Rebalance Boiler & Heat Exchanger Fluid Volumes to Account for New Water-to-Steam Mechanics

[macdjord]

I do not see what problem do you have with stopping steam. Let all heat exchangers output to single pipe. Add pumps(one per 11 heat exchangers) to it. After pumps put another single pipe connected to all tanks and turbines. It will work even faster than stopping water flow because steam takes 10 times space in pipes.

Congratulations, you have just accurately described a) what I do now (cut off the steam), and b) why I have to do it that way (cutting off the water is too slow). If you to know why I want to change that, please see any of my previous posts in this thread.

If your use case is the nuclear power plant, here is proof it's not necessary to change fluidbox sizes or to enable temperature reading of heat exchangers or heat pipes to get fast and exact responses. Approach: keep fluid boxes full instead keeping them empty. If the standard state is full, any change to not full is immediate, and the actual size doesn't matter.

Same thing: you've described pretty much what I do right now (though I use somewhat different control logic) but not addressed what I am trying to change or why I want to change it.

With the new fluid mechanics in 2.0, I initially thought I could do away with pumps altogether and have the heat exchangers, steam buffer tanks, and turbines all in a single fluid box.

You can on Nauvis if you use a power switch i feel (depending on your definitons). Since you can now read the temperature of the nuclear reactor, you can make sure it never gets under a certain temperature , you refuel it when temperature is under 700°C UNLESS your steam buffer is above 50 % for example with a decider combinator reading both temperature and steam buffer, and only allowing output when steam AND temperature ( and burning fuel) are low.

Once again, a power switch does not help because it controls steam consumption rather than steam generation. I already have my turbines connected to a power switch; it lets me use the nuke-plant as backup to a solar installation if I wish. But that has nothing to do with my desire to control when the heat exchangers generate steam. Yes, if I turn off the power switch, the turbines will fill up and the heat exchanger will shut down, but:

1. The shutdown is actually slower than cutting the steam off with a pump, since now instead of just having to fill up the heat exchanger outputs and the pipes they feed directly into, I also have to fill up all turbines (each of which also stores 200 steam) and the pipes between them
2. Except that's ignoring the great honking big tank farm that's there in the middle; the whole point of this exercise is to not cool down my reactors trying to fill that thing up, remember?
3. And most importantly, if I turn off the power switch, my factory blacks out. This is what we in the business call a bad thing.

I've seen pretty much always have a few people say basically "there's a much easier solution: just toggle the offshore pump on and off, that's what I do".

That was frequent before 2.0, that was my favourite option, but currently given the new ratio water to steam, cutting off the offshore pump adds delay before the steam production stops ( the residual water represent much more steam). If that delay extend beyond the duration of the night, it can become useless for certain usage.

Yes, and that is exactly what I am trying to fix.

Controlling the water can be done without electricity since offshore pump don't require it unlike regular pump.

If and only if offshore pump is directly connected to heat exchanger. Add water pipes and suggestion change nothing.

In my reactor design, they are connected directly. Each row of 11 heat exchangers has a water pump attached directly to the water-input on one end of the column. Sure, it's massive overkill in terms of maximum water production, but so what? Offshore pumps are dirt cheap compared to the rest of a nuclear reactor complex, and connecting them directly saves space and complexity. It also makes it easier to extend the design, since I don't need to remember when its time to add a new offshore pump.

Even if we assume that that isn't an option - maybe you're not building over water - you're looking at 5 pipe segments for every pair of back-to-back rows of heat exchangers: one at the end of each row, one between the two, and a pipe-to-ground on each end to connect to the next pair. That's 500 water in the pipes, plus 440 in the heat exchangers themselves, divided across 22 heat exchangers, so ~4.2s of operational time, as compared to the ~22.2s for the same setup but with 200-unit water storage.

[mmmPI]

That was frequent before 2.0, that was my favourite option, but currently given the new ratio water to steam, cutting off the offshore pump adds delay before the steam production stops ( the residual water represent much more steam). If that delay extend beyond the duration of the night, it can become useless for certain usage.

Yes, and that is exactly what I am trying to fix.

My point is that your suggestion should be unrelated to that particular matter because it has merits wether or not you accept that people have solution they consider fit to fix this problem.

Here is how i do it now in 2.0+ , with power switch (as a 4rth method to control steam production/consumption) with variation depending on wether it is for nuclear or boiler :

Power switch controlled power plant.zip

(5.2 MiB) Downloaded 6 times

Considering your previous objections :

1)The shutdown is actually slower than cutting the steam off with a pump, since now instead of just having to fill up the heat exchanger outputs and the pipes they feed directly into,
2)I also have to fill up all turbines (each of which also stores 200 steam) and the pipes between them
3)Except that's ignoring the great honking big tank farm that's there in the middle; the whole point of this exercise is to not cool down my reactors trying to fill that thing up, remember?
4)And most importantly, if I turn off the power switch, my factory blacks out. This is what we in the business call a bad thing.

1) Not really , when the point 2) is true, then as soon as the power switch isolate the nuke plant, the steam production stops.

2) Yes that's the main point i thought, to keep everything into a single fluid box to make it simple to control the nuke plant like it was possible to control cutting water input before. That's what i show in the demo setup, how you can use a power switch instead of any sort of pumps, that's how i fixed it for my games,with the same logic as you would have attached to the water input. You need to also fill up some steam tanks anyway, so the buffer in turbines an pipes are negligible to me since it's all in the same fluidbox.

3) i don't see any compelling reason to keep reactor temperature above an arbitrary threshold, i feel that's a "you" thing. To me the important part is that the electricity is reactive , that's why you have steam tank in the first place.

4) No, considering the scope of your suggestion to alter the buffer of steam engine and boilers and heat exchanger , i feel there are plenty cases when it's just fine to use a power switch, you mentionned one and i made a demo setup.

But that has nothing to do with my desire to control when the heat exchangers generate steam.

Yes, imo your desire would be better fulfilled by just asking to wire the heat exchanger and/or boiler instead of that indirect way of altering the entity buffer. Both aren't things i see negative consequences about, i would be in favor of both suggestion as mentionned. But if the reasonning is the one you have , i don't expect it to be implemented. I feel like you are saying : "i can't do that" ( and some people disagree), when really you mean "i can't do it this way" ( and some other people disagree), and you could be saying " i would like to be doing it this way" . Since there is no downside i can see , i have no objection and i won't be one the disagreeing person then.

I feel the positive arguments about how the gameplay can be enriched by adding wire on heat exchanger are stronger because it better suit what you want to achieve in practice in the way of controlling steam and temperature.

[Hurkyl]

3) i don't see any compelling reason to keep reactor temperature above an arbitrary threshold, i feel that's a "you" thing. To me the important part is that the electricity is reactive , that's why you have steam tank in the first place.

(I'm not the person this was directed at, to preempt any possible confusion)

Huh. I hadn't thought about this before. One of my first thoughts on what use such a thing would have actually seems pretty useful to me: by ensuring your reactors are sufficiently hot all the time, it makes it easy to avoid accidentally disabling steam generation when you expand and add new reactors, since you can ensure there is enough stored energy to keep all of them above 500 degrees.

[mmmPI]

3) i don't see any compelling reason to keep reactor temperature above an arbitrary threshold, i feel that's a "you" thing. To me the important part is that the electricity is reactive , that's why you have steam tank in the first place.

(I'm not the person this was directed at, to preempt any possible confusion)

Huh. I hadn't thought about this before. One of my first thoughts on what use such a thing would have actually seems pretty useful to me: by ensuring your reactors are sufficiently hot all the time, it makes it easy to avoid accidentally disabling steam generation when you expand and add new reactors, since you can ensure there is enough stored energy to keep all of them above 500 degrees.

That's a reason, not so much a compelling one in my view, if you decide to upscale your nuclear plant by a x10 factor, you will cool down the reactor beyond 500°C even if you started with them at 1000°C. It doesn't matter that you try to keep them hot at all time. Rather how fast you are going to scale up your power plant.

And it's already possible to add a condition on the fueling system to overidde everything and fuel the reactor when temperature is under 500°C. If your steam buffer are already full and you only added a couple reactor to a very long array already it may cause some waste, and in most case i feel it's unecessary to do, but it's possible.

[Hurkyl]

3) i don't see any compelling reason to keep reactor temperature above an arbitrary threshold, i feel that's a "you" thing. To me the important part is that the electricity is reactive , that's why you have steam tank in the first place.

(I'm not the person this was directed at, to preempt any possible confusion)

Huh. I hadn't thought about this before. One of my first thoughts on what use such a thing would have actually seems pretty useful to me: by ensuring your reactors are sufficiently hot all the time, it makes it easy to avoid accidentally disabling steam generation when you expand and add new reactors, since you can ensure there is enough stored energy to keep all of them above 500 degrees.

That's a reason, not so much a compelling one in my view, if you decide to upscale your nuclear plant by a x10 factor, you will cool down the reactor beyond 500°C even if you started with them at 1000°C. It doesn't matter that you try to keep them hot at all time. Rather how fast you are going to scale up your power plant.

And it's already possible to add a condition on the fueling system to overidde everything and fuel the reactor when temperature is under 500°C. If your steam buffer are already full and you only added a couple reactor to a very long array already it may cause some waste, and in most case i feel it's unecessary to do, but it's possible.

I find it peculiar you paired "Expand by a couple of reactors" with "Ensure you have a steam buffer to cover loss in generation" and "Massive 10x expansion!!!" with "Keep reactors hot so that the system doesn't go under 500 degrees", rather than pairing things the other way around.

[mmmPI]

I find it peculiar you paired "Expand by a couple of reactors" with "Ensure you have a steam buffer to cover loss in generation" and "Massive 10x expansion!!!" with "Keep reactors hot so that the system doesn't go under 500 degrees", rather than pairing things the other way around.

You can do it the other way around too if you want, it just goes to confirm that "expanding your nuclear power plant" isn't a reason to keep your reactor hot at all time, for the case you mentionnned, i feel it is unecessary s as it will not prevent them from cooling down if you expand too fast. AND you can easily add some logic to make sure the reactor heat back up after expanding if that is important for you. Thus overall imo answering to your objection, what you mentionned isn't a compelling reason to keep the reactor hot at all time.

[Hurkyl]

I find it peculiar you paired "Expand by a couple of reactors" with "Ensure you have a steam buffer to cover loss in generation" and "Massive 10x expansion!!!" with "Keep reactors hot so that the system doesn't go under 500 degrees", rather than pairing things the other way around.

You can do it the other way around too if you want, it just goes to confirm that "expanding your nuclear power plant" isn't a reason to keep your reactor hot at all time, for the case you mentionnned, i feel it is unecessary s as it will not prevent them from cooling down if you expand too fast.

Are you seriously telling me there is no value in error-proofing a build because it's possible to make a ridiculously exaggerated error that's too big to proof against?

AND you can easily add some logic to make sure the reactor heat back up after expanding if that is important for you.

And you seem to be missing the fundamental issue: low heat stops steam generation, which potentially stops power generation if it happens in a point in your power cycle where you don't have the steam to cover the extra latency from reheating the cold reactors. And then all the problems a blackout can entail.

Thus overall imo answering to your objection, what you mentionned isn't a compelling reason to keep the reactor hot at all time.

No, it really doesn't answer my objection at all. Which, to be explicit, is that you not only "refuted" my use case with a ridiculous exaggeration, but it comes off as especially disingenuous when you actually bring up the actual application in a different context.

[mmmPI]

Are you seriously telling me there is no value in error-proofing a build because it's possible to make a ridiculously exaggerated error that's too big to proof against?

i'm just saying there is no compelling reason to keep the reactor always hot, the demo setup i posted is there to proove it imo i even explained how you would go to make it reasonnably error proof in case of expansioon and when in some cases of user making a very bad mistake it would still fail anyway.

I don't think "when you expand you may accidentally cut off steam production because your reactor cooldown" has anything to do with the proposition. It's not a valid objection as you can brick any setup this way.

[Hurkyl]

Are you seriously telling me there is no value in error-proofing a build because it's possible to make a ridiculously exaggerated error that's too big to proof against?

i'm just saying there is no compelling reason to keep the reactor always hot, the demo setup i posted is there to proove it imo.

I don't think "when you expand you may accidentally cut off steam production because your reactor cooldown" has anything to do with the proposition. It's not a valid objection as you can brick any setup this way.

I'll give you some extra time to think about what relation keeping reactors sufficiently hot might have with preventing your plant from stopping steam production.

[mmmPI]

I'll give you some extra time to think about what relation keeping reactors sufficiently hot might have with preventing your plant from stopping steam production.

There is no need it's pointless it's unrelated to the suggestion. You just made up a random unrelated case, "when you expand your power plant" which is a particular context and you can't reasonnably argue this has anything to do with wether or not you can use a power switch to control a nuclear power plant.

You can use the power switch as shown in the demo setup, just fine. If you don't know when /how to expand such power plant it's beyond this current thread, anyone knows how to do i think so it's not really an argument to say "the setup can break if i expand poorly" because any setup can break when used poorly.

That doesn't mean it is a compelling reason to have the reactor above a certain temperature at all time in normal operation. It's not COMPELLING, it means it doesn't force you to do so, it's just some rare occurences that can be dealt with by not duplicating too fast your power plant. Duuuuuu

[Hurkyl]

I'll give you some extra time to think about what relation keeping reactors sufficiently hot might have with preventing your plant from stopping steam production.

There is no need it's pointless it's unrelated to the suggestion. You just made up a random unrelated case, "when you expand your power plant" which is a particular context and you can't reasonnably argue this has anything to do with wether or not you can use a power switch to control a nuclear power plant.

You can use the power switch as shown in the demo setup, just fine. If you don't know when /how to expand such power plant it's beyond this current thread, anyone knows how to do i think so it's not really an argument to say "the setup can break if i expand poorly" because any setup can break when used poorly.

That doesn't mean it is a compelling reason to have the reactor above a certain temperature at all time in normal operation. It's not COMPELLING, it means it doesn't force you to do so, it's just some rare occurences that can be dealt with by not duplicating too fast your power plant. Duuuuuu

I don't know and don't care what strawman you're going on about.

[mmmPI]

I don't know and don't care what strawman you're going on about.

I feel you should have then refrained from voicing this objection :

3) i don't see any compelling reason to keep reactor temperature above an arbitrary threshold, i feel that's a "you" thing. To me the important part is that the electricity is reactive , that's why you have steam tank in the first place.

(I'm not the person this was directed at, to preempt any possible confusion)
Huh. I hadn't thought about this before. One of my first thoughts on what use such a thing would have actually seems pretty useful to me: by ensuring your reactors are sufficiently hot all the time, it makes it easy to avoid accidentally disabling steam generation when you expand and add new reactors, since you can ensure there is enough stored energy to keep all of them above 500 degrees.

You thought about an edge case : "when expanding the power plant", which is barely related to the original proposition from this thread , and can be achieved wether or not you use a power switch.

The way OP (to whom the text you quoted was addressed) formulate the suggestion doesn't mention power switch, when comparing pre 2.0 and post 2.0 method to control steam production. I posted a setup to illustrate that you can adapt the logic that most people had on their offshore pump to a power switch to make up for the fact that now offshore pump control induce latency in steam production.

I don't know why you think it's important in this context to mention that you can accidentaly break your nuclear plant if you expand too fast.

[Hurkyl]

I don't know and don't care what strawman you're going on about.

I feel you should have then refrained from voicing this objection :

It wasn't an objection.

You posed a question. I found it interesting own its own merits and responded to it.

And, apparently, my attempt to preempt confusion on your part failed.

[mmmPI]

You posed a question. I found it interesting own its own merits and responded to it.

And, apparently, my attempt to preempt confusion on your part failed.

As you noted the question wasn't adressed to you, rather it question the premises of the OP, that there is a "need" and not a "desire" to keep reactor temperature hot at all times. I believe the setup i posted shows that you don't "need" to keep the reator temperature hot at all time, you can have a reactive system made of power switch instead of controlling offshore pumps. You are not limited to the 3 method mentionned in OP as the logic from the offshore pump can be used on power switches. The question was "is there a compelling reason to keep the temperature hot at all time ?" ( beside the particular desire)

you responded with "when you expand your nuke plant you risk cutting off steam power"

Your attempt at answering the question imo shows that you didn't understand it.

[Hurkyl]

Once again, I don't care about the strawman you're railing against.

If you don't want to talk about applications of keeping reactor temperature high, then don't respond to applications of keeping reactor temperature high, and stop whining that I'm not considering the specific narrow situation that you had in mind.

[mmmPI]

Once again, I don't care about the strawman you're railing against.

If you don't want to consider applications of keeping reactor temperature high, then don't consider applications of keeping reactor temperature high, and stop whining that I'm not considering the specific narrow situation that you had in mind.

I question the purpose of keeping the reactor temperature high in the context of the suggestion, to control steam, in relation to the 3 method listed in op, as i posted a setup that function just fine showing a different method to extend the list of method to control steam production/consumption that doesn't rely on having reactor always hot allowing to use the same logic as was comon on offshore pumps before the change in steam/water ratio.

My point is that it's a self imposed constraint to try and keep reactor temperature hot at all time. Tertius showed that it was possible nonethless.

IMO you misundertand the question you pretended answering. What you point out isn't a valid COMPELLING application of keeping temperature high for a nuclear plant, let alone related to the suggestion of this thread which is method to control steam for electricity generation. It is at best a detail that doesn't deserve much more consideration than : yes don't do that, don't brick your nuke plant by plopping down too many reactor at once, you don't need the suggestion to avoid doing that.