using oil as power

[Nobody]

image thing

so it figures you can use oil to create power, then use it like normally...

[sillyfly]

I believe steam engines destroy some of the liquid passing through them, so you wouldn't get all the oil you started with.
Still, I sometimes use this method to get rid of the light oil I can't crack to petroleum fast enough.

[Nobody]

I believe steam engines destroy some of the liquid passing through them, so you wouldn't get all the oil you started with.
Still, I sometimes use this method to get rid of the light oil I can't crack to petroleum fast enough.

it's highly unnoticeable

[ssilk]

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... eam_engine
"using other Liquids?"

[Xterminator]

I think it is really quite cool that you can do this, whether it was intentional by the devs or not. :p
However I usually just prefer to use water, as I always build my steam engines her water anyway.

[MeduSalem]

The question that comes to my mind is... How efficient is it?

I mean liquids other than water have a higher base temperature, so it wouldn't actually take as much fuel to heat them to 100°C.

But in the long run, without doing the math, I think it is still better to turn any excess heavy/light oil or petroleum gas into Solid fuel and burn that instead, since it seems much more efficient to do it this way.



[edit]

Actually thinking about it... the Steam Engines should be reworked or an extension made to them... Like an additional output for condensation of water/liquids which then could be re-integrated at a higher base temperature into the heat up process to make it more efficient.

That way using oil products instead of water might actually become a reliable efficiency boost without the problem of wasting too much due to vaporization (while I still think a certain amount should vaporize to encourage resource/fuel aggregation).

[Nobody]

if you were to use steam engines fuelled by something like petroleum gas, 0.1 units would perish per tick. you could easily pump the leftovers back into the system.
after some testing, of coarse it's more efficient to turn the oil into heavy fuel, light fuel, and pertol gas...

so as a conclusion: stick to water, unless your oil refinery are backed up.
even though oil is infinite (to a degree), and speed modules can boost production, water is the most reliable recourse, due to it being literally infinite.