TE 3 Problem: Charcoal into dynamos or Steam into dynamos

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JoeOtaku

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Jul 29, 2019
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so, I'm just wondering, is it better to feed charcoal directly into steam dynamos or is it better to feed them into steam boilers which then powers the dynamos for power. It seems like in 1.6.4 even a 16x16 ghostwood tree farm can't stand the usage of charcoal from more than 7 36HP boilers. I have 6 HP boilers set up right now and my charcoal supplie is barely growing atm.

BTW come on why did railcraft get nerfed so much in 1.6...
 

Tristam Izumi

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Jul 29, 2019
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I've never had a need for one full HP boiler in my builds, let along six (wouldn't that come out to over 850 MJ/t or 8.5k RF/t?). I guess it really comes down to playstyles.

That said, probably using the coal straight into steam dynamos, since they self-regulate and burn the coal slower if there's no immediate need for the power.
 

Tyrindor

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They'll produce the same power regardless, but after you heat up the Steam boilers it should be able to keep them running 24/7 on less charcoal than feeding the engines directly. Personally, I would use Industrial Steam Engines because they produce more energy in less space. The MJ/RF was handshaking nicely in my test world. I had to set up like ~36 Steam Dynamos before it was using all my steam from a single boiler, but only 18 Industrial Steam Engines. I think lemming said you'll be able to upgrade the Dynamos at some point but I don't think that's been added yet.

Do you really considering running 7 36HP off a single tree farm balanced? I don't. Make another tree farm if you really need that insane amount of power. If your that far into the game, making a second tree farm wouldn't even take .01% of your resources.
 

Omicron

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10 RF = 1 MJ.

The only reason you even have different numbers is because King Lemming wanted to avoid using floating point data types and math, because integer based math is much quicker and takes less memory. So instead of his machines consuming 4.0 units per tick, they consume 40 units per tick now.
 
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demonguard

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Jul 29, 2019
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Steam boiler should be more efficient once heated and dynamos now consume and produce twice as much so you won't have to make a 36 dynamo stack (just 18).
 

Seraph089

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Jul 29, 2019
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Steam boiler should be more efficient once heated
Not anymore. After the initial heat-up, they actually become less efficient the hotter they get (much less for HPs).

LPs are actually better now if you have the space for them, 2 36LPs use quite a bit less fuel to run than 1 36HP
 

MigukNamja

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LPs are actually better now if you have the space for them, 2 36LPs use quite a bit less fuel to run than 1 36HP

Whoa, seriously ? WTH is CJ doing with his mod ?

First the fuel nerfs, and now a steel nerf ?[DOUBLEPOST=1387475228][/DOUBLEPOST]
BTW come on why did railcraft get nerfed so much in 1.6...

IC2's Player started with the fuel nerfs with a pull request to Buildcraft (BC). CovertJaguar (CJ) is the main BC maintainer/developer and he followed suit with his Railcraft mod.

Bad idea if you ask me.
 
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Omicron

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Not anymore. After the initial heat-up, they actually become less efficient the hotter they get (much less for HPs).

No they don't. They get more efficient as heat goes up, just like before.

Whoa, seriously ? WTH is CJ doing with his mod ?

Fixing a gross balance issue on the solid fuel side, buffing liquid fuels back up from Player's changes to maintain their usefulness, making boilers more realistic, making boilers more convenient to use, adding a config option for adjusting boiler base fuel efficiency, removing heatup costs, and changing the way HP fuel inefficiency is handled.

Previously boilers started at 900% fuel consumption and dropped to 100% at full heat, now they start at 100% and increase to 110% at full heat. This means heatup costs as we know them are more or less gone. Instead, steam output scales by temperature (which is the part that Seraph failed to take into account). This behavior is not only more realistic, but also allows you to fire a large boiler up with only a small supply of fuel (or even directly on the output of a fuel producing machine) instead of bunkering chests upon chests of buffer fuel. And you don't lose a gigantic investment in fuel if your boiler accidentally cools down while you're offline.

Previously, the efficiency difference between LP and HP boilers was a short term efficiency penalty on the HP side through quadrupled heatup costs compared to the LP side. Now that heatup costs are largely gone, there needed to be a new way to make HP boilers less efficient than LP boilers (which has always been the name of the game). It was realized by adding an additional fuel cost on top of the double fuel draw for double output, making it a long-term efficiency penalty instead of a short term one.

Previously solid boilers were about 6-8 times as good as solid fuel generators, and 1.5 times as good as liquid fuel generators. Now, they are still 1.5 times as good as liquid fuel generators, but the solid side has come down to a much more reasonable 2-4 times. This was achieved by doubling overall fuel costs but also doubling liquid fuel burn values (turning Player's /4 nerf into a /2 instead), while adjusting some of the more powerful solids downwards.

It was a much needed change and leaves boilers in a better spot balance- and usability-wise. They are still the single most fuel efficient power producers across the entire ecosystem of Buildcraft, Industrialcraft, Thermal Expansion and all its associates/addons, for both solid and liquid fuels.
 
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MigukNamja

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Thanks, @Omicron ! I was hoping this thread would draw your attention and you would prove false my alarming accusations ;-)

Thanks as always, sir :)
 

TheAbstractHippo

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Jul 29, 2019
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In TE3 B9 getting planks from putting logs through a Sawmill gets you more net RF than cooking it into charcoal and placing it in the dynamo. That might have changed, though. I also haven't a clue about boilers, too, so I have no idea how that stacks up.
 
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Omicron

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Thanks, @Omicron ! I was hoping this thread would draw your attention and you would prove false my alarming accusations ;-)

Well, I can't disclaim the fact that folks loving HP boilers will be annoyed. The new, permanent extra fuel draw will be felt much more directly than the sort of difficult to grasp concept of heatup costs, especially by those who design fuel loops for long-term sustained operation. It most definitely is a nerf in that case, no doubt. Coupled with the fact that solids in general are consumed at a much faster rate means that you'll be needing a lot more tree farm for the same amount of charcoal nomming HP boilers.

Good news for those who run boilers off of coke ovens though - the coke oven operating speed has been greatly increased as well (almost doubled), so you don't suddenly have to build twice as many.

In TE3 B9 getting planks from putting logs through a Sawmill gets you more net RF than cooking it into charcoal and placing it in the dynamo. That might have changed, though. I also haven't a clue about boilers, too, so I have no idea how that stacks up.

That has always been the case in TE, ever since the sawmill was added in 1.4 ;) Only coke ovens were still slightly better, but only if you used both the charcoal and the creosote to fuel boilers. And with originally 3 minutes per operation, you needed a lot of coke ovens to keep up with one sawmill, so it's always been a very popular choice.
 

MigukNamja

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Annoyed, yes, but not too upset. 110% for HP vs. 100% for LP is not a big deal. The 36HPs are more compact and I prize compactness when and where ever I can get it.

Also, I prefer liquid-fueled boilers for my playstyle, which is tree and bee heavy. Currently have bred near top-of-the-line saplings/trees for my Fermenters and am in the middle of a breeding program for high-output Papaya for the fruit juice for Fermenters. Am using mainly honey in the meantime.

Guess who helped me figure out how to breed these trees ?

(hint : see my signature)
 

Omicron

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Annoyed, yes, but not too upset. 110% for HP vs. 100% for LP is not a big deal. The 36HPs are more compact and I prize compactness when and where ever I can get it.

It's unfortunately worse than that. The 100% to 110% part is just the fuel usage gain by any boiler while heating up. Fuel efficiency differences between LP and HP vary slightly by size, but for size-36 boilers it's around 20% less MJ per invested HU on the HP side (4.44 vs. 3.48). Or, flipped around, you can say that a 36 LP boiler is 25% more efficient than a 36 HP. (Funny how percentages work like that.)
 

JoeOtaku

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Jul 29, 2019
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They'll produce the same power regardless, but after you heat up the Steam boilers it should be able to keep them running 24/7 on less charcoal than feeding the engines directly. Personally, I would use Industrial Steam Engines because they produce more energy in less space. The MJ/RF was handshaking nicely in my test world. I had to set up like ~36 Steam Dynamos before it was using all my steam from a single boiler, but only 18 Industrial Steam Engines. I think lemming said you'll be able to upgrade the Dynamos at some point but I don't think that's been added yet.

Do you really considering running 7 36HP off a single tree farm balanced? I don't. Make another tree farm if you really need that insane amount of power. If your that far into the game, making a second tree farm wouldn't even take .01% of your resources.
How do u convert mj into rf though? Hooking up ISEs with conduits dont work
 

Tyrindor

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Jul 29, 2019
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How do u convert mj into rf though? Hooking up ISEs with conduits dont work

Did for me when I tested on TE3 b6, it might have changed. Keep in mind ISEs need a redstone signal, while Dynamos do not.

Also, Dynamos were definitely buffed recently to match ISEs, so I would go with Dynamos now.
 
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PierceSG

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@Omnicron, got a request here. Thimk you might be willing to lay out the pro and con of the 2 types of boilers, LP & HP, in layman's term? Please. :3

Sent from my GT-N8020 using Tapatalk
 
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