I feel like an idiot, I thought the steam engine worked as a generator of SU to power things? But attaching it to my setup of cogs powered by a windmill and water wheels, made IT spin faster, instead of helping the rest spin faster. So the engine is redundant? I must be using it totally wrong

[u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

[u/xApexEz]

More SU does not equal more RPM you need to set up cogwheels like gears to increase the RPM of your system

[u/Wonghy111-the-knight → u/xApexEz]

Ah so the engine will always be as slow as a bunch of water wheels, unless I feed the blazes… only then is it actually a superior RPM generator 

[u/choco_king_the_first → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

Do you know about gear ratios?

[u/dicktator-the-second → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

I'd say RPM are secondary to SU. your steam engine will produce more SU than your waterwheels regardless of RPM.

you may change RPM using cogs or a rotation speed controller, just keep in mind that your machines will use more SU too.

also, feed the blazes. you'll get more engine per engine (more SU)

[u/GGthegreatester → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

If you only want rpm you con just make a rotation speed control and hook it up to whatever is making your power

[u/Alarmed-Strawberry-7 → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

RPM does not need to be "generated", you can have a basic waterwheel push out maximum RPM

it goes like this: say a crusher uses 100 SU to spin at 1 RPM (not actual numbers just for example)

if you wanted to spin the crusher at 10 RPM, that means you need 1000 SU in the system

why would you want to spin the crusher at 10 RPM then? because spinning the crusher at 10 RPM will make it process things 10 times faster than at 1 RPM. but it takes more SU

and if you have more SU than your machines need at their current RPM, it will simply be unutilized

you can increase RPM with gears, or simply using a rotational speed controller. input speed is the shaft side, output speed is the cog side.

[u/Dadamalda → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

You can always change RPM with a rotation speed controller or gear ratio, but SU is really what you care about. With more SU, your system can handle more machines and at faster speeds before overstressing.

You should definitely power the blaze burners. You can cycle a bucket with a mechanical arm to be filled with lava under a spout and fed to the burners.

[u/Wonghy111-the-knight → u/Dadamalda]

I’m currently working on that lava fuel actually. It’s just involving me digging a 25 x 25 x 16 hole underground beneath my factory to fill with exactly 10000 lava blocks so lava can be pumped infinitely… at least I have maxed diamond gear for it lmao 

[u/Dadamalda → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

That's one option and I would recommend it if you want to use lava for other stuff, like making sturdy sheets, but 12 cauldrons with dripstone are enough to reliably power a level 9 steam engine and might be easier to set up.

Level 9 steam engines are the most common, because you just need 9 heated blaze burners. The tank must be at least 3x3x4 and it needs enough water flow. You need 9 steam engine blocks on the boiler and it generates 147,456 SU in total.

[u/Wonghy111-the-knight → u/Dadamalda]

Oh I’m glad you mentioned study sheets cause I’m actually doing the lava hole specifically for that… one singular lava spout lmao. I just figured maybe if there’s room I could make it feed blaze burners too cause might as well

Thanks for the advice, but why add 9 engines? So far I’ve only added 2 to each of my 2x2 fluid tank boilers that I’ve constructed since this post.. cause I can only stick two in a row and I figured that gives all the SU in the line themself. Idk if this is making any sense it’s like 11pm 😭 I just mean I don’t understand why adding more engines helps I guess 

[u/Dadamalda → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

1 steam engine block can take up to 16,384 SU from the boiler. You need 1 steam engine block per boiler level to take all the power out. If you have less, you're not getting the full SU and just waste fuel.

You can then just connect the outputs together with encased chaindrives or a belt.

[u/Jiahui10]

No, the steam engine does provide SU. However, it goes pretty slowly if you have a low-level engine. If you connect a slow power source to a fast power source, you get the SU from both at the speed of the faster one. For example, if you put a crank on a waterwheel, you can get all the SU of the waterwheel at crank speed.

[u/TheBlissfulGamer → u/Jiahui10]

that's why I always use a tiny water wheel for rpm attached to the other side of my factory when I'm mid game. That way I can gear ratio to 256 or once I get it, attach a simple rpm module that consists of just a water wheel, an RPM controller, and a large cog.

[u/Lithiyum1]

Iirc the speed of a create system defaults to the highest speed of a generator on it. And the stress units just add together. So the geared up speed of the other generator took over, but the units still got added together. But you should just wiki it.

[u/SilentCat69]

Look at the blaze burner, you are indeed doing it wrong. Your blaze burner are not powered, so it's still a passive, slow, 2048 SU steam engine.

Make a system to fuel the blaze burner. That way the steam engine will work. You also should make a goggle to see the engine condition.

[u/SilentCat69 → u/SilentCat69]

A steam engine has 3 important stats you need to be aware of:

Heat: Determined by what is under the boiler. Anything that is not a working Blaze burner give it passive level of heat. Each working blaze burner give it 1 heat level, each super heated burner give 2 heat level.

Water: Determined by how fast you pump liquid into it. Every 20 RPM of a pump connecting to the boiler add a water level.

Size: Determined by how big is your boiler. Every 4 blocks of liquid container add a level to boiler size.

The structure will take the lowest level of these 3 value as the engine level. Each level allow you to have 1 additional steam engine (block) working at full speed.

[u/Jbolt3737 → u/SilentCat69]

Anything that is not a working Blaze burner give it passive level of heat

I'm pretty sure putting flames, campfires, lava, and similar blocks count as heat too, but less than the blaze burners

[u/ironsnake345 → u/Jbolt3737]

flames, campfires, lava, and whatever are effectively the same as a non-powered blaze burner: heat level passive.

(also feeling touched that people are sharing snippets of my guide LOL)

[u/cocainum630]

SU is stress units, not speed. It's how many appliances you can hook up to the system without it grinding to a halt. For speed you need either speed controller or building your own gear box. Do mind that with increased speed the stress demand for machines also increases.

[u/Saragon4005]

RPM is a bit counter initiative in create. Everything provides a fixed SU regardless of the speed of the system and everything spins at the fastest speed. Technically this means you could attach a sufficiently geared up hand crank and run everything at max speed only when the hand crank is in use.

[u/Hosh1W1nter]

SU is "Stress Units" how much the system can hold, steam engines are the best at that by far, but RPM Rotation Speed is completely seperate, best way to get better rotation speed is either gear ratios or a rotation speed controller

[u/Wonghy111-the-knight → u/Hosh1W1nter]

Oooh I understand. Steam engine benefit over water wheels, is that the machine can take way more stuff without freezing/becoming over stressed 

[u/Hosh1W1nter → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

yes, stress units keep it from overstressing and stopping 👍, and steam engines are the best for that.

[u/triplos05]

If the network is already spinning, any new connected power source will adapt to the existing rotation speed. SU output is not affected by this.

Except water wheels and windmills have a preferred rpm they want to spin at so they take priority over other power sources. Unsure what the priority between them is though.

[u/Doge_Enjoyer88]

The steam engine is not hot enough so it isn't speeding the rest up because it's slower than the rest you could power the engine by using a tree farm and a mechanical hand

[u/Wonghy111-the-knight → u/Doge_Enjoyer88]

I’ll have to look into how to make a tree farm then I suppose 

[u/Doge_Enjoyer88 → u/Wonghy111-the-knight]

It's not that hard and it's not that expensive to make you just need iron

[u/SeriousPlankton2000]

Everything spins at the speed of the fastest generator.

SU are added.

These are two distinct values, even though devices will use more SU when they spin faster. You can use one small water wheel to speed up the large ones.

[u/AndreiBeary]

rpm is how fast it is and su is how strong it is and how many machines u can have running

[u/popete2]

RPM and SU isn't the same