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Maximum efficiency of an electrolyzer - Is this a bug?


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Hi Guys!

I was wondering that maybe those a lot knowledgeable in this game than me can give an answer to my question.

So, if you build an electrolyser setup in which you completely eliminate the "Max Gas Pressure" negative state of the electrolyzer, that is it should be running constantly at max efficiency, for some reason it does not, thus cannot constantly provide those output numbers provided in its description.

From my other post:

This means "that it is not possible to produce more oxygen with an electrolyzer than cca. 500 kg/cycle on a constant rate, which is 833.33 g/s instead of 888 g/s as stated in the description of the electrolyzer.

I don't know if this is on purpose or not, but it is due to an unknown RNG (?) factor which causes the electrolyzer to use 666.7 g/s water instead of 1000 g/s from time to time without any apparent reason. I could not find anything in correlation with this random change and there is no indication on the electrolyzers info page (see picture)."

The theoretical max output of an electrolyser should be 532.8 kg/cycle. Maybe this is on purpose so it is never 100% efficient? But then again, there are other equipment in the game that can be 100% efficient.

Rest of the post:

Anyone any guess why the water usage of the electrolyser changes from time to time without any indication?

Thanks,

T

edit1: Yes, the electrolyser have constant, full water supply.

 

Electrolyzer setup.jpg

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@Terzsian The efficiency of the eletrolyzer can never reach 100% and the limiting factor is always going to be max pressure.But there is hope there is an exploit that prevents it from over pressurizing here’s a picture.502E4C5B-8006-4F17-A4F5-5E7ADC9413B5.thumb.jpeg.07983bb9b5391207ef9e855555e2fe9d.jpegThere is also another problem with the eletrolyzer it involves the way it outputs it’s gas sometimes the packets of oxygen or hydrogen get deleted due to the way the eletrolyzer works this exploit also fixes this issue as well unfortunately this is the only way you can get a 100% effective eletrolyzer in game.

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Thanks for the response

Max pressure is not a problem. In my setup the electrolyzer never gets the max pressure status. I am pretty sure that nothing gets deleted because the output is still pretty close to the theoretical maximum (around - 6-7%) and it is clear that for some reason the equipment occasionally uses less water then it should. This happens for a commulation of several seconds during a cycle which can entirely explain the output discrepancy.

Any guess on this particular problem?

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I'd say it was liquid flow interrupt, mouse over the pipe where it touches the pump and see if you don't have a partial packet in it, when your electrolizer hits that magic number it can't do a full cycle, and thats where you get your inefficiency.

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1 hour ago, NanoD said:

Because it over pressurizing. When you run it you will see it flicker a red notice now and then.

Yes, I know what overpressurisation means, that's why I am telling you this setup I have posted blnever ever overpresurizes! The red flicker never comes up, no matter how long I run the system. That was the whole point of creating it in the first place. So that is not the problem!

56 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

I'd say it was liquid flow interrupt, mouse over the pipe where it touches the pump and see if you don't have a partial packet in it, when your electrolizer hits that magic number it can't do a full cycle, and thats where you get your inefficiency.

Thanks for the tip. I will look into it tomorrow!

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1 minute ago, Terzsian said:

Yes, I know what overpressurisation means, that's why I am telling you this setup I have posted blnever ever overpresurizes! The red flicker never comes up, no matter how long I run the system. That was the whole point of creating it in the first place. So that is not the problem!

I built exactly as you have and I did get it.

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21 minutes ago, donutman07 said:

just a guess, have you tried playing a whole cycle on slow mode?

Nope, haven't thought about it. I will check that out too. Thanks!

Just now, NanoD said:

I built exactly as you have and I did get it.

Sorry, but then you haven't built it exactly the same. I have been testing it for tens of cycles. I will post the savegame tomorrow and you can check it. 

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@Terzsian

 

I'm pretty certain that the 'over-pressurization' isn't only way that the Electrolyzer figures out how much gas to produce.  I'd imagine, code-wise, it has a built-in pressure sensor in it and, based upon the reading from it, controls how much water to process.  (And thus how much gas to produce)  Thus, you get reading from the machine about it working at 333.3G/s, 666.66G/s, 1000G/s, or it just shuts off, it is self regulating.  The simulation also works at 4 ticks per-second and I'm sure that the UI is not updated that quickly, so I'm sure some instances of it working slower are lost.

 

Furthermore, the Electrolyzer produces a ton of gas which is split into two packets; hydrogen and oxygen and the sim has to find where to 'dump' these packets of gas into the space around the machine.  Also, since gases move around quite slowly in the game, I doubt there is a configuration of pumps that can keep the air pressure around the machine low enough, 100% of the time, to not trigger the slower speeds of the machine.  If I recall, Brothgar did a video of testing the Electrolyzer with various pump configurations and he could get close to full output, but not quite there.

 

This is why the trick with fooling the Electrolyzer with tiny amounts of liquid works.  When the machine is covered with small amounts of liquid, it can no longer read the air pressure around it, so it just runs 100% at full output.

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The Flying Fox

Thanks for your comment.

At one point I was also thinking about the same that the change may be peressure related, irrespective of the fact that the game does not explicitly state that on the electrolyzer's info page when it happens.

The problem is that in my setup no one tile around the electrolyzer has more gas pressure than 1000 g during operation (mostly it is constantly below 900 g in every tile where gas can go), so overpressurization should not be the problem. If it is pressure related then my best guess is that from time to time the electeolyzer lets out bigger packets of O2 and at that time the pressure may go over 1200 g which seems to be the treshold value in case of the elctrolyzer (it doesn't matter which tile, but it has to be next to the equipment to cause overpressurization). I will do some more tests later today. My setup works with 94% efficiency.

Edit: Yes, I know about the liquid trick, but I consider that a bit cheaty so, I chose not to use it.

Edit2: Thinking about it I just realized that I have thoroughly examined the gas pressures in tiles around the electeolyzer during operation and there was no visible cue of materially bigger packets of O2, that is, the gas pressure does not go over 900-1000 g in the tiles around the machine during operation. Ever. However, I will test it once more. Perhaps gas pressures should be even more low which is odd and I think it is not consistent with the gas pressure requirements relating to other machines in the game.

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Thanks.

Yes, I know about that and that is why I try to keep the pressure around the machine under a certain amount so it will never overpressurize. If we take into consideration that it produces 888 g/s O2 and if it would let the O2 out through one point into one specific tile from where the O2 disipates into the sorroundings than that should cause the problem. However, I extensively examined the tile gas pressures and I found no spikes indicating the letting out of the 888 g into one speific tile (rather into several of the bottom tiles, however I will revisit this matter, especially focusing on the tiles occupied by the electrolyzer itself because I think there may be the occasional burst.

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17 hours ago, Terzsian said:

Yes, I know what overpressurisation means, that's why I am telling you this setup I have posted blnever ever overpresurizes! The red flicker never comes up, no matter how long I run the system. That was the whole point of creating it in the first place. So that is not the problem!

Thanks for the tip. I will look into it tomorrow!

OK, here's the issue about why you will never get 100% efficiency out of an electrolyzer:  It can only output one gas at a time.  Which means that it doesn't emit hydrogen and oxygen simultaneously.  Rather, it emits oxygen, then hydrogen.  Sometimes it detects the oxygen output as 'in the way' and so waits a moment before putting the hydrogen out.  This slight hiccup leads to the discrepancy you are observing.

The water trick works because it forces the output to never "see" any of its own output gas as being 'in the way.'

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On ‎1‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 7:14 AM, KittenIsAGeek said:

OK, here's the issue about why you will never get 100% efficiency out of an electrolyzer:  It can only output one gas at a time.  Which means that it doesn't emit hydrogen and oxygen simultaneously.  Rather, it emits oxygen, then hydrogen.  Sometimes it detects the oxygen output as 'in the way' and so waits a moment before putting the hydrogen out.  This slight hiccup leads to the discrepancy you are observing.

The water trick works because it forces the output to never "see" any of its own output gas as being 'in the way.'

What's the Water Trick?   And does that still work in the new preview?

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On ‎1‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 10:05 AM, BT_20 said:

@Terzsian The efficiency of the eletrolyzer can never reach 100% and the limiting factor is always going to be max pressure.But there is hope there is an exploit that prevents it from over pressurizing here’s a picture.502E4C5B-8006-4F17-A4F5-5E7ADC9413B5.thumb.jpeg.07983bb9b5391207ef9e855555e2fe9d.jpegThere is also another problem with the eletrolyzer it involves the way it outputs it’s gas sometimes the packets of oxygen or hydrogen get deleted due to the way the eletrolyzer works this exploit also fixes this issue as well unfortunately this is the only way you can get a 100% effective eletrolyzer in game.

Interesting screen shot.   How did you manage to get  hydrogen going to that one side and oxygen only to the other.  I always though oxygen was going to the right side always and hydrogen going left always.

 

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4 hours ago, RonEmpire said:

Interesting screen shot.   How did you manage to get  hydrogen going to that one side and oxygen only to the other.  I always though oxygen was going to the right side always and hydrogen going left always.

Ultimately it doesn't matter which ends up on which side once you actually finish it, unless you specifically needed it to go one direction or the other for a more cramped layout.  Whichever way it lands, simply build it that way.

It's also an extremely glaring exploit, which I have no doubt will be fixed at some point, so probably not a wise idea to depend on it.

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