Natural Gas - the option before Nuclear

[Hehzeus]

Hi,

I just recently started playing this game and am already completely addicted. One thing I've noticed is that there is a pretty limited option for electricity generation. I know the big push right now is on adding nuclear power, which I'm greatly looking forward to.

I've searched a bit and read through a couple threads, but haven't really seen much discussion on the use of natural gas for electricity - ironic as it is a rapidly growing source of electricity; a lot more than oil and the margin over coal is growing, especially in the US. I think this option would be very readily implemented, as much of it would be similar to the oil system for resource extraction and steam engines for power production. Of course, it could be made more complicated, but an initial pass could be as simple as a natural gas well/platform (make these visible like oil patches, perhaps a shale patch) and an electric turbine powered plant. This would have the added benefit of being much more energy efficient (more power per effort of retrieving gas) with less pollution.

Complicating things you could add in liquefaction(or just add this to the chemical plant) between the wellhead and the turbine, one might even toss in one of those useful pumps to make things move toward the power plant.

There may already be a mod made by one of the communities' fantastic fans that I've overlooked, but I think this would make the vanilla experience more rounded (accepting of course that basic nuclear stuff will also be included).

Now if you'll excuse me, my gun turrets are out of ammo and they're about to come in through the ceiling...

[ssilk]

Hm. I don't see the big gain in using gas instead of oil to produce electricity: Gas is also a liquid. There is nearly no added game-value.

[mooklepticon]

Hm. I don't see the big gain in using gas instead of oil to produce electricity: Gas is also a liquid. There is nearly no added game-value.

There is IRL because there's more gas and it's easier to get than oil. To make this idea viable, there'd have to be a change in resources.

There may already be a mod made by one of the communities' fantastic fans that I've overlooked, but I think this would make the vanilla experience more rounded (accepting of course that basic nuclear stuff will also be included).

This is kinda close to what you're talking about, but not exactly.
KS Power - Factorio Mods https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Klonan/KS_Power

[bobingabout]

A liquid fuel powered boiler as an extension to the steam power is something I've been pushing towards for quite some time. Note: Petroleum Gas (Also known as Natural Gas, or just Gas) is a fluid for game mechanics.

So basically, assign a fuel value for oils and gas, and allow us to burn it in a boiler. And that basically covers what you're asking for.

[MeduSalem]

There would only be one real point in Natural Gas...

... as an easy early-to-mid game fuel source alternative to coal (if one doesn't want to aim for Solar). As it would be a lot more abundant than Crude oil it would be a lot more efficient to burn that stuff.

But one could also argue about making plastic and/or to produce hydrogen (rocket fuel?) later on probably.

Additionally there could be a liquefication process or something that integrates the gas into the Oil Industry to push the Oil Industry at the cost of an additional processing step. Like coal liquefication/Bergius Process has been suggested several times... using Natural Gas+Coal+Water producing Crude Oil/Heavy Oil or something like that to keep it abstract enough so things don't get carried away too much.


On a side note... if that would be available early on (I don't say from the start) this could actually be a way to prepare the player for the Oil Industry pipe mess to learn the basic concepts before getting thrown into the real deal. The sudden complexity increase of the Oil Industry has been a point of critique several times in the past because some people are really overwhelmed at the point they reach that level. So it would be good if something "easy" would come before that so the player can get a clue of the pipe mechanic before challenging him with more sophisticated production chains.


That said I'm somehow worried about adding seperate patches on the map just for Natural Gas... quite often they are found together or in close proximity... so one could argue that an oil patch might output both things... but someone would have to think about how to do that without confusing the player too much.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Question is, why?

20 steam engines is enough to get you to solar, a few hundred solar panels (plus accumulators) doesn't take up too much room and is a good mid-game power. Go to nuclear before you start needing acres of solar fields (ie production enough for four laden blue belts of iron and copper).

If it's comparable to nuclear it will be a choice and most players will stick to just one, if not then gas will be skipped. Senseless development, I would rather the time be spent on something like better endgame combat.

Oil can currently be used to power boilers if it's crafted into solid fuel. Again there are other features I'd rather see than this which would probably only see use by a few players as most will transition to solar then nuclear, and it's already kind of possible.

I think Factorio is almost at a point it just needs to be polished. Once nuclear power is added (hopefully with a range of nuclear stuff like depleted uranium rounds and -dare I hope- nukes) and ideally a better way to mass-clear biter nests end-game it's pretty much a complete game with no holes. At that point they just need to review everything they've got and smooth it all out, such as ironing out the ludicrous difference between the combat shotgun and explosives, adding functionality to the circuit network, tweaking recipes here and there, etc. Doing big changes such as adding another resource that doesn't really improve the functionality of the game will only push back that polished product, and risk it not being polished at all.

[bobucles]

All oil variants can be changed into solid fuel, which can be used to generate energy. This means you can use petroleum gas as fuel.

Granted it IS unusual to convert things to solid fuel. Once upon a time it was a temporary thing and was going to be liquid, right?

[Hehzeus]

I guess my idea behind it was focused more on thermal efficiency - you could get more power from a gas turbine than a steam turbine for the same amount of energy potential input. The overall goal being instead of building fields of steam engines, we could upgrade to gas and simplify it down. Of course, real power plants use both with the excess heat from the gas turbines feeding into boilers and steam turbines. With that route, you could replace boilers , or have them output hot water to the boiler line.

But I do accept your argument that this is a minimal gameplay addition and that we should probably let them focus on polishing what exists and get nuclear in the game, which I'm very excited about. As a side note/fun fact: some of the gen 4 reactor designs use helium turbines rather than water, again for much higher thermal efficiency and large scale helium production is by extracting it from natural gas. Though at this point I'm just curious if they will have breeder reactors and fast reactors or just go with the gen 2/3 stuff.

I think this kind of complexity is great for mods or a 1.1 update.

[aubergine18]

That said I'm somehow worried about adding seperate patches on the map just for Natural Gas... quite often they are found together or in close proximity... so one could argue that an oil patch might output both things... but someone would have to think about how to do that without confusing the player too much.

What if gas patches were in lakes? So you needed some sort of advanced pump to drill down to the under-water gas?