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Rocket exhaust and a magma mishap


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The temperature increase isn’t remotely instant or magical. It takes time and repeated exposure for a tile to reach the rocket exhaust temperature of 2970 C, so clearly it’s still using specific heat.

Further, it’s doesn’t affect the entire 9x3 zone equally. While the top-center tile did hit 2970 C for me, the tiles to either side and below were only around 1800 C, decreasing to around 1000 C just a few tiles down.

Since the rocket pad itself inevitably has debris on it that will suck up heat, your best bet is to isolate a 7x3 block below the pad. The pad’s going to exchange heat with the debris, so you want your heat sink to have a vacuum gap or insulated insulation layer between it and the pad.

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39 minutes ago, lee1026 said:

They are insulated ceramic tiles, so I rather doubt that they can lose 2000 degrees in a few seconds.

You'd be surprised at some of the crazy things I've seen insulated ceramic do. :) Thanks for the quick reply. 

23 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Unfortunately, it adds it based on DTU I believe :(

Hopes and dreams dashed.

4 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

The temperature increase isn’t remotely instant or magical. It takes time and repeated exposure for a tile to reach the rocket exhaust temperature of 2970 C, so clearly it’s still using specific heat.

Why do this have to be realistic!!!!!  Whelp.  Back to the drawing board.  Thanks all for the help. 

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2 hours ago, mathmanican said:

Anyone done some isolated testing?  @Lilalaunekuh, this could be your requested heat source, but probably not.  I guess the real question is, Does the rocket have a fixed amount of heating done (fixed as in total energy added, not fixed temp increase), so packing in tons of material can diffuse the heat bomb (realistic), or does the rocket create an instant heat spike, regardless of type of material and quantity (exploitable - even if it's not to 3200K)? 

Like some said before: Rockets add a fixed amount of heat energy (DTU), but there is a maximum temperature (3200k / ~ wolframite ore melting point).

=> The only exploit would be to keep the rocket silo hot and insulated enough, that the rockets adds no more heat.

 

But the real way to exploit is would be an other:

Spoiler

A solid fuel thruster works like an additional engine.

=> Build just out of a command module/fuel tank/petroleum engine and as many solid fuel thruster as you can move 10.000km^^ (Without an oxidizer tank)

Spoiler

If you want to go real exploity:

A engine needs no fuel to produce exhaust on launch. ;)

=> Don´t fill/fuel all the solid fuel thruster. 

 

 

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26 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

Rockets add a fixed amount of heat energy (DTU),

Been playing with this for the last hour or so.  I found that the 9 tiles under the engine all get heated up, including INSULATED INSULATION tiles.  This is the only way I've seen in game to actually heat one of these tiles up.

=> Once you get one of these insulated insulation tiles heated up past 500K, you could rebuild the rocket somewhere else and put a steam turbine on the tile. Repeat all over the map (it would only take  6 launches to get the middle tile up to 252 (raises 38.9 C each launch) -  or 11 launches to get the two side tiles up hot enough (raise 20.4C each launch) and then build 2 turbines side by side). If the thing repeats the heating on landing, then half all these numbers (haven't waited for a return yet).

2 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

Since the rocket pad itself inevitably has debris on it that will suck up heat, your best bet is to isolate a 7x3 block below the pad. The pad’s going to exchange heat with the debris, so you want your heat sink to have a vacuum gap or insulated insulation layer between it and the pad.

Perfect info.  Thanks. I'm currently calculating exactly how many DTUs I can capture in perfect insulation with each launch (got a checkerboard pattern under the rocket to measure it). I'll report when I've got the totals. I can see how you would use a top layer of bunker, 1 tile vacuum layer under it with something else and then steam in the 3 wide by 7 tall region under that.  

5c91c2ec13ff6_Screenshotfrom2019-03-1922-34-24.png.6fe5bda39d410753d79e0001b5076539.png

@Oozinator, please don't be too disappointed in me.  I actually built a rocket (in debug).... 

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Well, that rabbit hole was underwhelming. The exhaust that you can capture in the bottom 7 by 3 area (bunker, vacuum, then any tile with 6 layers of steam below it, is enough to raise 2100kg of steam an average of 36.3K.  This is about the same as 6 runs of iron ore through a metal refinery. While not terrible, it does provide a continual source of heat. If landing produces the same amount, then double this.   

 

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9 hours ago, mathmanican said:

Well, that rabbit hole was underwhelming. The exhaust that you can capture in the bottom 7 by 3 area (bunker, vacuum, then any tile with 6 layers of steam below it, is enough to raise 2100kg of steam an average of 36.3K.  This is about the same as 6 runs of iron ore through a metal refinery.

Ok, I have a couple of problems with this setup:

-Most heat sources are new elements that equalize with their surrounding, but the rocket ADDS heat energy to the tiles below it.

=> Having a vaccume tile below will reduce the overall emitted heat.

(My setup would be a solid block with a 1 tile vaccume gap to all sides.)

 

Ever tried to stack solid fuel thrusters (not just fueled ones^^) right above the main engine ?^^

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I wouldn’t be too excited about running exploited steam turbines with rocket heated insulation. Rocketry put out enough heat that a pair of hydrogen rockets is enough to power 7 steam turbines with 500+ degree steam continuously. Most of the heat is above the launchpad. 

 

Power is very academic once harvesting rocket heat comes into play.

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It feels like power becomes academic before that. At some point the water produced from burning petroleum and/or natural gas is important enough that you're always running a surplus of power. I'd think that point always comes before you advance to hydrogen rockets, since making hydrogen for rockets consumes water.

I was recently in the midst of another water shortage, despite running 3 petroleum generators nonstop just to generate water. I was thinking about going through the trouble of making a sour gas -> natural gas conversion plant, just to improve the efficiency of conversion of oil to water. Then I added some automation to shut down my peppernut grove and fertilizer synthesizer, and my water consumption went down enough that I felt I could put off sour gas conversion for a time.

I'll probably return to it after I start launching hydrogen rockets.

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2 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

1.At some point the water produced from burning petroleum and/or natural gas is important enough that you're always running a surplus of power.

2.I'd think that point always comes before you advance to hydrogen rockets, since making hydrogen for rockets consumes water.

So if 1. comes for you (like me) always before 2. then where is the problem ?

(Or do you want to tell me your come so far to launch a hydrogen rocket without using an electrolyzer ?)

 

If we burn fuel just to produce water, we have more energy than we need.

=> Just save (all) the hydrogen your electrolyzers are producing.

Each duplicant gives ~7,5kg of hydrogen in a cycle, if he is just breathing electrolyzer oxygen.

A 2 cargo module hydrogen rocket flying to the 110.000km planet will need <65kg of hydrogen each cycle.

(But if we consider the minimum refueling time of the liquid oxidizer tank the consumptions will be less than 60kg.)

 

=> If you have at least 8 duplicants that breath electrolyzer produced oxygen you will produce enough hydrogen to continuously farm the farest planets with the maximum cargo size.

 

(Maybe I should add something about a worst case for rocket fuel consumption:

If you want to fly to the 40.000km planet using 3 cargo bays (maximum) you will use if I assume the fastest possible refuelling <110kg of hydrogen each cycle.

Closer planet are reachable without refuelling using solid fuel thrusters so no need to take an closer planet as our example.)

 

Spoiler

Ok I must admit for me it´s less of a problem, because my electrolyzer layout results in a bit of oxygen-> hydrogen conversion and all my duplicants have the mouthbreather trait.

=> ~20kg of hydrogen for each of my duplicants, in each cycle.

 

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If you harvest the exhaust, hydro-lox rockets to the first row of planets is water-positive if you only consider the oxygen. The hydrogen is a byproduct from dupes.

 

Petrol rockets are more expensive in terms of water because you need more oxygen for any given mission, and you don't get water in the exhaust to recycle.

 

On a final note, building useful oil boilers without space materials can be tricky, because steel pumps gets damaged too easily.

24 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

(Or do you want to tell me your come so far to launch a hydrogen rocket without using an electrolyzer ?)

 

I used deodorizers for oxygen for the whole game until I have a productive use for hydrogen, so I didn't build an electrolyzer until it was time to launch hydrogen rockets.

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2 hours ago, lee1026 said:

The hydrogen is a byproduct from dupes.

That assumes you use electrolyzers^^.

2 hours ago, lee1026 said:
2 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

(Or do you want to tell me your come so far to launch a hydrogen rocket without using an electrolyzer ?)

 

I used deodorizers for oxygen for the whole game until I have a productive use for hydrogen

Done something similar this run, but I still build one electrolyzer just to have a always powered wire.

I want to have at least one brown out proof circuit just for my shut-off (valves).

 

 

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3 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

So if 1. comes for you (like me) always before 2. then where is the problem ?

Somehow "why worry about harvesting heat from rockets for power when there are good reasons to run a significant energy surplus long before that" became... I honestly don't know. Some problem, but I'm not sure what you think I was saying.

3 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

If we burn fuel just to produce water, we have more energy than we need.

if you re-read my post, that was exactly my point. By the time you're flying hydrogen rockets, there's little incentive to harvest heat for energy. Other than doing it just because you can.

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I actually think that hydrogen rockets will come considerably before the oil->sour gas->natural gas chain. The oil->petrol chain tops out at about 10 KW on the best seeds, and more like 7 KW on an average seed.  My base runs at 11 KW, so that is clearly not enough.   Case in point, I have yet to run a oil->natural gas build, because I have enough water at the moment and the steam turbines are my primary source of energy. If it was to actually stop long enough to blow through the petrol reserves, I have nowhere near enough petrol refining capacity to make good the energy losses.

 

For one thing, it is far more obvious, since the in-game documentation actually tells you that it is possible and have buildings hinting that you should do it. For another, the only space material you need for hydrogen rockets is a single recipe for super coolant. Whereas the oil to natural gas chain more or less requires both therium and super coolant.

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18 minutes ago, lee1026 said:

The oil->petrol chain tops out at about 10 KW on the best seeds, and more like 7 KW on an average seed.

This is not remotely true. I'm not sure what you're basing this on.

I'm currently running 22kw consumption in my base, and the majority of my power production is oil or oil byproducts. Steam only contributed 6kw last cycle. My oil wells completely outpace my consumption, two of them are currently disabled by automation because the oil level got too high.

I've got 3 oil wells, but even 2 would have been enough. Each oil well produces 3.3 kg/s of oil, and 33.3 g/s of natural gas. Petroleum generators turn 2 kg/s into 2kw, or 3kw if you you boost it with engineering. A natural gas generator turns 90 g/s of natural gas into 800 watts, or 1200 if you boost it.

Two oil wells = 6.6 kg/s of oil = 10kw of power with engineering, plus another 900 watts from natural gas, for a total of 10.9 kw. Three oil wells = 16 kw. That's considerably more than the 7 / 10 you estimate.

For much of the game I was only using 2 of my 3 wells, because I had power from other sources - notably two natural gas geysers. Back then my consumption averaged about 14kw, which was about 60% petroleum and 40% natural gas. I also had coal available, though I tried to wean myself off of that as early as I could. I'm not really sure how much coal my hatches produce.

I am assuming that you eventually build an oil boiler for 100% oil->petrol conversion but there are relatively low tech versions of that. I waited until I had thermium for an aquatuner to build mine, but it's possible to do with a volcano. I actually started to do that and then I realized I had thermium and could skip that step.

Before building a boiler, I went a long time with just a regular oil refinery. It wasn't sustainable indefinitely using the oil wells, but every map starts with absolutely huge reserves of oil. There's nothing wrong with burning through some of that while you tech up to an oil boiler.

 

 

 

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I am basing it on oil->petrol-> petrol generator. 10kg/s from 3 oil wells is exactly 5 generators, yielding 10 KW.

 

You get more from the sour gas chain, but that requires super coolant to do efficiently. Once you have super coolant, hydro-lox rockets become easy.

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