[0.13.x] Bob's Mods: General Discussion

[TaiGambol]

I can't figure out MK2 boilers/steam engines.. They don't get enough water? As you can see even two pumps (first pic) cannot supply the water to 14 MK2 boilers and 10 MK2 steam engines.

I also tried the suggested 10 boilers and 13 engines but that doesn't work at all. I have to do chains of ~10 MK2 boilers and ~6 MK2 engines for them to get enough water? What's the point of higher tier engines if you have to remove engines in the chain? Either way you are getting 5MV per pump.

Higher tier boilers put more power into the water, allowing you to use less of them. Higher-tier engines both output more power per unit of water, and use water faster. I'm not entirely sure how combining pumps works, or if it works, but the main benefits of higher tiers is space conservation. Particularly going to Mk2 engines, you actually lose a tiny bit of power comparing 10 Mk1s to 6 Mk2s. Granted, you're getting nearly double power with 12 Mk2s, which is probably a fairer comparison, but.

It was changed to work that way because of complaints of breaking physics - this way even with top tier boilers and engines, you don't get more power than you put in. With the old set up you could get 600% power output, now the best you can get is 96%. There's options in the config that let you change it back to the old way if you prefer.

On to my own question, and the reason I made my forum account - is there a chaneglog for these mods anywhere? I've been using them and enjoying them, but I can't seem to find any details on the difference between versions, and I wouldn't mind being able to read up.

[bobingabout]

There are change logs for the 0.12 versions on the first post of SOME of the 0.12 mods, but not all, the rest are just scattered about from whenever I updated a mod.

For 0.13 though, the full change log is in the first post of this topic. there is no changes listed for a 0.13.0 version if there were no changes other than making it work.

[Lancefighter]

The problem is that 6 mk2 boilers shouldnt be the limit for a single pipe. As far as I understand, theres a couple things to keep in focus:

One offshore pump pulls 60 water/s
One mk1 steam engine drains 6 water/s
60 water/s requires (and carries?) 5100mw of power

Those things extend to everything else.

Ignoring boilers for a second...
mk2 steam engines drain 9 water/s (listed somewhere in the bobpower thread, that they use .15 water/tick). This means, assuming you are comparing them to an equal setup of mk1 steam engines, 7 of them is the required number, and that they should produce 1.1x (again, listed in the power thread related to efficiency) the power compared to an identical setup of mk1 steam engines.
Except there seems to be some sort of .. problems with that. Ive got a couple images.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6f2lnw2qupau5 ... 1.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kje2f82xis9yx ... 2.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/teu8zv9t1jm8w ... 3.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mr9gmhliuo5dr ... 4.png?dl=0

In the first pair, i demonstrate a very boring comparison of mk1 and mk2 steam engines. A line of 7 of them seem to provide less power than 10 mk1.. and oddly, a line of 6 provides more than a line of 7. image 3 is a example of what the average steam engine on the line of 7 mk2 steam engines looks like...

Image 4 is the confusing one. I had a hunch that for some reason the water just wasnt flowing fast enough through the steam engines.. which seems to be right. Everything seems to be working exactly as expected in image 4. 7 mk2 steam engines are working at expected levels of efficiency, that is to say, 6 working fulltime, and the 7th working 2/3 full power. they are producing what appears to be the expected 10% more power over mk1 (5.6mw compared to 5.1mw). So, as far as I can tell - Steam engines must be placed vertically, and not in serial. anything else seems to 'break' mk2 steam engines. mk3 seem to have a similar problem when placed in rows.

However, I am *fairly* sure that in .12 this configuration was not required. I could be wrong, but I dont recall having this problem previously. the .13 changelog doesnt seem to mention fluid changes like this?

[Tyrindor]

Bob, can we possibly get a boiler to steam ratio update? I'm trying to wrap my head around the intended use and there doesn't appear to be any other than saving GROUND space. For me it seems like 10 MK2 boilers and 6 MK2 engines is the biggest you can do off one pump and it's .1MV less than just running 10 MKV1s. No idea on MK3 versions, but this whole system is very very confusing... MK2s are actually a downgrade if space is no concern.

The biggest factor for higher tier engines for me is getting more MV off a single pump (water is the hardest source on my map, ground is unlimited). It's far easier just to spam MK1 14:10 setups and not worry about this. No matter what you do, you get ~5MV off a pump.

[Lancefighter]

bobmods.config.power.boiler1 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.5}, energy_consumption = "390kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler2 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.6}, energy_consumption = "520kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler3 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.7}, energy_consumption = "700kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler4 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.8}, energy_consumption = "1.1MW"}

bobmods.config.power.steamengine1 = {effectivity = 1, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.1}
bobmods.config.power.steamengine2 = {effectivity = 1.1, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.15}
bobmods.config.power.steamengine3 = {effectivity = 1.2, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.2}

Boilers are straight division:

5100/390 = 13.07 (14) mk1
5100/520 = 9.08 (10) mk2
5100/700 = 7.29 (8) mk3
5100/1100 = 4.64 (5) mk4

Engines are.. A bit more complicated, as shown by my past post. In theory, multiply tick rate by 60 to get water use in seconds, then divide 60 by that.

mk1 = .1*60 = 6 water/s, 60/6 = 10 mk1 engines
mk2 = .15*60 = 9 w/s, 60/9 = 6.66 (7) mk2 engines
mk3 = .2*60 = 12 w/s, 60/12 = 5 mk3 engines.

As demonstrated in my last post, some configurations of engines and pipes seem to.. actually work, and some dont.

If you are using 6 mk2 engines, you can shave off the rounded up boiler number -13 mk1 boilers, 9 mk2 boilers, 7 mk3 boilers, still 5 mk4 boilers.
This is because you are only using 90% of the available water heat in a pipe, so you need 10% less boilers. (6*.15*60 = 54 water/s). It looks like you might be able to place a mk1 steam engine in a line with 6 mk2 steam engines and they work .. acceptably? so possibly consider that as well.

[Tyrindor]

bobmods.config.power.boiler1 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.5}, energy_consumption = "390kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler2 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.6}, energy_consumption = "520kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler3 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.7}, energy_consumption = "700kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler4 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.8}, energy_consumption = "1.1MW"}

bobmods.config.power.steamengine1 = {effectivity = 1, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.1}
bobmods.config.power.steamengine2 = {effectivity = 1.1, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.15}
bobmods.config.power.steamengine3 = {effectivity = 1.2, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.2}

Boilers are straight division:

5100/390 = 13.07 (14) mk1
5100/520 = 9.08 (10) mk2
5100/700 = 7.29 (8) mk3
5100/1100 = 4.64 (5) mk4

Engines are.. A bit more complicated, as shown by my past post. In theory, multiply tick rate by 60 to get water use in seconds, then divide 60 by that.

mk1 = .1*60 = 6 water/s, 60/6 = 10 mk1 engines
mk2 = .15*60 = 9 w/s, 60/9 = 6.66 (7) mk2 engines
mk3 = .2*60 = 12 w/s, 60/12 = 5 mk3 engines.

As demonstrated in my last post, some configurations of engines and pipes seem to.. actually work, and some dont.

If you are using 6 mk2 engines, you can shave off the rounded up boiler number -13 mk1 boilers, 9 mk2 boilers, 7 mk3 boilers, still 5 mk4 boilers.
This is because you are only using 90% of the available water heat in a pipe, so you need 10% less boilers. (6*.15*60 = 54 water/s). It looks like you might be able to place a mk1 steam engine in a line with 6 mk2 steam engines and they work .. acceptably? so possibly consider that as well.

In theory 7 MK2 engines is possible then, but in real testing it produces less than 6 on the same line. I assume because the engines aren't running at full speed in that setup.

[Lancefighter]

I posted a couple of links in an above post - It is possible, just.. only in weird setups. Only in a horizontal line of pipes with boilers attached directly to the pipes facing north or south did I get it to work properly.

[Tyrindor]

On the topic of textures...

Bob, can you please download and look at viewtopic.php?f=91&t=19970&start=70#p178930

If you want to spend time doing other things (like improving the actual gameplay aspects of the mods), that's understandable but please ask for permission to use existing textures. He fixed literally 99% of all the low res and "out of place" textures, so it seems like time would be better spent using those instead of making new ones. Seeing as the mod needed to be updated by a 3rd party, I doubt he'd have issues with those textures being put in by default.

It also restructures (moves around) some of the items on the crafting UI, in places that make more sense in my opinion (like tier 4/5 belts being next to tier1-3 belts).

[bobingabout]

On the topic of the steam engines. Boilers: Round up, steam engines: round down. So if the maths says it can support 6.66, then using 7 will break the maths.

What you will need to do is use the 7 steam engines as a starting point, and calculate backwards to see how many boilers are needed to power that.

There's also the issue where if the water is flowing too fast (the offshore pump can't support it) then the fluids can flow faster through the boilers, which means you need an even longer chain of them than the maths suggests to heat up the water.

If you have more steam engines than your boilers can support, then the result is that you'll end up with water colder than 100 degrees, resulting in a dropped efficiency, which increases demand, etc. The solution is basically, add more boilers, and see if it works then.

I did notice in one of those screenshots that it said the water temperature was... 86 degrees I think, which is where the lower expected efficiency comes form, 86 degrees is around 83% efficiency so if you were expecting 841.5kW from a steam engine, you'll only get 698 instead. so where you would get 5049kW from 6 steam engines getting 100 degree water, you'd only get 4886kW from 7, due entirely on the colder water, due to the higher demand.


The true solution to the problem is as follows.
in terms of water demand
1x MK2 steam engine = 1.5x MK1 steam engine. or 2x MK2 = 3x MK1
1x MK3 steam engine = 2x MK1 steam engine
1x MK3 steam engine = 1.333x MK2 steam engine, or 3x MK3 = 4x MK2

Using those general rules... when you want to upgrade your MK1s to MK2, replace 3 with 2.
Since you have 10, you do this 3 times, and you're replaced 9 for 6, and have 1 left... just put a MK1 as the 7th steam engine, and you have 100% water usage!

I know, the numbers could probably work out better than they did if I used different figures, but since the offshore pump can only supply 60 water a second, you need to work within that limit, and 7 steam engine MK2s breaks it.

[pieppiep]

But what if you're not using a correct number steam engines and/or boilers, what will happen with the total energy put in by fuel converted to electricity?
Say you put in 1GJ energy worth of coal/wood/whatever... let's say with perfect boilers/steam engines that will give 50%, so 500MJ electric energy. (I have no idea what the actual percentage is)
Now if you screw up that perfect ratio boilers/engines, will the setup give less than the 500MJ electric energy? Or will it just give this amount, but it will cost more time?

[Ranakastrasz]

Bob, can we possibly get a boiler to steam ratio update? I'm trying to wrap my head around the intended use and there doesn't appear to be any other than saving GROUND space. For me it seems like 10 MK2 boilers and 6 MK2 engines is the biggest you can do off one pump and it's .1MV less than just running 10 MKV1s. No idea on MK3 versions, but this whole system is very very confusing... MK2s are actually a downgrade if space is no concern.

The biggest factor for higher tier engines for me is getting more MV off a single pump (water is the hardest source on my map, ground is unlimited). It's far easier just to spam MK1 14:10 setups and not worry about this. No matter what you do, you get ~5MV off a pump.

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=4831&start=20

Code: Select all

MK1 Steam engine:
MK1 boiler: 4:3, 12 boilers, 9 engines. (the 10th would require a total of 14 boilers)
MK2 boiler: 1:1, 10 boilers, 10 engines.
MK3 boiler: 3:4, 8 boilers, 10 engines.
MK4 boiler: 1:2. 5 boilers, 10 engines.

MK2 Steam engine:
MK1 boiler: 1:1, 13 boilers, 13 engines.
MK2 boiler: 3:4, 10 boilers, 13 engines.
MK3 boiler: 9:16, 8 boilers, 13 engines.
MK4 boiler: 3:8, 5 boilers, 13 engines.

MK3 Steam engine:
MK1 boiler: 2:3, 12 boilers, 18 engines. (13 powers 19.5 engines, which is viable. 14 powers 21, but you can only support 20 on the pipe)
Mk2 boiler: 1:2, 10 boilers, 20 engines.
MK3 boiler: 3:8, 8 boilers, 20 engines.
MK4 boiler: 1:4, 5 boilers, 20 engines.

[bobingabout]

But what if you're not using a correct number steam engines and/or boilers, what will happen with the total energy put in by fuel converted to electricity?
Say you put in 1GJ energy worth of coal/wood/whatever... let's say with perfect boilers/steam engines that will give 50%, so 500MJ electric energy. (I have no idea what the actual percentage is)
Now if you screw up that perfect ratio boilers/engines, will the setup give less than the 500MJ electric energy? Or will it just give this amount, but it will cost more time?

As far as I know, you'll still get 1GJ of electricity from 1GJ of fuel, it's just that it will take longer than it should to be produced.

And Ranakastrasz, that's the old system.

Now, the boilers are the same, so we can go from there, here's the new stats:

bobmods.config.power.boiler1 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.5}, energy_consumption = "390kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler2 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.6}, energy_consumption = "520kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler3 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.7}, energy_consumption = "700kW"}
bobmods.config.power.boiler4 = {burner = {effectivity = 0.8}, energy_consumption = "1.1MW"}

bobmods.config.power.steamengine1 = {effectivity = 1, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.1}
bobmods.config.power.steamengine2 = {effectivity = 1.1, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.15}
bobmods.config.power.steamengine3 = {effectivity = 1.2, fluid_usage_per_tick = 0.2}

Code: Select all

5100/390 = 13.07 (14) mk1
5100/520 = 9.81 (10) mk2 
5100/700 = 7.29 (8) mk3
5100/1100 = 4.64 (5) mk4

mk1 = 6 water/s, 60/6 = 10 mk1 engines
mk2 = 9 w/s, 60/9 = 6.66 (6)mk2 engines
mk3 = 12 w/s, 60/12 = 5 mk3 engines. 

as stated previously, I'd recomend putting a single MK1 on with 6 MK2s if you're using MK2s.

Personally, I only ever use 12 MK1 boilers with 9 MK1 steam engines, due to requiring an extra 1 for that 0.07, without it things don't work properly. so my upgrade would be 12 MK1 boilers to 6 MK2 steam engines for 10% extra power. So there's your optimum chain.

However, knowing the original intention of the boiler/steam engine values, they don't quite apply anymore. I think the best ballance would be to make a MK2 boiler perfectly power 1x MK1 steam engine, a MK3 power a MK2, and a MK4 power a MK1, a 1:1 ratio. Currently, this doesn't work.

To fix it, A MK2 boiler consumes 765kW of steam power, I'd change boiler MK3 to... 780kW ish (which is exactly double of a MK1), and the new formula would read:
5100/780 = 6.54 (7)
As you can see, it would meet the 1:1 requirement of the MK2 steam engines, as well as 7 on a line being 100%. the numbers for 100% would look a bit better too going 14, 10, 7, 5, dropping 4, 3, 2 per level upgrade, rather than 4, 2, 3.

To note, original values, MK2 was 510, and MK4 was 1020, making MK2 exactly what was needed to power a MK1 steam engine, and MK4 exactly what was needed to power 2 of them. the problem with that was that for some reason, 100% satuation would only heat the water to 98 to 99 degrees, there was some loss somewhere that I couldn't account for, so to fix the issue boosted the power slightly, resulting in the numbers you see there.

[TaiGambol]

But what if you're not using a correct number steam engines and/or boilers, what will happen with the total energy put in by fuel converted to electricity?
Say you put in 1GJ energy worth of coal/wood/whatever... let's say with perfect boilers/steam engines that will give 50%, so 500MJ electric energy. (I have no idea what the actual percentage is)
Now if you screw up that perfect ratio boilers/engines, will the setup give less than the 500MJ electric energy? Or will it just give this amount, but it will cost more time?

There's two separate factors at play here - boilers convert solid energy into liquid by heating the water. Steam engines then convert liquid energy (hot water) into electricity.

If you put 1GJ of solid energy into the boilers, you will get 1GJ of liquid energy out, from my understanding. If you use the perfect ratio you get this at the optimal rate. If you use a different ratio, you'll either have lower efficiency from your engines or downtime on your boilers. But you'll still get 1GJ of power eventually.

EDIT: Ranakastrasz, those are the old numbers, from 12.8 IIRC. Those are the ones that resulted in 600% efficiency at max levels. The new numbers have been posted a few times in the last few posts.

[Nebbeh]

Dont know if you get message when someone writes on mod portal but. WHen I installed warfare I get Error in assignID, item-subgroup with name 'bob-resource' does not exist with .13.

[TaiGambol]

Dont know if you get message when someone writes on mod portal but. WHen I installed warfare I get Error in assignID, item-subgroup with name 'bob-resource' does not exist with .13.

Stupid question time: Do you have Bob's Library mod installed as well?

[bobingabout]

Dont know if you get message when someone writes on mod portal but. WHen I installed warfare I get Error in assignID, item-subgroup with name 'bob-resource' does not exist with .13.

No, I don't get a message about it.

And I am aware of the error, it is... something that I missed while removing the dependancy of bobplates (Metals, Chemicals and Intermediates), I know how to fix the error, and will do so when I finish the current modding job.

[orzelek]

Would you consider the texture updates as mentioned above?
They are released in this mod:
viewtopic.php?f=91&t=19970
and maybe author of it would be willing to share some of them for replacement of original ones.

[iamwyza]

Would you consider the texture updates as mentioned above?
They are released in this mod:
viewtopic.php?f=91&t=19970
and maybe author of it would be willing to share some of them for replacement of original ones.

I love the Shine mod for bob's. The re-org of the tiles and the textures both .

[Nebbeh]

Dont know if you get message when someone writes on mod portal but. WHen I installed warfare I get Error in assignID, item-subgroup with name 'bob-resource' does not exist with .13.

No, I don't get a message about it.

And I am aware of the error, it is... something that I missed while removing the dependancy of bobplates (Metals, Chemicals and Intermediates), I know how to fix the error, and will do so when I finish the current modding job.

Aight. Great work with the mods tho, love them, and love even more you removed dependencies from some of them!

[Tyrindor]

Bob, can we possibly get a boiler to steam ratio update? I'm trying to wrap my head around the intended use and there doesn't appear to be any other than saving GROUND space. For me it seems like 10 MK2 boilers and 6 MK2 engines is the biggest you can do off one pump and it's .1MV less than just running 10 MKV1s. No idea on MK3 versions, but this whole system is very very confusing... MK2s are actually a downgrade if space is no concern.

The biggest factor for higher tier engines for me is getting more MV off a single pump (water is the hardest source on my map, ground is unlimited). It's far easier just to spam MK1 14:10 setups and not worry about this. No matter what you do, you get ~5MV off a pump.

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=4831&start=20

Code: Select all

MK1 Steam engine:
MK1 boiler: 4:3, 12 boilers, 9 engines. (the 10th would require a total of 14 boilers)
MK2 boiler: 1:1, 10 boilers, 10 engines.
MK3 boiler: 3:4, 8 boilers, 10 engines.
MK4 boiler: 1:2. 5 boilers, 10 engines.

MK2 Steam engine:
MK1 boiler: 1:1, 13 boilers, 13 engines.
MK2 boiler: 3:4, 10 boilers, 13 engines.
MK3 boiler: 9:16, 8 boilers, 13 engines.
MK4 boiler: 3:8, 5 boilers, 13 engines.

MK3 Steam engine:
MK1 boiler: 2:3, 12 boilers, 18 engines. (13 powers 19.5 engines, which is viable. 14 powers 21, but you can only support 20 on the pipe)
Mk2 boiler: 1:2, 10 boilers, 20 engines.
MK3 boiler: 3:8, 8 boilers, 20 engines.
MK4 boiler: 1:4, 5 boilers, 20 engines.

FYI those ratios don't work at all anymore, the mod has changed drastically since that post.

Would you consider the texture updates as mentioned above?
They are released in this mod:
viewtopic.php?f=91&t=19970
and maybe author of it would be willing to share some of them for replacement of original ones.

Agreed. Some textures are just very distracting without it. The only thing I don't like is when the mod changes the graphics of a tier 1 machine instead of using the vanilla textures, don't see the point in that. It also changes the fastest belts to be green instead of purple, which is very welcome because I hate purple

Some of the things are a drastic improvement (research icons, circuit board icons, robot part icons, etc). The mod even moves things around in the crafting UI to make things easier to find, I always hated how things like T4/5 belts were on a separate tab.