Liquid Tesseracts and Steam

[Staxed]

Heya,

I'm working on a boiler setup at the moment and I was curious, if I want to pump my steam into a tank, and then use liquid tesseracts to get it to my steam engines, how many tesseracts would I need?

Would two tesseracts on the boiler work (9 liquiducts into one side of each), and then 1 tesseract for 9 engines, or could I reliably use 1 tesseract for more than 9 engines, not sure what the throughput of a tesseract is (or the limit for throughput of a steel tank valve)

 

[mushroom taco]

1

 

[Platinawolf]

I think you need 10 connections to tesseracts on the boiler side. I have 3 x 36HP boilers feeding 6 liquid tesseracts on the boiler side. On the engine side I have 1X Liquid tesseract feeding two steam consumers at 1000 mb steam per tick and one liquid tesseract feeding two steam consumers for something near zero. In total I have a baseline consumption of 400 MJ, 2003 steam or something. However, the MJ producer is limited to 500 MJ power.

 

[Hydra]

There really is no point in storing steam. You're much better off storing the fuel for the boiler. Steam is very much NOT an energy-dense liqiud. You will also run into issues with the maximum output of tank valves which can become a limiting factor.

 

[Platinawolf]

Well, the thing to remember about storing steam in tanks is that you need 9 powered connections to extract the steam (per 36 HP boiler) again... Or might have been 18 connections,,, Never tried it myself ^^* Your better off storing the energy as oil or lava and use combustion engines or magmatic one's to extract the excess energy needed. This ofcourse assumes that you have oil/lava generators available.

 

[Staxed]

I think you need 10 connections to tesseracts on the boiler side. I have 3 x 36HP boilers feeding 6 liquid tesseracts on the boiler side. On the engine side I have 1X Liquid tesseract feeding two steam consumers at 1000 mb steam per tick and one liquid tesseract feeding two steam consumers for something near zero. In total I have a baseline consumption of 400 MJ, 2003 steam or something. However, the MJ producer is limited to 500 MJ power.

Well, the thing to remember about storing steam in tanks is that you need 9 powered connections to extract the steam (per 36 HP boiler) again... Or might have been 18 connections,,, Never tried it myself ^^* Your better off storing the energy as oil or lava and use combustion engines or magmatic one's to extract the excess energy needed. This ofcourse assumes that you have oil/lava generators available.

The setup I did last night to test things has 9 connections, unpowered, and it's pulling all the steam just fine. Actually have 9 connections on 3 boilers each (27 total), all running into one central liquiduct to power the 54 engines for that cluster. I decided to not use the tesseracts and just build clusters of boilers/engines right next to each other. And yeah, thanks for pointing out the energy storage options, I think I'm going to go that route actually (though I don't have the generators yet, just planning stages still).

There really is no point in storing steam. You're much better off storing the fuel for the boiler. Steam is very much NOT an energy-dense liqiud. You will also run into issues with the maximum output of tank valves which can become a limiting factor.

I was doing it more for the "because I could" aspect and I had a little space left to add a tank, so figured I would. After redesigning my setup though, I don't have space left so I'm going to do away with the storage of the steam. The valve issue was actually a major thing that led to that decision as well. Do you know what the max throughput of a steel valve is perchance?

 

[mushroom taco]

The setup I did last night to test things has 9 connections, unpowered, and it's pulling all the steam just fine. Actually have 9 connections on 3 boilers each (27 total), all running into one central liquiduct to power the 54 engines for that cluster. I decided to not use the tesseracts and just build clusters of boilers/engines right next to each other. And yeah, thanks for pointing out the energy storage options, I think I'm going to go that route actually (though I don't have the generators yet, just planning stages still).
[

I was doing it more for the "because I could" aspect and I had a little space left to add a tank, so figured I would. After redesigning my setup though, I don't have space left so I'm going to do away with the storage of the steam. The valve issue was actually a major thing that led to that decision as well. Do you know what the max throughput of a steel valve is perchance?

whatever you're using to pull it out.

But don't ever store steam. It's a terrible concept.

 

[draeath]

... don't ever store steam. It's a terrible concept.

Why? It gives you a buffer of immediately-available energy that doesn't require a warm-up period and doesn't flap about hysteresis like geothermals and such do.

 

[Platinawolf]

As for powered connections its just needed to take the steam out of iron/steel tanks.

 

[Staxed]

As for powered connections its just needed to take the steam out of iron/steel tanks.

it also doubles the throughput of the output liquiduct connect

 

[Loufmier]

Why? It gives you a buffer of immediately-available energy that doesn't require a warm-up period and doesn't flap about hysteresis like geothermals and such do.

i think a bit of math should do the trick for you:
20 mb = 4 MJ
which means that MJ is 5 times denser than steam. so it better to store MJ rather than steam.

 

[draeath]

But you can't store MJ in a tank. You can only store the fuel used in whatever you choose makes MJ, so the comparison doesn't really apply? Steam is a fuel, when it comes down to it. Consider the boiler to be a form of refining.

 

[Loufmier]

Consider the boiler to be a form of refining.

since you touched refining, then you should consider steam being an oil and steam engine to be a refinery. which is better to store: crude oil or refined fuel?

 

[draeath]

Not so.

Proper fuels -> Boiler (refinery) -> Steam -> Steam Engine (or turbine, if you want EU)
Oil -> Refinery -> Fuel -> Combustion Engine etc

It's almost exactly parallel. That said, Fuel has a much higher 'energy' density than steam.

Things get more muddy though when the fuel sent to the boiler happens to be fuel refined from oil. I'd still argue that there is a purpose to storing the steam though, it's a fast-consumption fast-production buffer, is all.

The point is moot when we are talking extremes like a 36HP though. I'm looking more specifically at the early game - 1LP and the like. Then it makes much more sense to tank your steam.

 

[Loufmier]

Things get more muddy though when the fuel sent to the boiler happens to be fuel refined from oil. I'd still argue that there is a purpose to storing the steam though, it's a fast-consumption fast-production buffer, is all.

The point is moot when we are talking extremes like a 36HP though. I'm looking more specifically at the early game - 1LP and the like. Then it makes much more sense to tank your steam.

the point of storing steam instead of energy produced by it, is same as storing air instead of compressed air - pointless inefficient task.

 

[KaosC57]

the point of storing steam instead of energy produced by it, is same as storing air instead of compressed air - pointless inefficient task.

It's not pointless... If your running Steam Engines ( the Industrial Steam Engines from Railcraft) Having a buffer of steam in a tank (preferably Xycraft if Sorayn would hurry a little bit but that's another topic) is great especially in early game. since the Industrial Steam Engines require almost no heatup time. So your argument is invalid.

 

[draeath]

the point of storing steam instead of energy produced by it, is same as storing air instead of compressed air - pointless inefficient task.

I'm afraid I don't follow your analogy.

It's not pointless... If your running Steam Engines ( the Industrial Steam Engines from Railcraft) Having a buffer of steam in a tank (preferably Xycraft if Sorayn would hurry a little bit but that's another topic) is great especially in early game. since the Industrial Steam Engines require almost no heatup time. So your argument is invalid.

Thanks, this is more-or-less what I'm trying to explain to Loufmier

More to the point, it allows one to have an insufficient boiler supply, with the expectations that the engines will only be used intermittently (eg, on-demand and not always running). The boiler fills the steam tank, and when you're ready, you turn on the engine(s). The boiler could not feed them directly.

Yes, you could use combustion or sterling engines directly, depending on your fuel source of choice. However, commercial/industrial steam engines might do the job better. Maybe you don't have room to run a water line, and perhaps the stirling engine just doesn't (pardon the language) have the balls to do the job you want done. As well, I was under the impression they both had inefficient warm-up periods - steam engines don't, if you're pumping steam to them directly. Sure the boiler does, but if you have a small boiler filling a tank, you might never have to stop the boiler.

 

[Loufmier]

It's not pointless... If your running Steam Engines ( the Industrial Steam Engines from Railcraft) Having a buffer of steam in a tank (preferably Xycraft if Sorayn would hurry a little bit but that's another topic) is great especially in early game. since the Industrial Steam Engines require almost no heatup time. So your argument is invalid.

i dont get why it`s not pointless: all that nonsense(at least to me it is) about storing for later use is to achieve fuel efficiency. but storing steam instead of energy quite opposite of efficiency, which makes it kinda pointless.

 

[draeath]

i dont why it`s not pointless: all that nonsense(at least to me it is) about storing for later use is to achieve fuel efficiency. but storing steam instead of energy quite opposite of efficiency, which makes it kinda pointless.

You probably started replying to him before my post was up, have a look. Maybe that explains what I'm trying to express? (not to mention I edited it like 5 times, adding a bit more as I went LOL)

EDIT: I think we're looking at different usage anyway. What you say makes sense for constant-supply constant-use cases. I'm talking about bursts of use with a slow/trickle supply. Different ball of wax entirely.

 

[RedBoss]

I never thought of storing steam because I have more than one method of energy generation. If for whatever reason I ran out of fuel for a boiler, I could flip a switch on another energy system.

Store it if you want, it's your game. It just seems more logical to either focus on making sure the boiler never runs out of fuel and/or keeping a backup system.