Is there a way to centralize water for Steam Engines?

[Peter34]

Maybe I'm weird. But I'd really like to be able to just have one large Tank of Water, that I pump into, with a few Offshore Pumps, and which I can then pump water out of to feed my Boilers and Steam Engines. Like, I want to have all water move though a centralized point, for the sake of simplicity?

What are the actual problems with that approach? Be specific, please...

[bobucles]

Steam power uses LOTS of water. 20 engines will completely saturate 2 pumps and the pipe, and the flow decays with distance. You simply won't be able to store the water or move it in any useful way. There is also the death trap of running out of power, which turns electric pumps off and kill your steam network. Lake pumps never turn off. The best option is do tap directly from the water source and not worry about source storage.

There is some utility to storing hot water, as it represents a good chunk of energy for emergencies. No matter what, you'll need enough steam engines to handle peak power.

[SHiRKiT]

Should take a look at this https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=6066

[Deus]

Yes.

Ive seen it else where on the board, but basically, you have this kind of set up:

<pump> ------<tanks with cold water>------<boilers>------<tanks with hot water>

Run this setup in parallel, with pipes running between the tanks going up/down to share the load as needed.

if you wanted a SINGLE source, then you just make the hot water tank area bigger, and feed your engines off a central store.

[bobucles]

There's no reason you CAN'T store cold water. It's just that you gain absolutely nothing by doing so and only add another way for things to screw up. Connect your steam power directly to the lake (10 engines, 14 boilers, 1 pump), and only store boiling water if you want a surplus of engines for emergencies.

[johanwanderer]

There's no reason you CAN'T store cold water. It's just that you gain absolutely nothing by doing so and only add another way for things to screw up. Connect your steam power directly to the lake (10 engines, 14 boilers, 1 pump), and only store boiling water if you want a surplus of engines for emergencies.

I think the only reason I sometimes store cold water is to satisfy intermittent usage, especially if my oil processing area is far from the water source. In that case, I run a single pump/line into one or more storage tanks near oil processing, and feed my chemical plants from that. That allows my one slow offshore pumps to slowly fill the tanks, which have more than enough to handle the peak output of the processing plants when my trains deliver the oil.

[Peter34]

Say I have a centrail array of 8 Tanks with Water, that I use a number of Offshore Pumps to pump water into.

How many sets of 10 Steam Engines would that Water be able to supply? What's the fluid throughput for a Tank?

[johanwanderer]

Say I have a centrail array of 8 Tanks with Water, that I use a number of Offshore Pumps to pump water into.

How many sets of 10 Steam Engines would that Water be able to supply? What's the fluid throughput for a Tank?

If you are using them continuously, then the tanks make little differences. The number of steam engines you can support is still only 10 * offshore pumps. Now, if you are only running the steam engines at night (and filling the tanks all day) then maybe double that? Just try it and let us know

[Peter34]

Just try it and let us know

So you are saying that the throughput ability of a Tank isn't already known?

[johanwanderer]

Just try it and let us know

So you are saying that the throughput ability of a Tank isn't already known?

My point was that the tanks don't have throughput besides the flow rate cap. If you attach something to the tank directly, we will assume the max fluid speed of 240 unit/sec, so basically you can drain a tank in 10 seconds. However, if you connect the drain to the tank via a pipeline, those pipes / pumps / etc. do have limitations, see here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=6066

Your question was:

Say I have a centrail array of 8 Tanks with Water, that I use a number of Offshore Pumps to pump water into.

How many sets of 10 Steam Engines would that Water be able to supply? What's the fluid throughput for a Tank?

And my answer:

If you are using them continuously, then the tanks make little differences. The number of steam engines you can support is still only 10 * offshore pumps. Now, if you are only running the steam engines at night (and filling the tanks all day) then maybe double that? Just try it and let us know

The trying part was about how your setup deals with intermittent demands, not continuous usage.

[MadZuri]

I have found that, through extensive experimentation, water storage has minimal utility, and is incredibly inefficient when it comes to space. Want a way to provide perfect backup steam power when it is needed and only then? want to minimize space and maximize effectiveness? I've posted about it before.

[bobucles]

The trying part was about how your setup deals with intermittent demands, not continuous usage.

It doesn't matter. You run enough cold water pumps for your boilers at all times. There is no penalty for not using enough water, and there is no reason to do it any other way.

Once again.

The only water worth storing is HOT water, and the only reason is to run less than the full number of boilers. There isn't much reason to do that either because boilers are small, cheap, and not very difficult to set up. No matter what, you still need the full number of steam engines to provide the actual power.

Accumulators are what you use for emergency, intermittent power. It is possible to have enough battery power to switch over entirely to solar. The downside of using mostly solar power is you can't choose to turn the factory off at night, and you can't force the steam engines to wait for the batteries to get low.