Electric energy

[Coolthulhu]

Would also like it if there were issues like radiation leaks, possibility of explosion, damage to surrounding area if it does. Maybe leaks could be just a super low random chance and they could be repaired. Explosions could come from being damaged to the point of breaking I guess.

Strong against here.
Not a single relatively well known game has managed to pull off a randomly failing nuclear reactor well. It always ranges from annoying to frustrating.
Radiation leak and meltdown as a result of damage could be fun, as long as it either doesn't occur randomly at all or occurs randomly only on low hp (not 90%+).

While uncommon (less than ~5 in a long game) random faults are bad game design, Factorio could have hard to predict deterministic one: cooling failure as a result of biter attack on pipes (or even pumps) or factory draining water too quickly.
Like boilers, reactor could slow down when not used and thus use less water to cool. Unlike steam engines, it could get damaged by lack of water instead of slowing down. This would make badly designed nuclear plants dangerous without randomly annoying players with RNG.

Factorio so far managed to stay unpolluted by random cataclysms. While they may seem like an easy way to make the game more "fun", they usually result in much more annoyance than anything else, especially for long games.

[AndaleTheGreat]

I personally am a fan of failures in games. They've just gotten easier as I've gotten older and the random breakdown (realism) has been a non-factor in almost every game. I think that it should always be an option and never forced as some people wanna be casual, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. I'm also not saying they should just explode for no reason. Far from it. A leaky pipe could cause a lack of proper cooling which then causes an overheat. Simple but effective boom.

[JohnTS]

When nuclear reactors and such get implemented I hope the actual building itself is HUGE. I really liked how large the oil refinery building is in-game, shows that its a powerful/important building, if that makes any sense.

[Khyron]

It's hard to imagine a viable role for nuclear energy while solar panels and accumulators work as they do.

[Sander Buruma]

I believe nuclear energy is slightly less polluting than coal / oil fired plants. I hope the nuclear plant will be a big building if it makes it in.

[therapist]

It's hard to imagine a viable role for nuclear energy while solar panels and accumulators work as they do.

Agreed, Solar is just TOO GOOD of a solution right now, there is no risk of danger to a solar plant for any reason, the only drawback is using massive tracts of land needed for panels and accumulators. Solar panels in real life get dirty, and you have to wash them off or lose efficiency, I don't think that this is a good idea for factorio, but some kind of drawback needs to be added to nerf this "perfect" power solution.

When nuclear reactors and such get implemented I hope the actual building itself is HUGE. I really liked how large the oil refinery building is in-game, shows that its a powerful/important building, if that makes any sense.

Nuclear power doesn't produce any pollution at all in the classic sense, all it does produce is highly radioactive, highly toxic, hard to handle and hard to transport NUCLEAR WASTE.

Perhaps the waste could cause constant pollution even from inside a container, which would cause the player to have the same problem that we humans in real life do. What in the heck do I do with all this highly dangerous, super toxic, ultra hazardous, nuclear waste material?

[strikedragon]

Currently in the game There is no advanced accumulators Only basic. I think evidence accumulators that are more expensive but store more energy than basic accumulators would be useful.

[Loscil]

Perhaps the waste could cause constant pollution even from inside a container, which would cause the player to have the same problem that we humans in real life do. What in the heck do I do with all this highly dangerous, super toxic, ultra hazardous, nuclear waste material?

Put the barrels in a wooden container and empty your magazine with it?

[Sander Buruma]

Wouldn't the EPA basically like crucify you as soon as they found out?

[hoho]

Perhaps the waste could cause constant pollution even from inside a container, which would cause the player to have the same problem that we humans in real life do. What in the heck do I do with all this highly dangerous, super toxic, ultra hazardous, nuclear waste material?

Put the barrels in a wooden container and empty your magazine with it?

That should result the container to spill all the bad stuff all over the place making things even worse

Though I believe currently game doesn't support dropping stuff from containers when they are destroyed

[Colombo]

Perhaps the waste could cause constant pollution even from inside a container, which would cause the player to have the same problem that we humans in real life do. What in the heck do I do with all this highly dangerous, super toxic, ultra hazardous, nuclear waste material?

But reactors don't do such things. Reactors of lower generation produce highly-dangerous mildly-toxic less efective nuclear fuel.

Ergo: Research 1: Nuclear energy -- reactor of first generation, produce "nuclear waste"
research 2: Next generation nuclear reactors -- able to burn "nuclear waste", ability to build thorium reactors (safe, ability to get thorium from nearly every material, won't produce nuclear waste)

[haunted_1]

Moved from suggestions into this thread cause so very equal. -- ssilk
----------------------------
I just read a bunch of topics about energy sources (the wind topic created recently made up my mind).

Since there are only two sources for energy, there should be of course more possibilities to creat energy. I played alot of Tropico and Simcity so my ideas coming from those games basiclly.

Oil: since oil power plants and coal power plants working with the same setup, there would be not really a point of differ it but i think it should be possible to use the fluids or gases instead of the solids. It just feels weird to me.

Geothermal: Geothermal power plants are really intressting. There should be some spots like the oil where you can build a Geothermal plant. (like a geysir or something) I think about something like those geysirs in Rimworld.

Wind: in those other topics already said. nothing much to say.

Nuclear: Already mentioned alot. Uranium ,a new ressource which should be really rare, to power it up. (It should be a mod tho because it doesnt really fit to the game yet)

Tidel: A tidal power plant to use the massive amount of water which cant be used yet.

Fusion: I know that a Fusion power plant would be overpowered but since there is something like that in armour stuff, it could be also possible to build it in a big version.

[Ohlmann]

Adding options that have no gameplay interaction don't appeal to me. So, apart from wind, why would thoses energy source add anything ?

[hoho]

How don't they add new aspects to the game?

Oil - you'd need to feed liquids to your boilers instead of solid stuff.
Geothermal - pumping water underground -> get back steam -> pipe steam to generators.
Nuclear - don't make it "fire&forget" but have some sort of "configuration" options via having to balance fuel/coolant/neutron absorbers allowing different efficiency/output and perhaps even meltdown.
tidal - at last there would be a use for all the water in game
Fusion - an end-game goal. Massively expensive and complex production chain for "fuel" but would deliver massive energy.


If anything it's the wind power that for all intents and purposes is nothing more than a reskinned solar that can also work during night

[Ohlmann]

Oil - you'd need to feed liquids to your boilers instead of solid stuff.

That's the exact same thing as using boiler with solid fuel for me.

Geothermal - pumping water underground -> get back steam -> pipe steam to generators.

So an infinite source of energy without drawback. Flat out problematic on that form.

Nuclear - don't make it "fire&forget" but have some sort of "configuration" options via having to balance fuel/coolant/neutron absorbers allowing different efficiency/output and perhaps even meltdown.

Develop, because not only did the OP say nothing about that, but that mean just about nothing to me.

tidal - at last there would be a use for all the water in game

I don't understand what that mean, since water is used, and I don't exactly see how it would work

Fusion - an end-game goal. Massively expensive and complex production chain for "fuel" but would deliver massive energy.

That's a sale pitch, but who mean nothing to me without actual explanation. What is a massively expensive production operation ? How do it work ? How it is different from a massive solar array factory

If anything it's the wind power that for all intents and purposes is nothing more than a reskinned solar that can also work during night

You can refer to my thread, where I explained *why* it's not a reskinned solar at all for me.

[hoho]

Oil - you'd need to feed liquids to your boilers instead of solid stuff.

That's the exact same thing as using boiler with solid fuel for me.

Well, solid stuff can be easily transported with belts/trains/inserters and be stored in chests. Liquids need piping.
It's not a huge difference but a difference nonetheless. I'd say roughly comparable to solar vs wind. At worst it's an alternative to current stuff

Obviously it would need that making solid out of oil to be either removed from game or to be made net-negative in terms of energy production for it to make sense. To be honest I don't really understand why was it added to the game in first place.

Geothermal - pumping water underground -> get back steam -> pipe steam to generators.

So an infinite source of energy without drawback. Flat out problematic on that form.

Kind of like solar-accumulator combo, right?
Main problem is that currently water is infinite in the game. I would imagine it's not even too hard to implement finite water in game - just calculate the volume of lakes based on some extra noise map. That same noise map could be used for gradually draining the lakes and producing new dry ground in their place. Now THAT would be an awesome extra feature with massive game play changes! It would mean people wouldn't be "burning" water in their generators since it would get complicated when they use up all the sources near their base.

It could also "burn" other materials like pipes or even just raw iron as it probably needs it's internals replaced every now and then or something, dealing with superheated things tends to corrode them.

Nuclear - don't make it "fire&forget" but have some sort of "configuration" options via having to balance fuel/coolant/neutron absorbers allowing different efficiency/output and perhaps even meltdown.

Develop, because not only did the OP say nothing about that, but that mean just about nothing to me.

@see fusion a few lines down

tidal - at last there would be a use for all the water in game

I don't understand what that mean, since water is used, and I don't exactly see how it would work

I was assuming those plants are similar to solar panels in way that you just set them down in water and they'd generate energy by just existing.

"use for the water" was meant as use for the lakes as construction area that can't be used for anything else. Pumps don't take that much space, after all.

And, yes, I do realize tidal energy makes no sense in a tiny lake

Fusion - an end-game goal. Massively expensive and complex production chain for "fuel" but would deliver massive energy.

That's a sale pitch, but who mean nothing to me without actual explanation. What is a massively expensive production operation ? How do it work ? How it is different from a massive solar array factory

It's like nuclear but even better!
/salespitch

Again the main reason one might want it is to have high energy production without using too much land area.
As a bonus it would extend the game by offering new research and factory expansion options.
The resources for it (He3?) would be rare to find and complex to process (many steps needed, various machines, various consumables and side-products in the process, ...).

Basically it would be an excuse to make a different automated production line out of high-end machinery instead of just doubling up the solar production line. It would also add new stuff to research to the game and be a general extension for the game.

Nuclear would be a mid-game option with respectively cheaper machinery, less complex production chain and possibly more abundant fuel.

If anything it's the wind power that for all intents and purposes is nothing more than a reskinned solar that can also work during night

You can refer to my thread, where I explained *why* it's not a reskinned solar at all for me.

You mean this thread here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 267#p32267 ?
I still don't see it as any way different from solars besides that the output is not predictable.


My main problem with Factorio electric system is that there are basically just two "tiers" of it and even those are extremely close in terms of when a player can start using them:
1) solid fuel boilers running hot water to steam engines
2) solar/accumulator combos for infinite pollution-free energy with only cost in initial production and in land area

What I'd like to see is more alternatives to those like after oil-processing is researched one could start burning that instead of solid fuel for higher efficiency and higher energy density per land-area used for the generators. Alternatively coal could be better used in producing other things instead of just shoving it into oven. New options should be introduced as game progresses. To me it makes no sense that I'd be using the very same energy production facilities in a massive plant using hundreds of GW's as I did when I plotted down my first turbine.


[Offtopic]
I've been poking around in some mod code for a couple of days now and I'm tempted to try to make something that would implement some new energy production stuff somewhat similar as in the posts I've discussed here. No guarantees though as my history of promising to make things isn't exactly good

[Ohlmann]

Kind of like solar-accumulator combo, right?
Main problem is that currently water is infinite in the game. I would imagine it's not even too hard to implement finite water in game - just calculate the volume of lakes based on some extra noise map. That same noise map could be used for gradually draining the lakes and producing new dry ground in their place. Now THAT would be an awesome extra feature with massive game play changes! It would mean people wouldn't be "burning" water in their generators since it would get complicated when they use up all the sources near their base.

??????

In a normal circumstance, water cycle. Using geothermal water aren't supposed to dry up lack.

You mean this thread here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 267#p32267 ?
I still don't see it as any way different from solars besides that the output is not predictable.

Well, except for the fact that it's not cyclical at all. So in other word, nothing in common apart from the fact the output is not common. On one hand, you have a regular power interruption to deal with ; on the other, you have something that will have less variations and usually shorter outage, but who can have catastrophical failure from time to time. I don't remember solar being out for more than a night.

My main problem with Factorio electric system is that there are basically just two "tiers" of it and even those are extremely close in terms of when a player can start using them:
1) solid fuel boilers running hot water to steam engines
2) solar/accumulator combos for infinite pollution-free energy with only cost in initial production and in land area

What I'd like to see is more alternatives to those like after oil-processing is researched one could start burning that instead of solid fuel for higher efficiency and higher energy density per land-area used for the generators. Alternatively coal could be better used in producing other things instead of just shoving it into oven. New options should be introduced as game progresses. To me it makes no sense that I'd be using the very same energy production facilities in a massive plant using hundreds of GW's as I did when I plotted down my first turbine.

I agree, but I want thoses options to have meaningful advantages and drawback. So fusion seem dubious to me, geothermal even more. I want something who continue the factorio thematic of having to deal with annoyances, and if they can be new ones that's better.

Note that I don't like solar panel too much, due to playstyle. I don't think they are all that superior to good old coal with generators, since solar panel are so big (and especially troublesome if you have a forest in the way), require a lot of material, and have that annoying tendancy to shut off half a day.

[hoho]

In a normal circumstance, water cycle. Using geothermal water aren't supposed to dry up lack.

I know, I was merely assuming that they'd be implemented similarly to current steam engines that consume 100C water and "eat" it

You mean this thread here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 267#p32267 ?
I still don't see it as any way different from solars besides that the output is not predictable.

Well, except for the fact that it's not cyclical at all.

Averaged over long enough period it'd still be providing an average output of X. You'd simply need more accumulators to assure a certain minimum level of output during longer outagase. When you plan on using laser defenses then you pretty much NEED a guaranteed minimum energy production level and for that would probably not use wind. I can see it being used in some off-base stations for stuff that doesn't need constant power, though.

I'm wondering in what scenarios would one use such relatively unreliable source of energy as wind would provide. Different sub-network for running non-essential stuff?

I agree, but I want thoses options to have meaningful advantages and drawback. So fusion seem dubious to me, geothermal even more. I want something who continue the factorio thematic of having to deal with annoyances, and if they can be new ones that's better.

Well, the advantage for most of the suggested generators would be not requiring burning solids to make energy. They'd also likely require less land area for the needed infrastructure. Different pollution level generated per energy produced could also be a valid reason to choose one over another.

Annoyances could be e.g massive water use for geothermal, perhaps also needing to supply it with some other materials for "upkeep".
Nuke could have a fuel that either needs a special suite to handle by hand or perhaps have a biological life damaging zone around the station and (some) of the fuel production line. Nuclear plants could also e.g speed up the evolution rate of locals instead of just producing pollution.
Fusion could simply cost MASSIVE amount of (rare) resources and need really high-level research to be used.

Coming up with possible pros and cons isn't too hard for them and I'd rather leave it to devs to decide what exactly to do as they could use their knowledge of aim of the future of this game to decide what exactly to use. Of course, I could try producing such ideas but I wouldn't want to indicate something like "this is what I want, don't do anything else".

Note that I don't like solar panel too much, due to playstyle.

I refuse to use any sort of greengens both in Factorio and also in MC mods for as much as possible. To me it feels like cheating if I put down a magic item and have it produce stuff endlessly out of thin air. The fact that factorio pump doesn't use any energy and that water is infinite bothers me greatly but there isn't much that I can do (I think).

I don't think they are all that superior to good old coal with generators, since solar panel are so big (and especially troublesome if you have a forest in the way), require a lot of material, and have that annoying tendancy to shut off half a day.

I know. Problem is currently there are literally just two possible choices for energy generation:
1) burn stuff and generate energy in relatively small land area producing lots of pollution
2) "invest" materials and land area to receive infinite free energy

I want more options.

[Robbedem]

The game already has a stone furnace that is used to make a boiler. => water at 100°C
The game also has a better furnace: steel furnace, but it doesn't have a better boiler...
What I would like is a better boiler version that would allow water at higher temps for a more efficient fuel-> elektricity conversion.
Maybe even add high pressure pipes that you need for them.

Having water be used is kind of silly, since that's not how it works in reality anyway.

The addition of a fusion power plant is also kind of necessary IMO. Solar panels and accumulaters are nice, but building huge areas full of them stops being fun after a while. Fusion power would only need water to run. You would however need a lot of elektricity to start it. (seems weird, but that's just how it works) It will work for a certain amount of time, shut down and will restart again. So it would drain and provide power in a cycle, but the provided power in total is a lot more that the amount drained. for example: 10s power drain of 10MW followed by 90s of 5MW output. (numbers can be changed for better game balance) The building itself would be fairly big too and would obviously require a lot of resources and research.

Geothermal energy could be a nice addition, but it should be balanced and rare enough (and not close to the starting position). That way you can find it when you explore and you can build a distant base for extra power, but you'l have to defend the base and the power lines against biters.

Last thing I want to mention: if weather will be added, windmills are a good addition. If weather won't be in the game, they'll be too much like solar panels.

[Sander Buruma]

I personally would really like a (supercritical) boiler. Such things exist IRL and are approximately 2x as efficient as regular plants.

The supercritical boiler would take 2x2 space and be 75%-100% efficient, and produce 2x more power than the regular boiler and would heat water to >373°C instead of 100°C, maybe even requiring steel pipes.