Suggestion: Kinetic Watermills, renaming of some blocks and other stuff.

    • Official Post

    Since we're starting to have real-life based windmills, it is time to have some real-life based watermills and i propose a suggestion for them:


    Tidal Stream Watermill.


    It uses the "flow" of the seas to generate energy, similar to the windmill.
    However due the high concentration of salt in the seawater, it suffers from oxidization, which will damage the rotor faster than a regular windmill. Also you can't use wood rotors for obvious reasons.


    Mechanics:
    Needs to be on DEEP OCEAN biome.
    Needs to be tethered to the deep sea underground (iron fences) that connects to a a 5x5x5 cube of construction foam.
    Uses rotors from the windmill too (so you have to rename them to "Gearbox rotors") [Wood rotor is blocked]
    Must be between Y 30 to 60.
    Checks for water (and other watermills) in the same way the windmill does for air.
    Tidal Watermills produces the most when at Y 45 (produces less if too deep or too shallow).


    The example:

    However some people might not have an ocean, but instead a river, which should be allowed to generate power, with another block called:


    River Stream Watermill.


    Uses the high flow of a river to generate power.


    Mechanics:
    Needs to be in a RIVER biome.
    Uses rotors.
    Must be between Y 44 and 64.
    Needs to be tethered to the river underground (iron fences) that connects to a a 3x3x3 cube of construction foam.
    Does not have the drawback of oxidization, also generates twice the energy compared to the tidal watermill.
    Produces energy best when at Y 54. (less if too deep or too shallow).
    Checks for water (and other watermills) like the windmill does for air.



    Renaming stuff :
    Steam Generator (the one that boils water to make steam) -> Steam Boiler
    Electric Steam Generator (the one that boils water with electricity to make steam) -> Electric Steam boiler Choco said they dont exist, i tought there were an EU -> steam thing.
    Kinetic Steam Generator (the one that runs off steam to make kinetic energy) -> Steam Turbine
    Kinetic Wind Generator -> Air Stream Windmill. (or Windmill Gearbox)
    {I need more input from others on this as i didnt play with the steam stuff}

  • Watermills are underused, they need to cooler. I support this suggestion!

    Help the Official FTB Wiki reach a billion pages! [I had to keep changing it so there ^^]

    Someone should fix the gravel texture in the background. It's been years now, come on people.

    • Official Post

    Electric Steam Generator (the one that boils water with electricity to make steam) -> Electric Steam boiler

    That doesn't exist, you must have read something wrong.

    Must be between Y 44 and 64.

    I think 50 to 70 would be better, I've found rivers at Y 69 before. And maybe a config option if you have a biome mod which changes the land height, or adds a river/ocean like biome too.

    generates twice the energy compared to the tidal watermill.

    What's benefit to using the tidal watermill then? It damages the rotor more, it produces less power, and you nearly drown trying to place it :P



    I agree that watermills could do with some love though. Using 4 of them to power a recycler is about the extent of which they're useful currently.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    • Official Post

    That doesn't exist, you must have read something wrong.

    Likely.

    I think 50 to 70 would be better, I've found rivers at Y 69 before. And maybe a config option if you have a biome mod which changes the land height, or adds a river/ocean like biome too.

    Formula would be: Sea Level -30 +15 then. Works best at Sea Level -15.

    What's benefit to using the tidal watermill then? It damages the rotor more, it produces less power, and you nearly drown trying to place it :P

    The thing is that oceans are MUUUUUUUUUUCH bigger than a river in all sides. With rivers you will often see yourself limited by the path of it, as they are barely wide to fit one watermill.

  • My suggestion would be for the River Watermill to create something like a dam for it to function where the difference in water level affects the output.


    For it to work you need to have kind of a step in the river and it checks if the dam is valid. For example you need 5 blocks of flat water surface "upstream" and the same amount but lowered down downstream. For dam material one could use construction foam.


    Additionally i would rename it to a (River) Water Turbine. Of course one could use several Water Turbines in the same dam but that would decrease their efficiency. So it would only be beneficial if one Turbine couldn't handle all the water.


    I think that would be a great mechanic.

    • Official Post

    That is a bit unpractical due the excessive terraforming and highly complex block detection algorithm required.


    At most a wall alongside the river that you can place turbines, just dont mess with the height of the water.

  • The detection wouldn't be that difficult. Just check for a wall crossing the river, pick the first available water source block on one side of the wall, pick water source on other side of wall, compare y values -> power generation level.
    a bit more advanced would be a detection that ensures that on the "upstream" side of the wall(dam) all water source blocks are flat and above them is air and below are water sources until y of the water source of downstream side.

  • detection is simple but require LOTS of checks, this will cause major lags.


    not if it only checks once per turbine update. or we just make the whole dam an MB structure so that it is one big structure that doesn't do much in the way of checking.

  • I like the idea of multiblock structures in general... having everything in a single block is just not realistic.


    And power generation is the thing i like most about IC2. It is challenging but efficient and adding new possibilities is really cool(like the steam cycle)