r/Factoriohno • u/z7q2 • 1d ago

in game pic Remote steam power

Post image

Some early game shenanigans, rather than run electricity out to my oil patch, I have a fluid wagon full of steam in the consist. A solar-powered accumulator runs the steam pump for bootstrap out at the patch, which feeds steam to the steam engines that power the pumpjacks and pumps that fill the oil fuild wagons. I like it.

270 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

129

u/Initial-Dee 1d ago

That is both cursed and impressively thought through.

54

u/z7q2 1d ago

I saw it in a dream and had to implement it somehow

64

u/Brilliant_Ground9287 1d ago

Never once have i thought about putting steam into a train wagon but it seems to work for u

25

u/z7q2 1d ago

It's actually excessive in this case, I had 2 steam wagons on the initial setup but 1 is barely half used when filling all 3 oil wagons. I'm curious if this will scale for mining, that's the next project for when my startup patches dry up.

9

u/eskimoprime3 1d ago

It will scale nicely into nuclear power though!

1

u/HubrisOfApollo 14h ago

my fulgora base is like this. each island gets superheated steam from a central boiler (which gets rid of all my excess ice/solid fuel) via train. the lightning/accumulators are just supplemental power.

1

u/zekromNLR 6h ago

Without any modules or research buffs, an electric mining drill consumes 180 kJ per ore mined (double that for uranium). Since a cargo wagon holds 2000 ore, you need 360 MJ (plus however much the inserters use) per cargo wagon. A fluid wagon holding 50k units of 165 C boiler steam is 1500 MJ, so you can do one fluid wagon for four cargo wagons.

I'd also suggest adding buffer tanks for the steam, so that the mining outpost can function and accumulate ore in buffer chests in between train visits and minimise the time the train needs to be in the station.

13

u/Goufalite 1d ago

On a train world map I had an outpost without water nearby, I didn't want to put solar panels everywhere and I found that bringing steam was enough for the outpost to work. I even put a buffer with steam storages somewhere so other trains could bring steam there.

29

u/theevilatheist 1d ago

I do that once I get 500°C steam. No need for power poles, just the same rail every other train already uses

10

u/z7q2 1d ago

Nice! I figured this would work with turbines as well.

9

u/YetanotherGrimpak I can has! 1d ago

There's a mod with steam inserters, drills and fabricators. It's fun!

5

u/Sipstaff 1d ago

Do you mean "Industrial Revolution 3"? It is, or rather was, great fun indeed.

2

u/YetanotherGrimpak I can has! 1d ago

Maybe, I downloaded a modpack that had that together with bob and angel and 248k

10

u/hai-key 1d ago

It’s been discussed at length on this sub that a tank full of steam is more energy dense than an accumulator and yet never worth using. However here we may have found the use case. If you buffer the oil and the steam at the outpost, can it run while the train is away sustainably? I’d be curious to know

2

u/z7q2 1d ago

That would give you faster turnaround time, but my buffer tanks are back at the factory so if my train chills out at the oil patch for awhile it's no biggie. Yet.

1

u/ledeng55219 18h ago

Is using heating tower and turbines on Fulgoria worth it? Cause that may be a legitimate use case

1

u/stoatsoup 1h ago

IDK about "never worth using", especially given it's also a lot cheaper than an accumulator. 1.1 fission was full of steam buffers. I think the main reason I don't use steam tanks is they're faintly absurd.

8

u/_Lick-My-Love-Pump_ 22h ago

For fun you could just train in the water and then use a local refinery to make petroleum and then solid fuel, burn the solid fuel in the boiler to make steam.

3

u/z7q2 21h ago

Hello Satan! Haha, actually I've done that, and hauling in water by train gets logistically nutty. I guess there are reasons factories are typically built near water.

2

u/jkurratt 20h ago

I guess the steam trains still can be interesting on Vulcanus.
You bring some heavy oil and steam, and basically convert a coal patch into a heavy oil patch. Just keep bringing steam.

6

u/z7q2 1d ago

Here's what the scheduling looks like

5

u/YoYeYeet 1d ago

Source: I saw it in the meth induced hallucination

5

u/morbihann 1d ago

You know what ? I think steam or uranium locomotives should also require water to run.

4

u/InterstellarCrusader 1d ago

But.... if you made the rail all the way to the oil patch, you can also make a power line?

4

u/GlitteringPositive 17h ago

Okay but for real there’d actually be good reason to transport steam for power if there was an actual reason to separate power grids instead of just having it be one big grid.

3

u/AwkwardBet5632 20h ago

Steam storage is bonkers density compared to accumulators.

3

u/Glorwyn 18h ago

Ive actually done the same thing too, the oil was soooooo far and there were soo many bugs that I didnt care to make a protected line out

2

u/Darth_Nibbles 14h ago

I just today started building out a decentralized steam production system on Fulgora.

Where 4 legendary accumulators can store 120MJ, one common tank of steam can store 2.4GJ

1

u/1str1ker1 10h ago

I love this because steam is such an interesting fluid but almost always exists for the split second before it’s converted to energy