Are Electrolyzers worth it?

1st Official Post

    I've been doing some reading on the wiki and Electrolyzers seem like a decent idea to increase the capacity of enery storage, but are they actually useful in practice? They're not e-net blocks, so you can't hook cables to them (can you? I tried this in the past and I got nothing in or out of the block). They require at least an MFE to function and the output is tied up pointing at the Electrolyzer, so you can't use the MFE for anything else. I suppose you could move the cells from a "source" MFE/MFS to another Electrolyzer hanging off another MFE... but at that point, why deal with the loss (just use Energy Crystals instead and get ~6x the power per run)?


    There's got to be a reason for them to exist, but I'm not seeing it. What am I not seeing?

    "when the adjacent MFE Unit or MFS Unit"
    There is no need for MFE, MFS to point at it. It's purpose is to avoid losing energy when generator is running but Storage is full. It will instantly grab some of its energy to create room for another coming from that generator. On the other hand, when you are using too much energy and you drain your MFE completely, it will immidiately provide energy from charged cells to resupply adjacent empty MFE, which allows you to continue using it instantly after depleting. It basically increases your MFE/MFS storage level at the cost of some EU(10%).

    Yeah. It's an extension to your storage, at a slight energy loss, but when you stop to think that you'd have been losing a lot more energy if the electrolyzer wasn't there at all than you do in using it...yes, they're very much worth it. Toss a stack of water cells in the thing and don't worry too much about your MFSU filling up. And if you fill up all of those water cells? Stick another stack in there and store the electrolyzed ones for a rainy day when you're running your mass fab at full steam!

    I get that, but doesn't it need to be on the output face of the MFE, making you unable to use the power in that MFE?


    (I haven't tested it, but that's what the wiki seems to say.)

    It needs to be 'next' to the MFSU. As far as I know you can't unload electrolizers to anything other than an MFSU however; which makes it really /not/ worth it IMO. You're better off finding a constructive use for that excess power /now/ like a massfab.

    Okay, so they DON'T need to be on the output face. That actually makes them usable. I just built one to test.


    It also does seem to discharge just fine into an MFE. I just changed the wiki page to reflect this.


    Thanks for the confirmations.

    I think they made more sense in IC1, when generators did not stop generating energy when none was needed. But then again, they store 864,000 EU (13,500 EU x Stack of 64 cells) without using diamonds, good for an early game.

    "All errors should be fixed, as much of the code was rewritten."

    They're cheap as dirt and because of that I think they're pretty great. Consider that you can have 4 electrolyzers hooked up to an MFE/MFSU without blocking input/output. That's almost 3.5 million EU that you can store up. (13 500 per cell * 64 per electrolyzers * 4 electrolyzers = 3 456 000)

    They do have their uses. I use a windgen setup so there are inconsistencies here and there with my power input. It helps soften any power loss by giving me a boost when I need it and absorbing any overage I can’t use. However once your power generation and complexity of your setup reaches a certain point, they’re just not as efficient anymore.


    First of all, they have a rather slow rate of charge. If you have a LARGE input, they simply won’t keep up and some will still go to waste. Same goes for their output. It’s only enough to run a handful of appliances. (what is the total throughput, something like 10eu?)


    Yep, you just put them against an MFE, no matter which side and they’ll operate like part of the MFE, like an addon. (or a Teleporter) There’s no real way to control when the system starts storing and discharging. I had the exact numbers on hand before but I don’t right now, discharge begins at something like 1/4 MFE charge and it starts storing at (again, guessing) 3/4 charge.


    Electrolized water is a great way to keep power in a chest. They’re stackable and contain quite a bit of juice, at a small loss of course. But then again, if all you want is storable cell-power you’d be much better off going with Lava Cells in a Geothermal than electrolyzed water. And if you don’t want your MFE to max out and waste power, just throw a Mass Fab on the circuit and let that soak up the extra EU.


    In the end unless you do use 2-4 of them on your MFE, you’re probably only going to get real use out of it in a Teir 2 setup.

    underpowered in current state and only power storage with realistic energy loss.


    imho cells shoud store more power and have more energy loss.


    20eu tick 30000 charge 20000 discharge, this will make them viable alternative to lava cells.

    • Official Post

    I agree with them going underpowered after the recent Generator Buff... Electrolyzers need to run on higher EuT as well.
    Unsure whether to increase the capacity of cells, but i will for sure not alter the energy-loss ratio. 10% is quite much, given everything else works loss-less.

    I'd be happiest with 32eU/t discharge and dischargable when coupled to /any/ storage unit (even a batbox). Charge (and full speed discharge) should be MFE / MFS Unit only, and each attached unit should operate at up to 50% of normal unit output (in addition to it's actual output). This would mean, in theory, an MFSU could discharge 512 eU, and store 1024eU among 4 attached electrolyzers in a single tick.

    Right now it’s a slow capacitor to cushin overage and provide during brownouts. (Very useful for windgen setups) But yeah, 10eu/t is on the slow side considering one small tower of windgens can get upwards of 40-50.


    If their functionality is changed and discharge rate upped, I can see them used as portable MFEs complete with full charge. Heck, if they’re allowed to interface with Batboxes, they could even replace MFEs in a low-current setup.


    Throwing in my two cents, I’d like to be able to adjust at what percentage of their parent storage block they’ll start to charge/discharge. As it stands I think it starts to discharge at 1/4 and drawing when the storage is at 3/4.

    Are you kidding me ? They are GREAT as they are right now. We have a mining Chest containing the following:


    1 MFE
    5 Electrolyzers
    Numerous Electrolyzed Cells
    3 Miners
    3 Diamond Drills
    3 OV SCanners
    Copper Cable
    LV Transformer
    Mining Pipes
    Chests


    We're not always setting up mining operations and we load those cells up while we're doing other stuff all the time but WHEN we do, we simply set up an MFE in the wild surround it with Electrolyzers, LV to the output, and connect 3 Miners with Diamond Drills and Chests to it. Huge Profit, no lavacell running around, rather good output, no stupid long distance wiring.


    Its simple, effective and cheap as shit, i love electrolyzers as they are, they are certainly not overpowered but i think they are just right for what they do. I wouldnt want to miss them.

    Another use, would be automatable long distance power transfer. Where the crystals are fiddly to manage with pipes, charged water cells are perfect for pumping power long distance where more than 10% loss via cable. Yes please Alblaka bringing them up to the new power levels would be wonderful.

    I should point out that RP machines can distinguish between Electrolized Water Cells and regular Water Cells. They can NOT distinguish any other forms of storage (Lapo's, batteries), making the electrolizer the ONLY device which can auto-swap power via tubes.


    You can drain a constant 50eu/t PER MFE/MFSU with this method, or return it to the system. Making Electrolizers, RP tubes and regular old chests the best energy storage available. Really, the only way to beat this is to use Lapo's in multiple charging benches, which is resource intensive, and requires an additional mod. The "E-Cell" method requires only brass, glass and wood to expand it.


    All told, a double box can contain a little over 45 million EU.


    Not entirely sure why you would want to store billions and billions of EU, instead of using it... But HEYO, there ya go!

    That's just it; so rarely -do- I want to store it instead of using it. If I have too much I'd rather massfab it once I'm at that level. If I have too little I simply have too little. There was only a single rare time when I'd have been interested in the electrolizer (which I would be had I known it worked with MFEs too); during mining ops at my stage II period it would have been worth the energy loss just to save me 300 trips up and down the bloody ladder.

    Quote from Lancezh

    1 MFE...


    Its simple, effective and cheap as shit



    I've considered that but considering that it seems half the time i wrench out a geo-thermal genny it breaks, even with the electric wrench, I can't justify using something that takes 4 diamonds to make in a rig I keep wrenching up and moving around. At level 65, all you need is a stack of lava cells in a geo to power it start to finish, and lava is more than abundant. Half the time you pump up enough lava to power the next op! It'd take 3 electrolizers just to power 1 mining drill since they use about 24eu/t when properly outfitted.


    Then you have the issue of wasted power. I tested it out and don't like using any energy storage devices in my outlying mining rigs. Once the op is finished, your gens will still try to fill up your storage (power you won't get back) and the same goes for electrolizers. They'll try to fill up your storage by at least 1/4 before cutting off. You can't put that power back into the water before you pick up the storage block. At least with geo-gens you only lose the power housed in the gen itself when you move everything. (And if you really want to cry about it, bring along some RE batteries to soak that up before moving on!)

    Quote from DrSNAFU

    I've considered that but considering that it seems half the time i wrench out a geo-thermal genny it breaks, even with the electric wrench, I can't justify using something that takes 4 diamonds to make in a rig I keep wrenching up and moving around.


    Are you aware that there's an add-on that allows a 100% recovery rate with the wrench?


    Quote

    Then you have the issue of wasted power. I tested it out and don't like using any energy storage devices in my outlying mining rigs. Once the op is finished, your gens will still try to fill up your storage (power you won't get back) and the same goes for electrolizers. They'll try to fill up your storage by at least 1/4 before cutting off. You can't put that power back into the water before you pick up the storage block.


    So bring a few energy crystals along to fill up with the excess - and put them back in the MFE after you move it. Als,o try and get a better sense of how much fuel you'll need for an average dig - no sense in filling a generator if you only ever use a portion of it.

    If you want to start with the add-ons I'm sure you could make one that allows you to power the miners directly from Electrolizers. But throwing add-ons into the discussion sort of invalidates its purpose of balancing stock Electrolizers for stock IC2, doesn’t it?


    You could count EUs, as fun as that sounds, except you’ll never know how much EU each mining job will take. A reading of 100 on an OV sensor could mean a whole ton of tin and copper or a handful of diamonds. Not to mention you’d have to take into account how deep you’re going. And doesn’t micro-managing your mining ops defeat the purpose of a ‘set it and forget it’ miner?