Oil Boiler v2 - Hyper Magma Efficiency

[AzeTheGreat]

34 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

I like this build.  It handles the cooling of the magma without having to dig very nicely and still allows you to harvest the igneous rock.  How much oil can this boil per second before blocks start forming? 

You currently have it set for 4.5 kg/s on the oil, but how high can it go before things start breaking?

Carnis is experimenting with 10kg/s right now.  I think the only problem is potentially the oil dropper, and that should really just be annoying flooding messages.  Door pumps have infinite theoretical throughput since as pressure increases they transfer more gas per cycle.

Blocks will never form because only so much magma is dropped per cycle.  In future iterations I've changed it a bit so that even dropping iron will not cause blocks to form.

[Zarquan]

21 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

Any magma boiler can handle 10kg/s - the question that really matters is how long do you want your magma to last - thats what @AzeTheGreat/ @Carnis have been trying to tinker with.

Don't forget, 10kg/s of cooked oil is 10kg/s of natural gas - enough for 111 natural gas gens. I've built some pretty monstrous bases in my time playing this game, and i've never had a legitimate need for that much power.

Especially when you consider coal still exists, as does hydrogen, steam, and also petrol is better than it's ever been.

 

I'm not in it for the power.  I'm in it for the water.  I want to use natural gas generators and a gas boiler as a late game water source.  Limitless power is just a biproduct in my mind .

8 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

Carnis is experimenting with 10kg/s right now.  I think the only problem is potentially the oil dropper, and that should really just be annoying flooding messages.  Door pumps have infinite theoretical throughput since as pressure increases they transfer more gas per cycle.

Blocks will never form because only so much magma is dropped per cycle.  In future iterations I've changed it a bit so that even dropping iron will not cause blocks to form.

My concern was that if you dropped enough to boil a large enough amount of crude oil, it eventually would have to be supplied fast enough that it would form a block.  You are saying that this can't happen?  If so, great!

[AzeTheGreat]

3 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

My concern was that if you dropped enough to boil a large enough amount of crude oil, it eventually would have to be supplied fast enough that it would form a block.  You are saying that this can't happen?  If so, great!

I believe some timings have to be adjusted, but yeah it can definitely handle it.

[Carnis]

I GOT IT to run with GOLD.

Its sick efficient, I did my own versioning, but skipped the cooling so it only works with periodic insertions of cold crude oil with debugmode, very annoying especially with gold.

The doorpumps, turn out to be extremely important, to keep NG pressure low inside the heat exchange zone.

In practical testing, my igneous also left at 400 C temperature, but the gas cooled with oil alone to 150-160. So to harvest the gas you would need barely any cooling... The igneous is a different matter maybe. Slot for an after-gas-steam turbine?

In my opinion it would be an utter nightmare to build, though :o). Building what I showed previously was a day's work in survive.

*

I found and fixed a design flaw. The original design empties the conveyor based on available replacement stone on the weightplate. I changed that so, that it ignores the weightplate and only unloads the conveyor based on, if gas takes over 30s to form. Switched open magma logic to 45s. This way, new heat is added a) via the magma/door exchanger 10s b) via refilling conveyor 30s c) dropping igneous & reloading magma at 45s.

[AzeTheGreat]

1 hour ago, Carnis said:

In my opinion it would be an utter nightmare to build, though :o). Building what I showed previously was a day's work in survive.

What particular aspects do you think would be most challenging?  I'm looking at making it more survival friendly right now.

Compared to your previous build it's really just some extra shipping/automation stuff as far as I can tell.

[Carnis]

7 hours ago, AzeTheGreat said:

What particular aspects do you think would be most challenging?  I'm looking at making it more survival friendly right now.

Compared to your previous build it's really just some extra shipping/automation stuff as far as I can tell.

Just the dense layout and the rather convoluted automation.

Hard to make readable automation blueprints screenshots.

I got it less complicated, but most of what you have is actually necessary.

*

How does sweeper heat up, is it only depending on the conductivity of The igneous / iron heatsource, or does it depend also on If its partly submerged, eg not in vacuum.

*

My test version from yesterday had both sweepers share a coolant pool. But If vacuuming saves heat then will have to add it....

[AzeTheGreat]

2 minutes ago, Carnis said:

How does sweeper heat up, is it only depending on the conductivity of The igneous / iron heatsource, or does it depend also on If its partly submerged, eg not in vacuum.

The sweeper will always gain heat from its heat generation when it performs work.  But if the sweeper is in a vacuum then no heat will be transferred from the item.  That's why I use a vacuum for the first one, which is handling 1400C rock, but not the second, which is a much smaller deal to cool.

Vacuuming definitely saves heat, but it's definitely more annoying to deal with than just using a standard coolant pool.

[AnotherBoris]

While he tried to boil oil on a metal volcano, he thought of this:

Maybe it will be useful

[Carnis]

5 hours ago, AzeTheGreat said:

Vacuuming definitely saves heat, but it's definitely more annoying to deal with than just using a standard coolant pool.

5 tiles of 20kg water below sweepers. Sweepers on vacuum.

Mechdoor below both sweepers, in the water. Defaultsetting, doors closed (cooling, no vacuum)

Automation to activate sweepers If, oil does not boil in 30s. After 28s open doors, vacuum sweepers. Close doors after sweepers stop.

Very light on building / automation. Just have to make sure sweepers have stopped before closing doors, so 10-12s buffer is needed.

Run pW boiler fuel through doors at all times.. should be minimal cost on heat / automation (cooling random Access 20W).

[FenrirZeroZero]

On 6.7.2018 at 1:38 PM, Neotuck said:

Bad idea

As the rock piles up it combines it's heat into an average temperature from the hot rock dropped onto the cooled rock (this is due to an ever increasing thermal capacity as the rocks pile up) The longer the boiler runs the slower it take to heat up and transfer it to the oil.

Somtimes with this game... 

I had in mind that bigger stacks would transfer more energy... (more surface/mass) 

then my idea would be a sweeper above the pool and the metal storage crates. This should improve the energy transfer and should prevent overheating the sweeper. 

Anyone else wants to build steel sweepers? ... 

[Neotuck]

5 minutes ago, FenrirZeroZero said:

Somtimes with this game... 

I had in mind that bigger stacks would transfer more energy... (more surface/mass) 

then my idea would be a sweeper above the pool and the metal storage crates. This should improve the energy transfer and should prevent overheating the sweeper. 

Anyone else wants to build steel sweepers? ... 

Imagine The Hot Rocks like wet sponges

Sponges become dry as they transfer heat

You can add more wet sponges for more heat but the dry sponges will soak up the heat first

As for the sweeper idea even steal ones will overheat.  Can be tricky to keep cool but possible if partially submerged in liquid that is kept cool with a coolant and rad pipes

[Carnis]

The automation gate partly under the cooking plate wolframite door enables this build. Without it, conductivity fails and magma does not solidify.

I made a system. It didint work. Got The igneous to leave The Cook plate as 900 degrees, then 7 moves / sweeper on the conveyor.

Two theories: 1) My live build boiler steals The heat that then transfer through to the oil. 2) something fishy at the magma-cooking plate.

Will disconnect cooling and see what happens.

[Carnis]

Imitation, is the purest form of flattery.

Here's an optimised copy. I cant tell you how much igneous its using, the number is so low. The oil is boiling at 6kg/sec, but it can be quickened (automation needs tweaks then).

No refactorability. Not really survival friendly yet. Better automation & conveyor optimisation. @Neotuck should love it, as it has conveyor belts and gas.

Looping conveyor v1.01.sav

[Ainsley4ever]

On 04/07/2018 at 5:58 AM, AzeTheGreat said:

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 bfore normal saves.

This can easily be solved with a setup like this:

There's a small amount of petroleum that helps thansfer the heat from the sweeper and the loader to the metal tiles. The system can easily be cooled with radiant pipes:

If the sweeper accidently drops some igneous rock it falls on the insulated tile (the one right below it).

This setup is just a little larger than yours, but I don't think that's a big problem. I hope I helped you!

(I accidently posted this comment before I finished writing it, so don't pay attention if it appears twice)

[Carnis]

Your solution makes The sweeper steal heat, so its not accepted =]. Better solution already implemented by aze.

[Ainsley4ever]

41 minutes ago, Carnis said:

Your solution makes The sweeper steal heat, so its not accepted =]

What do you mean?

[Carnis]

8 minutes ago, Ainsley4ever said:

What do you mean?

Sweepers in vacuum only heat up by 10W from working.

Your solution has partly submerged sweepers. So they are no longer on vacuum, so they then conduct heat from items they are picking up. 20Kelvin from 20kg igneous. A LOT more from high conductivity items like gold.

That heat is needed to boil oil, so sweepers in vacuum are preferred. They can then be cooled afterwards with water, like on The OPs design.

[Ainsley4ever]

21 minutes ago, Carnis said:

they then conduct heat from items they are picking up

Sweepers are three tiles long. What you said is correct, but only when the "middle tile", which "contains" the picked item, is in a gas or a liquid. In this case it is in a vacuum, so no heat gets stolen by the sweeper from the rock. My solution only immerge one of the "peripheral tiles" of the sweeper, so again no heat gets transfered. I know it's weird, but this is very probably due to how the game works : containers seem to store things "physically" on one of the tiles they occupy. So the item stored is still there, just like if it was dropped on the floor, but is invisible. Also containers don't directly exchange heat with items stored, but only via their environment (gas or liquid).

 

Here are some examples in the form of two small videos (Because I explain things very badly):

-The "physically" stored item:

2018-07-08-1651-57.mp4

As you can see the item is still there (as I can teleport it), but is invisible and is not affected by gravity.

-The case of our sweeper:

2018-07-08-1705-19.mp4

Here the sweeper doesn't steal heat from the item because it is "stored" in the "middle tile" of the sweeper, which is in a vacuum. But if I move the item to the "peripheral tile", which is immerged in petroleum, while it is contained in the sweeper then a heat exchange occurs. Also no heat exchange occurs between the storage compactor and the item, nor between the sweeper and the item (if I don't teleport it of course :p).

 

So as long as the middle tile of the sweeper stays in a vacuum everything sould be fine, as the igneous rock also stays in a vacuum.

I tested my system with chunks of igneous rock at 726.9°C, and they came out at the exact same temperature. So my system is viable. But now that I think about it, the devs may patch it in future updates... I hope they don't.

[AzeTheGreat]

1 hour ago, Ainsley4ever said:

Sweepers are three tiles long. What you said is correct, but only when the "middle tile", which "contains" the picked item, is in a gas or a liquid. In this case it is in a vacuum, so no heat gets stolen by the sweeper from the rock. My solution only immerge one of the "peripheral tiles" of the sweeper, so again no heat gets transfered. I know it's weird, but this is very probably due to how the game works : containers seem to store things "physically" on one of the tiles they occupy. So the item stored is still there, just like if it was dropped on the floor, but is invisible. Also containers don't directly exchange heat with items stored, but only via their environment (gas or liquid).

 

Here are some examples in the form of two small videos (Because I explain things very badly):

-The "physically" stored item:

2018-07-08-1651-57.mp4

As you can see the item is still there (as I can teleport it), but is invisible and is not affected by gravity.

-The case of our sweeper:

2018-07-08-1705-19.mp4

Here the sweeper doesn't steal heat from the item because it is "stored" in the "middle tile" of the sweeper, which is in a vacuum. But if I move the item to the "peripheral tile", which is immerged in petroleum, while it is contained in the sweeper then a heat exchange occurs. Also no heat exchange occurs between the storage compactor and the item, nor between the sweeper and the item (if I don't teleport it of course :p).

 

So as long as the middle tile of the sweeper stays in a vacuum everything sould be fine, as the igneous rock also stays in a vacuum.

I tested my system with chunks of igneous rock at 726.9°C, and they came out at the exact same temperature. So my system is viable. But now that I think about it, the devs may patch it in future updates... I hope they don't.

Redo your test with a sweeper.  I can assure you that liquids even on the arm of a sweeper will take heat from items inside said sweeper.

Edit: My apologies, I was wrong.  I just tested it, and it appears that sweepers only transfer heat through the arms in the vertical position, but not in the horizontal position.  I'm about 90% sure that I tested both at one point, so I'm not sure if this is a bug (sure seems like it) that was introduced at some point, or just an oversight.  Loaders also seem to work when horizontal as well...

Thanks for pointing this out!

[Ainsley4ever]

1 hour ago, AzeTheGreat said:

only transfer heat through the arms in the vertical position

I think I know the reason. Let's admit that your sweeper is in vertical position and its bottom tile is partially submerged, like this :

As you can see it overheats, just like you said.

Recently a feature was added to the game (In the last upgrade I think), which makes the items (or Duplicants) on the ground exchange their heat with the tile directly below them. This seems to count for items stored inside sweepers (and even conveyor belts, but I'll talk about that later) :

The hot iron heats the cool tile right under it.

Strangely, items don't need to "touch" the ground to heat it, they just need to be above it :

So the item stored in the "middle tile" of the sweeper detects the petroleum right below it, considers to be on it and begins a heat exchange. In the screenshot, which was taken in the middle of the heating process, we can see that the petroleum is hotter (160°C) than the sweeper (140°C), which means that the item first heats the petroleum (because that item is dumb and thinks it's on top of it), which then indirectly heats up the sweeper.

This issue also happens with conveyor belts, for the same reasons :

They heat the tiles up, even tho they're technically not supposed to.

 

2 hours ago, AzeTheGreat said:

I'm not sure if this is a bug

So yeah, for me that's not really a bug, that's more of an unwanted side effect from a feature that can be exploited

 

2 hours ago, AzeTheGreat said:

Thanks for pointing this out!

You're welcome !

[AzeTheGreat]

Ah that makes sense!  I knew items heated up tiles below them but I wasn't making the connection.  You're right that it's not really a bug then, and probably wouldn't be changed unless there's a fairly major change in mechanics.

[KittenIsAGeek]

OK, that actually answers some questions I had.  Thank you @Ainsley4ever.

[Carnis]

2 hours ago, Ainsley4ever said:

So yeah, for me that's not really a bug, that's more of an unwanted side effect from a feature that can be exploited

 

You're welcome !

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?

[WanderingKid]

1 hour ago, Carnis said:

Can I fit a conveyor receptacle with slime under a single watertile, or do I need both tiles submerged?

Single works, but make sure it's deep enough your dupes don't steal from it or you end up with a problem.  I usually drop off 400kg or so.

[Carnis]

6 hours ago, WanderingKid said:

Single works, but make sure it's deep enough your dupes don't steal from it or you end up with a problem.  I usually drop off 400kg or so.

I'm talking about The shipping item, dupes dont Steal from shipping items.