The Final Word on Steam Boiler Efficiency

[natnif36]

Use a portal gun to drag a Carmanite Golem spawner somewhere and set up a grinder for iron.

Or set up a vanilla iron golem farm thing.

Drag a skeleton spawner to the nether to spawn wither skeletons for coal.

Use some form of automation, to combine the two into steel.



Also the GT steam turbines in 1.5, the Reactor Turbines from Atomic Science if that is installed.

Steam engines, power magma crucible on cobble (Igneus extruder) putting that into a GT thermal Generator to not need steel.

Lots of options.

GT machines can run directly off steam, if you feel so inclined.

 

[schyman]

How much ethanol would be required to start up a 36LP boiler? And how much would it drain per hour?

Thanks a lot for any answers!

 

[gattsuru]

How much ethanol would be required to start up a 36LP boiler? And how much would it drain per hour?

Thanks a lot for any answers!

175ish buckets, and then 18 buckets per hour.

You can use this calculator if you don't want to do the math.

 

[Omicron]

It's even linked in my post...

 

[schyman]

175ish buckets, and then 18 buckets per hour.

You can use this calculator if you don't want to do the math.

Thanks a lot!

It's even linked in my post...

I tried to understand the calculator you linked, but it had a design choice of ALL DA COLORZZZ on a colored background, and I have a very hard time grasping numbers I don't write myself and also a hard time understanding things when they're jumbled, and this was a combination of them both. Don't know if it's my ADD or what, but trying to navigate the calculator made my head scream for a gun. xD

 

[Omicron]

I tried to understand the calculator you linked, but it had a design choice of ALL DA COLORZZZ on a colored background, and I have a very hard time grasping numbers I don't write myself and also a hard time understanding things when they're jumbled, and this was a combination of them both. Don't know if it's my ADD or what, but trying to navigate the calculator made my head scream for a gun. xD

Hmmm? Which one? My post contains three things that can calculate stuff: (1) a LUA script, suitable for ingame Computercraft stuff; (2) the exact link that gattsuru offered you above; and (3) an excel spreadsheet with some tables that can show or calculate stuff for you (which feature exactly four colors - gold, grey, white and black). I do not link to any sort of psychedelic color explosion.

 

[schyman]

Hmmm? Which one? My post contains three things that can calculate stuff: (1) a LUA script, suitable for ingame Computercraft stuff; (2) the exact link that gattsuru offered you above; and (3) an excel spreadsheet with some tables that can show or calculate stuff for you (which feature exactly four colors - gold, grey, white and black). I do not link to any sort of psychedelic color explosion.

Don't have excel, so this is the link I used:
http://calculator.towerofawesome.org/

It wasn't really all da colorzzz as much as plenty of colors and a LOT of text/random headers/things like that. Just not a friendly interface, and I have a very low tolerance on interfaces I find understandable.

 

[Omicron]

Don't have excel, so this is the link I used:
http://calculator.towerofawesome.org/

It wasn't really all da colorzzz as much as plenty of colors and a LOT of text/random headers/things like that. Just not a friendly interface, and I have a very low tolerance on interfaces I find understandable.

Then why are you thanking gattsuru for the link in the very same post you complain to me about the exact same link (which isn't even maintained by me)? I'm sorry, you're just making very little sense.

 

[schyman]

Then why are you thanking gattsuru for the link in the very same post you complain to me about the exact same link (which isn't even maintained by me)? I'm sorry, you're just making very little sense.

Oh, sorry if I came across as complaining. I was just explaining why I didn't understand it. Never meant any offense - your OP taught me a lot! Converted me from a believer in HP to a believer in LP...
But, the thank you was primarilly for the direct answer; "175ish buckets, and then 18 buckets per hour.". Knowing the correct result, I managed to find out how to use the site decently, though I still don't understand half of it.

But, thank you for a great opening post and doing all the maths.

 

[Forecaster]

Oh, sorry if I came across as complaining. I was just explaining why I didn't understand it. Never meant any offense - your OP taught me a lot! Converted me from a believer in HP to a believer in LP...
But, the thank you was primarilly for the direct answer; "175ish buckets, and then 18 buckets per hour.". Knowing the correct result, I managed to find out how to use the site decently, though I still don't understand half of it.

But, thank you for a great opening post and doing all the maths.

What exactly is it you don't understand? I try to make it as straight forward as possible without loosing functionality.

There are buttons near the bottom of the page for changing the background to solid colors (black, white or custom) which should help make it easier to use.

There's also a button that hides all the boxes with yellow borders, such as the poll, to make the page less cluttered.

If you have cookies enabled these settings will be remembered.

Trust me when I say it's way better now compared to how it used to be. But if you have suggestions for further improvements I'd love to hear them!

 

[schyman]

What exactly is it you don't understand? I try to make it as straight forward as possible without loosing functionality.

There are buttons near the bottom of the page for changing the background to solid colors (black, white or custom) which should help make it easier to use.

There's also a button that hides all the boxes with yellow borders, such as the poll, to make the page less cluttered.

If you have cookies enabled these settings will be remembered.

Trust me when I say it's way better now compared to how it used to be. But if you have suggestions for further improvements I'd love to hear them!

Well, I'm not good with clutter (could have to do with my ADHD) and generally have a hard time filling out forms, so I'm not the average user. English also isn't my main language which makes it harder for my brain process too. It may very well be impossible to make such a thing that I could understand it easily. However, things that would make it easier for me (personally) to understand it (not saying you should do this, just what type of things make it easier for me to grasp it, and possibly for others with the same difficulties), are things like:

- Not as many colors, in particular the orange and turqoise, and in general white on (quite light) gray.
- Not shifting colors and formatting styles (other than occacional bolding or italics) mid-sentence; it breaks me off and forces me to reread the sentence.
- Separating the calculator itself from the "other stuff" (links to comment section, changelog and android app poll for example), potentially into a separate box on the side or something.

It was much easier to access it when I took "hide junk" and "black background", but finding the buttons for that took me some time by itself.

Again, I don't say you should do these things - I understand people don't have time for everything. But since you asked I thought I'd give some feedback from an ADHD'er! xD

 

[Forecaster]

Well, I'm not good with clutter (could have to do with my ADHD) and generally have a hard time filling out forms, so I'm not the average user. English also isn't my main language which makes it harder for my brain process too. It may very well be impossible to make such a thing that I could understand it easily. However, things that would make it easier for me (personally) to understand it (not saying you should do this, just what type of things make it easier for me to grasp it, and possibly for others with the same difficulties), are things like:

- Not as many colors, in particular the orange and turqoise, and in general white on (quite light) gray.
- Not shifting colors and formatting styles (other than occacional bolding or italics) mid-sentence; it breaks me off and forces me to reread the sentence.
- Separating the calculator itself from the "other stuff" (links to comment section, changelog and android app poll for example), potentially into a separate box on the side or something.

It was much easier to access it when I took "hide junk" and "black background", but finding the buttons for that took me some time by itself.

Again, I don't say you should do these things - I understand people don't have time for everything. But since you asked I thought I'd give some feedback from an ADHD'er! xD

I appreciate the feedback!

Not sure what you mean by shifting formatting styles. I know there are colors mixed in, I use this to highlight variable values such as percentages and fuel values.

The only blue (or turquoise) things that I know of are the mode buttons, if there's anything else it probably wrong.

I'm going to look into moving the information stuff to the sides to separate it from the actual calculator, but currently my focus will be finishing the comment system.

I'd also like to place the customization buttons better since most people don't seem to see them since I've told some people about them and they've gone "oh wow, I didn't know about those!".

 

[schyman]

The issue with mixing in colors and underlines, especially when it's different colors (turqoise in the text about the desktop calc, orange in several places, red in a few) is that it's a very abrupt highlighting style (and I realized the issue with orange now - it's that the gray background is transclusent and the standard background image is pretty brownish itself).

Maybe have a clearly visible button for "simple mode" or something, that just shows these parts?

 

[draeath]

It seems very messy to me as well. Kind of reminds me of geocities and tripod. The styling is very inconsistent - example, going from top to bottom:

BIG TEXT
Smaller text
BIG TEXT (but smaller then before)
Even smaller text
Moderate sized text

Using some dev tools to lock your page to a single font size made it about twice as readable, in my case. Also, transparent cells with a non-subtle background is a no-go. Perhaps blur the background graphic a bit so it doesn't have hard edges?

 

[Forecaster]

Okay, really appreciate the feedback.

I think it looks fine, but that might be due to designer blindness.

I've decreased the transparency from 20% to 5%, hopefully that will make it look better with the default background.

I also moved the customization buttons to the top and changed the name of the button from "Extra Junk" to "Yellow Boxes". Hopefully that makes it a bit clearer what it does.

And I've hidden the comment box for now since it's not complete anyway.

After I've finished the comment system I will start moving things not directly related to the calculator to hide-able side panels.

 

[draeath]

Much better, the transparency change really helped.

One final suggestion on my part: hide the 'last updated' 'changelog' and 'forum link' stuff as well when the "junk" is hidden. That's not something that one would need to see constantly and before the calculator. Perhaps move it to the bottom of the page instead of hiding it?

 

[schyman]

Yeah it's instantly much more readable! The orange on light gray is still a bit hard to read, but on the whole it's much easier (though that might also be because now I understand how it works and then it's always easier xD).

 

[Forecaster]

If you don't understand what it is you are looking at it's going to look like a giant mess no matter how it's formatted has been my experience. : P

 

[schyman]

If you don't understand what it is you are looking at it's going to look like a giant mess no matter how it's formatted has been my experience. : P

Agreed! But formatting itself can help a lot in allowing me to understand something; good formatting leads me to where I learn how to do it, bad causes me to go "AAAH! HEEEELP!!!" and click down the page before my head explodes ;D
Yours wasn't nearly that bad, but I've had encounters, especially with off-line forms related to being unemployed, that literally made me go "AAAH!!" and just shove the paper away from me xD

EDIT: I see you darkened the background. Now it's much more readable. I can't speak for everyone of course but to me the layout isn't a problem at all anymore.

 

[Forecaster]

Agreed! But formatting itself can help a lot in allowing me to understand something; good formatting leads me to where I learn how to do it, bad causes me to go "AAAH! HEEEELP!!!" and click down the page before my head explodes ;D
Yours wasn't nearly that bad, but I've had encounters, especially with off-line forms related to being unemployed, that literally made me go "AAAH!!" and just shove the paper away from me xD

EDIT: I see you darkened the background. Now it's much more readable. I can't speak for everyone of course but to me the layout isn't a problem at all anymore.

I've started implementing the side panels. Thoughts?

If it looks weird I'd appreciate a screenshot so I can see if it looks right or if there's a problem somewhere.

There's still more work to be done though, and quite a bit of tweaking.

If you have a narrow screen resolution the panels will probably overlap the calculator. I've yet to figure out a solution to this beyond hiding the panels, which is a WIP right now.

I also got rid of the orange text markings and made them not-quite-white-but-a-bit-gray instead. Making them a bit more subtle.