbyist engine is slightly ahead shortly after it started cooling down, so it really doesn't even take all that much to make it more efficient. With coal the difference would be even greater (it has double the heat value of charcoal but it's only about 50% better in a TE Steam engine). Besides, I wouldn't say the TE one is slightly cheaper, as it requires 11 copper, 1 silver and 2 redstone more than the Hobbyist, while you only save 1 and 2/9ths of a gold ingot (and a piece of glass lol).

EDIT: And the final results of 8 charcoal in each (including heatup and cooldown of the Hobbyist):
TE Steam Engine: 25576 MJ
Hobbyist's Steam Engine: 33184 MJ

 

[Summit]

Ooo... I forgot about the altered heat values of the charcoal. The last time I ran a test charcoal and coal had the same heat value and you had to burn 16 before the Hobbyist pulled ahead.

 

[KirinDave]

I just tested 8 charcoal in each. The Hobbyist engine is slightly ahead shortly after it started cooling down, so it really doesn't even take all that much to make it more efficient. With coal the difference would be even greater (it has double the heat value of charcoal but it's only about 50% better in a TE Steam engine). Besides, I wouldn't say the TE one is slightly cheaper, as it requires 11 copper, 1 silver and 2 redstone more than the Hobbyist, while you only save 1 and 2/9ths of a gold ingot (and a piece of glass lol).

EDIT: And the final results of 8 charcoal in each (including heatup and cooldown of the Hobbyist):
TE Steam Engine: 25576 MJ
Hobbyist's Steam Engine: 33184 MJ

No one disputes that the TE engine is less efficient in a long run. It's that if you keep turning them on and off the way a typical early-game workshop does then the TE engine has fixed efficiency and a fixed power output whereas the RC engine has lag. The RC engines also leak out power even after you turn them off, so if you are using BC energy pipes in your early game that can provoke explosions even if you catch power building up in the pipe! Early ore processing workshops turn on, turn off, and then turn on again as people feed them ore; they don't consume power the way quarry-driven systems do. Taking this into consideration will save you a ton of fuel early on (when it counts).

The RC engines are amazing if you don't ever turn them of, or if you can use all the power they make. Generally I start with 2 steam engines from Thermal Expansion for my workshop then work to make a redstone energy cell. Once I have that, I then use railcraft engines. Lately I've taken to using small external boilers because they're actually really easy to keep fed with early-game options and not crazy fuel hungry, with good output characteristics. Or you could just use Magmatic engines which are basically the best medium-MJ-output solution we have in the pack.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Also, TE Steam Engines produce 2 MJ/t wheras Hobbist only produce around 1.5 MJ/t until you get a supply of Steam. The extra .5 MJ/t can add up to faster operations. For example, Maximum Power for a Pulverizer is 4 and for the Furnace is 2 for a total of 6 MJ/t draw. To match that, you'd need three TE Steam Engines, wheras Hobbyist Steam Engines require 4.

Therefore, while less fuel-efficient, it does produce a higher overall MJ/t output, which is also going to be of use to an early-game workshop which probably has quite a stockpile of ores to process in a timely manner, since you only smelted just enough to get your workshop going so as to minimize the 'loss' of not processing them first.

I wouldn't call either one of them 'better', although I would respectfully submit that charcoal is pathetically easy to mass, and gold is fairly important in building your workshop (redstone power coils and machine frames both need them), and fairly uncommon (I generally end up with more diamonds than gold for some reason). Still, Silver is nearly as rare as Gold is, and is required to build the TE steam engines (in the coil), plus it requires a good bit of copper, which is actually a valuable resource now.

 

[Summit]

Silver is as rare as gold? What settings/pack are you using? Gold is very rare, yes, but I have as much silver as I have tin (i.e. a barrel of each).

 

[KirinDave]

Silver is as rare as gold? What settings/pack are you using? Gold is very rare, yes, but I have as much silver as I have tin (i.e. a barrel of each).

It depends on how you mine, but it is not as common as tin. It exists in a smaller range and in smaller veins. You can see it in the config/ThermalExpansion.cfg packs. It probably won't stay there for long, though. Metallurgy 3 is out for other packs and I think that King Lemming is moving this stuff to a CoFH-Worldgen library and mod.

 

[Summit]

Ooo, is Metallurgy 3 any good? I played with M2 a bit last year but it was a bit lame.

 

[KirinDave]

I thought M2 was good too. So... yes?

 

[RedBoss]

on the cool meter the TE steam engine looks more futuristic, the hobbyist steam engine looks more steam punk

i a quick test world for some building designs i tried the TE engine and i noticed i was refueling more than i ever did with hobbyists. so i believe the numbers, heck didn't even need them.

 

[b0bst3r]

When 1.5 comes there will be no loss if you use TE engines with redstone energy conduits, KL is calling it the redstone network (if I understand this correctly), so get used to using TE stuff together.

 

[estilen]

Thank you all guys!