Factorio Forums

Basically, there are only two mediums a resource tends to take in terms of logistics and transportation around the factory excluding electricity.
Either it's on a belt, or it's in a pipe.

Heat pipes could be considered a third medium, but it does a very poor job of it - its only purpose being to transport heat/interim electricity which is used by only two machines in vanilla. Even in modding it is exclusively used for power.

If there were different "types" of "heat", similar to how there are different fluids, this would open a completely new area for modding exploration where machines need a specific kind of heat.

The niche that differentiates heat pipes from belts and regular pipes is that there are no undergrounds.
To accomodate this idea, there would still need to be "heat pipe junctions" to maintain this niche but also enable the heat pipes to be passed through each other.

Thoughts?

Different types of Heat would generally be considered beeing temperature. Rather then using heat directly, recipes requiering heated fluids seems promising. Alternatively in future content updates even higher tierd production buildings (especially assemblers) for yet unimplemented recipes, requiering heated lubricant to operate are imaginable.
All this would benefit from additional creative ways to generate heat. E.g. Solar-Thermal arrays.
Compared to that, heat from nuclear would be „produced“ in great quantity, but beeing mostly too hot. Balancing it by the requirement of space consuming long heat pipes or some sort of cooling tower.

PyroFire wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 11:36 am

If there were different "types" of "heat"

Sorry, but you lost me there cause I began to laugh: is heat from my electric kitchen oven a different type of heat than from my charcoal grill?
Is that the reason why my bratwurst will be always get black over the grill but keeps white on the stove?

conn11 wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 1:42 pm

recipes requiering heated fluids seems promising....
E.g. Solar-Thermal arrays.....
Compared to that, heat from nuclear would be „produced“ in great quantity, but beeing mostly too hot. Balancing it by the requirement of space consuming long heat pipes or some sort of cooling tower.

recipes requiring hot fluids - already possible
"solar-thermal" - already possible - refer to boiler with void energy source
"cooling tower" - again, already possible

That's not what i'm talking about.
What i'm talking about is heatpipes that are transferring something other than heat.
e.g. Kinetic-pipes, transferring kinetic energy.
Or magnetic energy maybe.
Or Lightwave energy.
Or any other form of energy that isn't just thermal.

ssilk wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 9:16 pm

Sorry, but you lost me there cause I began to laugh: is heat from my electric kitchen oven a different type of heat than from my charcoal grill?
Is that the reason why my bratwurst will be always get black over the grill but keeps white on the stove?

Exactly that.
I realize it sounds very strange, but the point is to make use of the heatpipes as a different logistic medium from belts or fluid pipes which adds a completely unexplored layer of complexity to factory design, namely they don't have undergrounds so they are built much like rails.
From a conceptual standpoint there is nothing wrong with running different "types" of "heat" through these pipes, it's just there is no counterpart in reality, and currently can't be done with the existing heat pipes.

Practically speaking, there isn't much difference between using say, kinetic-heatpipes, or having a fluid named "kinetic energy" run through fluid pipes, except for (the point of this suggestion) the medium in which it is moved around the factory, which is the heatpipes compared to fluid pipes or belts.

We already use steam for coal liquification.

There is also ne need for heat pipe intersections in their original use.
You dont need to split heatpipes. The range is limited and there is only one use.

I think steam is a good option to use heat in recipes.
Especially since steam is an object and "heat pipe heat" istn.

JimBarracus wrote: ↑

Mon May 18, 2020 5:57 am

The range is limited and there is only one use.

I'm suggesting add more uses.

PyroFire wrote: ↑

Fri May 22, 2020 3:21 pm

I'm suggesting add more uses.

JimBarracus wrote: ↑

Mon May 18, 2020 5:57 am

I think steam is a good option to use heat in recipes.

JimBarracus wrote: ↑

Sat May 23, 2020 8:01 am

PyroFire wrote: ↑

Fri May 22, 2020 3:21 pm

I'm suggesting add more uses.

JimBarracus wrote: ↑

Mon May 18, 2020 5:57 am

I think steam is a good option to use heat in recipes.

PyroFire wrote: ↑

Sat May 16, 2020 7:56 am

Practically speaking, there isn't much difference between using say, kinetic-heatpipes, or having a fluid named "kinetic energy" run through fluid pipes, except for (the point of this suggestion) the medium in which it is moved around the factory, which is the heatpipes compared to fluid pipes or belts.

Such things can already been done, it’s a question of recipes, technology research and graphics for entities, items and ... new heatpipes. You described mod.

And there is a difference, the heatpipes work a bit different than fluids. I think of something like a hidden storage, when using heatpipes.