[Suggestion] Re-do Geothermal Energy

Quote from Offboss

One of the major complaints with IC today is the over-poweredness of solars. This could be combated by providing another renewable (free) energy source. As it stands, geothermals only use lava. I suggest that they instead should use the heat of the earth.

Real geothermal power pumps water down into the earth, then uses a turbine to produce power as the steam comes up. In Minecraft this is impossible; however, we could have geothermal generators produce power when placed underground. The EUs produced could be based on height, like wind farms: i.e. the deeper you go the more energy is produced. But what to do with all that lava? Lava could be used to increase the eu production, somewhat similar to how scrap works with the UU machine. This would also let us use our BC pipe systems to pump the buckets in and out. The recipe would probably need to be changed for balance reasons, but who really cares what that looks like.

Anyway, let me know what you think and any gaps I left.

So, to fix the overpowerment of one energy generator, create another?

Lol, Turns out, geothermal power is far more OP than solar ever was.

Or at least if you take the (often considered required) buildcraft mod, where you just take a simple coal powered pump, and suck up a few tanks worth of lava, fill cells, take to overworld (this is in nether btw) and just produce ****tons of power.

Quote from Offboss

One reason most people don't use the nuclear generator is because you have to manage it and watch it. <snip>

Have you even used nuclear? get a nice Mk 1 or 2 and you can just toss some uranium in there and forget about it. Sure it's not a primary fuel supply without some fancy RP2 or BC stuff but it works great as a secondary power source for mass fabs and stuff like that.
also gives one a place to use up all the extra uranium one pulls out of the ground.
So far in every IC2 world i've built a reactor or have plans to build one.

I have made a automated Geothermal Generator with at least 3-4 mods (Redpower2, Buildcraft,BuildcraftBucketFiller, and BuildcraftTeleportPipes. The last one optional), you just only need to find a Pretty big Lava lake in the overworld (I dunno if nether operation still runs if you arent in the nether, and i also dont know if teleport pipes connects from the nether->Overworld and backwards) and you are set.

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One reason most people don't use the nuclear generator is because you have to manage it and watch it

Erm...I don't? And thats not only me i think...
Its just a matter of planning. You can put every part of your reactor as a cell, but to input buckets of water using pump into it, so you dont need to watch it. Not so much to do, but not everyone want to make all those buckets&shit.

You can make more energy using water mills when using solar panels, it depens on planing.

Actually you /can/ have a Nuke as a power source without watching it constantly (if you're using RP2). Item Detectors allow you to watch for buckets existing via your filter or retriever (which as Cadde would like, does require power; though ATM only RP2 solar is an option given the lack of a converter).

On my server a friend built a breeder reactor which almost powers two miners (50eU/t) while operating. My biggest issue for it is actually storage when the miners aren't running (MFSUs are super expensive and diamond+redstone rarity is noticeable).

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But that requires time. Time in which I could be mining well my solars produce energy. I could, in fact, be mining coal, which means I am getting energy as well, or diamonds, or any number of things. In addition, solars don't require anything produce energy other than daylight.

Oh my, the choice between waiting all 'hours' of the day on 1 Eu/t per panel, or a couple of mins. with a couple of stacks of empty cells in the Nether to get about 2.56 Million EU. Boy, the choices... >.>

Geothermal IS the OP energy choice in IC. The reason why many fail to see that is due to the fact that they don't understand lava mechanics, and that they don't see how to fully harness the availability of some resources (cobble/sand and Tin) next to acquiring others. Actually, a Geothermal with an innate storage of 240k EU actually beats out a Batbox because it now outputs at 20 EU/t instead of 10. Batboxes only have 40k EU storage at 32 EU/t output, so they run out much quicker than, say, running directly off a GeoGen instead...

So yeah, solars. They're so OP, right? Sure...

Just leave it be. I like generators that just use things up. If it creates power by being deep inside the ground and more if it gets lava... whats the difference?

If it's output is mainly determined by the depth, then it is just another "fire and forget" generator which produces EU by just sitting around. If it's output is mainly determind by the fact that you put lava in it, then it is just the actual Geo-Gen which does provide a tiny amount of EU without getting lava (so basically it is some kind of water-gen... with lava).

I would rather see a change in solars, then in the Geo-Gen. It clearly is quite strong with additional mods, but thats the same for the normal generator if you just fire it with reeds and cacti + some automation.

To the OP: I like the idea a lot! I think the current implementation is a bit odd but it works well enough.

To the peanut gallery: um... once you have a mining machine and 64 pieces of mining pipe, the world is your oyster. In a few hours of mining I have enough lapis to make an MFSU.

In 1 week (of holiday time so about 12 hrs a day) I gathered the resources for and created two nuclear reactors, each with 6 additional cores. They're eff3 and product 24M EU over a cycle. They're class 2 so could run a full cycle, I'd just have to let them cool down at the end. As it happens I eliminate that need by using a redpower sequencer to run them 50% on/off. They power a bank of 5 MFSU which in turn powers my workshop.

I only used solar for the first day or so until I got my first reactor (a mini type 1 eff2) online. Then the reactor is very definitely my primary power source.

Quote from Offboss

But that requires time. Time in which I could be mining well my solars produce energy. I could, in fact, be mining coal, which means I am getting energy as well, or diamonds, or any number of things. In addition, solars don't require anything produce energy other than daylight.

Yes but if you load em up with 64 cells of lava each your set for a long friggin' time. I'm currently trying to switch over to geothermal. Where I used to need 10 solar panels now only needs one geothermal and Alblaka is introducing Buildcraft pipe compatability to directly feed them.

Quote from Offboss

You can't have a nuclear reactor has a main source of power without watching it constantly. I use my generators has secondary power for UU and teleporters, and only that because of my extra uranium. You missed the point of the new system.

Wrong, on one world I made a MKII-(porlly something else)-SUC wasn't that hard and produced 80 eu/t however I have small energy needs my factorys tend to consist of 9 machines and caput. however people have built CASUCs that can run for cycles on end with zero surveilance.

Quote from dragonherald

Wrong, on one world I made a MKII-(porlly something else)-SUC wasn't that hard and produced 80 eu/t however I have small energy needs my factorys tend to consist of 9 machines and caput. however people have built CASUCs that can run for cycles on end with zero surveilance.

yup, I've got a Mk 1 design that's since been sorta turned into a mk 2-20something (too many pies, wires and cables reducing water cooling) that used to run overnight without monitoring fine. Using a transposer to feed uranium to it and a retriever to suck out depleted uranium cells. I say "used to" as i'm sorta down to 9 uranium now (haven't used a quarry or gone mining in a while)

Geos surrounded in lava were a feature on IC1 for a while, but it was dropped because that's not the way geothermal energy works, and would be extremely overpowered.

Also, making geothermal energy act like real life? Use a BC pump and a Geothermal on the next release (or a Geothermal2 from Power Converters while you wait).

Actually it doesn't seem like it would be that unfeasible (to me) to have some pipes that sent "water blocks" through them with each one recording the heat before it flashed into steam to shoot back up to the generator. Actually you could maybe make a turbine machine that was all generators and just have the different energy methods be ways of making it go- aside from wind, all power plants just use water to spin turbines right?

The coal generators could conceivably have this all built into the one block so it wouldn't hinder the earliest development but after that you could reasonably demand people build systems to make the turbines go, and maybe even cooling towers for cases where the water reaches extreme temperatures.