Regarding the mod idea I posted here a little while back, I've had some more ideas regarding its mechanics...
[ETA]
OH! Also, teflon. That is all.
- Power generation blocks consists of two things, a generator housing and a motor. The former is an actual block you can place in the world, but can be made of different materials, such as iron or steel, which naturally have different properties; iron and/or steel housings are more durable and can handle greater input pressures, but gold housings are much more conductive, which translates to greater power output per PSI of pressure going thru it. The motor can be thought of along the lines of MFFS modules, they can be placed into (and retrieved from) housings by right-clicking one with one (or nothing, in the case of removal) in your hand. These are the workhorses of the actual power generation system, and can be like many other things, made from different components that imbue it with different properties, gold increases power output while contributing little to durability and requiring more lubricant (discussed later), whereas steel components are much more durable and can go longer with inadequate lubrication.
- As mentioned earlier, motors require lubricant to work without the motors wearing and, eventually, breaking. As one might guess, there are different varieties of lubricants, each with different properties. An early-game example would be a kind of water-based lubricant which, while easily-renewable, doesn't last very long before its used up. Petroleum-based lubricants aren't renewable (not taking bees and/or power loops into account), but last a great deal longer. After thinking on it, I want a mechanic like this to be implemented for two reasons: one, it mimics real life; real-world motors require lubricant in some way, shape or form, and two, it'll make the player more careful with their resources, to keep them from spreading their lubricant supplies too thin. Also, damage done to motors from lack of lubricant is permanent. While you can take it out of the housing and replace parts, bringing its durability up, it won't restore any durability on its own.
- After running a long time, metal fatigue will start to take its toll on the motors, reducing their durability slowly, but consistently. While some metal fatigue can be rid of by simply letting your engines rest when not in use, a small, but increasing, amount of it will be permanent, barring part replacement. Even with the best lubricants and most painstaking care, all engines will eventually wear down to uselessness (in this case, ceasing to function until parts are replaced) due to simple age and normal wear-and-tear.
- The actual electrical charge created by generators -can- be carried by conductive cables, but distance-based losses will be roughly analogous to IC2 cables (outside of glass fibre). This, among other things, means that long-distance electricity transmission will be -very- difficult. However, this doesn't mean that long-distance power transmission will be impossible, it'll just be more resource-intensive than, say, energy tesseracts. I see two ways of this being achieved, with some others perhaps coming afterwards: electrical repeaters, which act in much the same way as vanilla redstone repeaters, but each repeat of the electrical signal will decrease its overall power until it reaches 0. The other will be steam condensers which can be used in steam pipe networks; these will increase the amount of pressure in the connected (but technically separate) pipe network, but they will only go in -one- direction. That is to say that you can go low-pressure to high-pressure, but the low-pressure end will -not- gain in pressure outside normal mechanics. There would also be one-way pressure reducers, which function the same way as condensers, just in the opposite direction: high pressure will become low pressure, but greater volume.
- Back to the topic of motors and such, the materials that can be used will also depend on what mods, if any, you have installed alongside mine. For example, if you've got IC2, you could make iridium pipes, which are -incredibly- durable, at the cost of being very expensive to produce. If you've got GregTech, the possibilities open even further: you can have aluminium pipes, titanium, and other such metals, all with their own properties and durability.
[ETA]
OH! Also, teflon. That is all.
