Oil Boiler v2 - Hyper Magma Efficiency

[KittenIsAGeek]

11 hours ago, Carnis said:

Regarding these same things.. where are items in a storage tile? Can I fit a conveyor receptacle with slime under a single watertile, or do I need both tiles submerged?

Spoiler

Conveyor receptacles work just fine when submerged.

[Ainsley4ever]

13 hours ago, Carnis said:

Regarding these same things.. where are items in a storage tile? Can I fit a conveyor receptacle with slime under a single watertile, or do I need both tiles submerged?

Storage buildings like the conveyor receptacle or the storage compactor are two tiles high, and "store" their items where their bottom tile is located. So if I do a quick setup like this :

I forgot the storage receptacle but the results are the same. Slime cannot emit polluted oxygen as it's submerged in water (the white arrow tells the position of the item when we select it via the storage unit's interface).

That counts for storage compactors, smart storage compactors, conveyor loaders and for conveyor receptacles, as they have the same hitboxes. So you can indeed partially submerge a conveyor receptacle in one tile water, as long as its bottom tile is the one submerged.

[Ainsley4ever]

Regarding your design @AzeTheGreat, what is the purpose of the door connected to the clock sensor? Is it required or can we do without it?

[AzeTheGreat]

4 minutes ago, Ainsley4ever said:

Regarding your design @AzeTheGreat, what is the purpose of the door connected to the clock sensor? Is it required or can we do without it?

"If you create a save at the exact moment a sweeper is moving an item, and then later load said save, the item will be dropped.  This can completely break the first shipping chamber, since it creates steam.  My current solution to this is to close a door with a clock sensor and switch - meaning autosaves are safe, and it can be made safe before normal saves."

All it does is make autosaves safe, and give you manual control so you never have to wait to save.

[Zarquan]

3 minutes ago, Ainsley4ever said:

Regarding your design @AzeTheGreat, what is the purpose of the door connected to the clock sensor? Is it required or can we do without it?

The purpose is so that he can get the igneous rock out for use in the colony.  Once a day, it drops it in range of the sweeper, which sweeps it and runs it through the natural gas (and to the crude oil).  Then, the dupes have access to it to build or crush to make sand.

[Ainsley4ever]

25 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

The purpose is so that he can get the igneous rock out for use in the colony.  Once a day, it drops it in range of the sweeper, which sweeps it and runs it through the natural gas (and to the crude oil).  Then, the dupes have access to it to build or crush to make sand.

I was referring to the other door, right below the one you talked about :

Spoiler

That one

 

31 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

All it does is make autosaves safe, and give you manual control so you never have to wait to save.

Oh, that's pretty smart! So assuming I use my sweeper system (the one that bothered everyone lel) It won't be necessary to me.

Also I think I noticed some sort of flaw in your boiler. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the pressure in the last chamber seems to slowly decrease over time. Is it not likely to become too low, which would lower the natural gas output?

[Carnis]

8 minutes ago, Ainsley4ever said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

That one

Also I think I noticed some sort of flaw in your boiler. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the pressure in the last chamber seems to slowly decrease over time. Is it not likely to become too low, which would lower the natural gas output?

Slow persistent decrease would mean gas is stuck in The boiler or there is gas deletion.

I observed fluctuation, but no decrease. Does the flaw persist?

The version I posted is more finetuned at the beginning, but The heat sink collects gas & melts pumps. These can easily Be fixed with sensible pump geometry.

[AzeTheGreat]

52 minutes ago, Ainsley4ever said:

Also I think I noticed some sort of flaw in your boiler. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the pressure in the last chamber seems to slowly decrease over time. Is it not likely to become too low, which would lower the natural gas output?

I think you just need to find the equilibrium point.  I could be wrong though.

[Ainsley4ever]

57 minutes ago, Carnis said:

gas is stuck in The boiler or there is gas deletion

I know doorpumps can delete matter sometimes, so this is probably the reason.

 

18 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

I think you just need to find the equilibrium point.  I could be wrong though.

I let the chamber depressurise until it almost turned into a vacuum... Maybe you could solve the problem by supplying extra oil when the pressure gets too low using a shutoff valve system.

 

1 hour ago, Carnis said:

The version I posted is more finetuned at the beginning

I checked it, and I really like the conveyor trick you used, but even it can cause some problems (the petroleum often has trouble heating up when the igneous rock in the first chamber gets too cold, which results in massive amounts of petroleum and even crude oil accumulating and jamming the boiler).

 

Btw I'm currently trying to combine your two boiler designs into a custom version for myself, but I'm having trouble getting it to work (I'm not an infinite expert at the game :p) mainly because of these two problems. We should really all try to fix those flaws... I literally dream of seeing the ultimate, flawless boiler designed one day. And to see it bravely supply electricity and water to the entire infrastructure of a real paradise for Duplicants... x)

[Carnis]

The version I'm using has about 40 second delay on when you empty the conveyor, until you get new igneous at the bottom tiles.. this is a long time. The conveyor loop should be built in such a way, that when it resets, that delay is minimised, BUT new packets cant skip loops and end up straight in the trashbin. Ideally you would have loop exit right before each loop insertion, this way it would start refilling instantly. A bit hard in practice though.

The version I had was using an automation to sense when liquid is piling up, you can tweak those.

Ideally you want igneous to flow right as its needed, but no sooner, so you want a low, but not instant counter on the 2nd igneous loader. The counter on the magma does not matter, as the weight plate has to be empty before new magma is called in my version.

What Im trying to say is, I got it working but I oon't have a good optimised spec to post for you. I was using something like 30s to boil = call new igneous, but minimum interval between 140kg insertions was set to 70-90 seconds. Most of the time 90s was too long for over 6kg packets.

 

*Edit, by adding short non-looped igneous rock conveyors inside the insulated abyssalite, loop refill delays could be minimised at the cost of some wolframite, but no heat.

[Carnis]

16 hours ago, Ainsley4ever said:

Btw I'm currently trying to combine your two boiler designs into a custom version for myself, but I'm having trouble getting it to work (I'm not an infinite expert at the game :p) mainly because of these two problems. We should really all try to fix those flaws... I literally dream of seeing the ultimate, flawless boiler designed one day. And to see it bravely supply electricity and water to the entire infrastructure of a real paradise for Duplicants... x)

I thought this design was all optimised now, but thinking about the 10kg/sec version again and anything More frequent than 1 refilled / 140seconds is insufficient.

Since If Im running it more often then magma consumption is > 1kg/sec.. and a major volcano produces average 1kg/s.

But it is a bit cyclic, so going below 140s/refill at times can be ok.. If then you have a longer period without refills.

If you are making your own version. I highly suggest leaving 1 tile high gaps on the chambers not connected to conveyor, tempshift or mechdoor. This uses The low conductivity of natural gas to create free extra insulation between segments.

[Plyg2100]

Hello, check my guide, maybe there will be new ideas.

The Ultimate oil power plant v1.0

[Carnis]

Here's an ACTUALLY improved version.

Aze boiler Mk3.sav

The longer I look at aze's boiler, the less weaknesses I see. I tried to improve the tempshifts, ended up doing worse. Tried to improve the oil - to gas converter, ended up doing worse. I had to revert to his liquid pipe setup! I even tried to improve the cooling, ended up copying his snaking pipe system!

So the original is just overpowered.

Things I could add: 10 more pumps potentially to use. Better automation, eg only 140 kg packets of igneous moved through. Less igneous rocks in the conveyor, stealing less heat.

Finally, there is a really original steamer cooler, one that does not steal the heat!! That I spent half a day making out of trial and error.  

 

Im sorry, your design has one pump.. we are running 9-20..

4 hours ago, Plyg2100 said:

Hello, check my guide, maybe there will be new ideas.

The Ultimate oil power plant v1.0

 

[Plyg2100]

Only quantity is important? My goal was to be compact and realistic.

[Carnis]

3 minutes ago, Plyg2100 said:

Only quantity is important? My goal was to be compact and realistic.

I built a different one already in a survival game, so its realistic. I cant make it smaller, and still make it produce.. I need megaloads of the stuff for water..

[Plyg2100]

Interesting, but a large amount of heat must be removed. 
I can try to make an installation for your wishes. ;)

[AzeTheGreat]

12 minutes ago, Plyg2100 said:

Interesting, but a large amount of heat must be removed. 
I can try to make an installation for your wishes. ;)

Just to be clear, the main issues that come with trying to scale these things up is boiling the oil quickly enough, and maintaining vacuum seals to preserve heat.  If you can improve on those aspects, we'd definitely love to see it.

[Plyg2100]

 

With your rules I think I'll manage

[Ainsley4ever]

2 hours ago, Carnis said:

Here's an ACTUALLY improved version.

I don't have access to my computer so I can't take a look at it, but it looks impressive, and it seems like it can run at 10 kg/sec of oil too, which is awesome ! That must've been a lot of work... (and raging lel) 

I assume this boiler can be calibrated to process lower amounts of oil just like the others ? And I just thought, where can you get enough oil to be able to supply 10 kg/sec of it continously ? Do you use the 6 kg/sec from the two oil wells on the map and get the rest from slicksters ? And can a volcano even keep up with such large amounts of oil ? 

Edit : And I just noticed (I can be a bit slow sometimes lel) that you did exactly what I was trying to do, which is merging your design with AzeTheGreat's. It even looks like mine, except yours works x) 

[Carnis]

29 minutes ago, Ainsley4ever said:

I don't have access to my computer so I can't take a look at it, but it looks impressive, and it seems like it can run at 10 kg/sec of oil too, which is awesome ! That must've been a lot of work... (and raging lel) 

I assume this boiler can be calibrated to process lower amounts of oil just like the others ? And I just thought, where can you get enough oil to be able to supply 10 kg/sec of it continously ? Do you use the 6 kg/sec from the two oil wells on the map and get the rest from slicksters ? And can a volcano even keep up with such large amounts of oil ? 

Edit : And I just noticed (I can be a bit slow sometimes lel) that you did exactly what I was trying to do, which is merging your design with AzeTheGreat's. It even looks like mine, except yours works x) 

Its a very fiddly process, the cooler that is. I worked with that 90% of the time. Because the first concept of "on call" polluted water boiler, even with periodic thermal isolation, was total failure. Every time the pW got near to boiling, it stopped cooling and it did not boil either. The solution.. -Radiant pipes directly cooling natural gas.. Problem with this is the water is too efficient a cooler, but if you use too little then your pipes burst :D.

I moved the cooler about 7 times due to having a tungsten-door-tungsten mechanic, then not having it.

In the end I removed all liquid polluted water from the boiler side, using steam as the coolant essentially.. pW that comes, boils near instantly. But if you tinker with the temp sensors in the wrong way.. And the pipes are all custom too, built, rebuilt, built. Really awkward stuff.

I also had not realized, but aze is using his vacuum seal as the last stepping stone for petroleum to heat up. I had that timer a bit low (for higher throughput), and that does burn efficiency in a big way..

 

Its in Aze the greats test world because, that was you can test 1v1 what actually works, and find out how 90% of what you think are improvements, are not.

[Carnis]

3 hours ago, AzeTheGreat said:

Just to be clear, the main issues that come with trying to scale these things up is boiling the oil quickly enough, and maintaining vacuum seals to preserve heat.  If you can improve on those aspects, we'd definitely love to see it.

HERE:

oil at 7 Kg/s.

left pump atmo sensor removed & automation connected to hydro sensor, rather, left pump only opens if theres no liquid in boiling chamber. Hence our conveyor brings heat from newly created gas to to-be-boiled oil and thermal lock is 100% when boiling.

Finally set right side door to open every 20s to not get overwhelmed, boiler plate to set on at 3s, to not stay behind.

Seems to work.. The main issue is keeping the new 541 degree gas around, and not draining any cold from the above chamber.

[Ainsley4ever]

9 hours ago, Carnis said:

you can test 1v1 what actually works, and find out how 90% of what you think are improvements, are not.

If I understand correctly, you did all that work to end up with an oil boiler that is less efficient than Aze's one (even tho I'm sure you and Aze are on the right way). But hey, again that will always be better than my results, as yours works x).

Could you tell me what can possibly be upgraded in your system to make it more efficient ? I still don't have access to my computer so I can't see by myself. 

7 hours ago, Carnis said:

oil at 7 Kg/s.

The pumps are only pumping 5,5 kg/sec of natural gas, at least that's what I see on the screenshot. Are you injecting a higher amount of oil to compensate a loss, or just to rise the pressure ? Isn't that also a net loss in efficiency, as 1,5 kg/sec of nat gas never gets pumped out of the system and keeps accumulating ?

[Carnis]

The system accumulates a lot of gas in the oil-pipe segment, but that seems necessary, when I had it with less accumulating, my oil came out of those pipes 60 degrees cooler.

Always when upping the throughput with this kind of heat exchanger system, you have to have it at an overpressure first. I had it constantly running at 14 pumps later. But I am not able to give exact numbers on 7kg/s (most logical, would be to test it vs 3.5kg/s and 7 pumps on the right), and I am not able to make it go 10kg/s at this time.