Suggestion: New GeoGen system.

YES! SO MUCH WIN! If this gets implemented, I know where my new t2 source of power will be: Geothermal gens

First off, I'm loving this discussion of geos. From day one of IC I have always loved Geothermals. Pouring lava in and getting a hum of energy has always been nice. Now, if implemented, this new geo has taken the next step, a bit like the nuclear reactors. I believe I would enjoy a geothermal that worked as described in this thread.

-just my 2 cents.

How would you integrate the miner and pump into such a system? They really shouldnt be ignored since they are an integral part of a real geothermal system.

Quote from Lurch1985

The pump is already included, as it can be used to fill water cells (currently bugged, but fixed for 1.0). The miner, I'm not so sure about, as the pump will eventually pump lava too iirc.

Why not let them act as additional chambers one on each side of the geo gen (kinda like how the miner in IC auto supplied the geo gen with lava). If the pump is present then then the lava and/or water that it is pumping will automatically be pumped in and only use the the cells inside the gen as a recipe. Using a high powered geo gen recipe that has minimal coolant cells will still eat through coolant cell so it wont be completely automatic unless you go the safest route with low EU production. Though I don't think there should be any explosions if the geo gen overheats. Maybe the geo gen just turns into lava.

Goethermal gens with sophistication of Nuclear Reactors....YES PLEASE!! I am begging you on my knees Alblaka, please implement this

I actually am starting to like this idea. Fact is, neither geothermal, nor conventional generators can work on heat alone. You need some working body. Namely, water. Creating generator designs that utilize the heat of the fuel to the fullest is a great idea. This way, the energy values for different items can be increased without compromising balance - simply make those more powerful energy sources require more management - more water, more space in the "generator grid" (which can be between 3x3 to 5x5 depending on the tier of the reactor).

Quote from Viktor_Berg

Fact is, neither geothermal, nor conventional generators can work on heat alone. You need some working body. Namely, water.

Fact is you don't need water. Heat alone is enough if you use air as the working fluid. I m not saying it is efficient (though that could be due to lack of research in the field and since modern technology has never been used to design a serious one... we went to oil powered engines and never looked back to anything else...) See Stirling engine for more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

An actual sterling generator that was produced in the 1960s or so: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9UKu-AP02k

Oh, alright, there exist engines which work on gaseous fluids. But the point is, Geothermal generators don't. In real life, all geothermal generators utilize the power of the steam heated up by the geothermal process to work the turbines. That's just how it is.

Quote from Viktor_Berg

Oh, alright, there exist engines which work on gaseous fluids. But the point is, Geothermal generators don't. In real life, all geothermal generators utilize the power of the steam heated up by the geothermal process to work the turbines. That's just how it is.

Ya well in real life we also don't go find the nearest source of lava, grab a bucket of it, and then bring it back to our house to generate electricity. In fact I don't think lava is even used. It is just the heat of the earth next to thermally active regions that heat the water that is then pumped back up the surface. Which means if these were real geothermal generators they which just have to pumps one to pump water down a deep well and one two pump water up from a deep well along with being extremely expensive to make. Though I have no problem fudging a couple facts for a better gameplay experience.

We probably wont hear anything for a while, maybe not even until its implemented if they do. xD

Quote from Kuu

And about solars... Solar generator is very different from usual generator - no turbines, no water boilers and so on. An we are making them from usual "fuel" generator.
I think, it will be nice, if generator cycle will be completely redone.

I suggest different modules
1) Generator - it is the energy-producing machine, converts mechanical energy into electrical.
2) Turbines (for heat-based systems) they can recieve thermal energy, and drive the generator.
3) Different... i dont know... steam generators. They can use geothermal energy, fuel, nuclear power and spin the turbines.
And solar collector should be a different type of energy-produsing devices.

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Electric generators run on the principle, as you said, of converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. This is done with dynamos/alternators which are very much similar to electric motors. The difference is which end provides power and a few mechanical things that can be glossed over for the sake of building (differences in using AC vs DC). These things could be added to our list of components to build things out of and could be made cheaply. We could use the motors in other things like our drills, chainsaws, automated miners, macerators, pumps, etc. instead of electronic circuits.

For example, we make an electric motor from insulated copper wire and a single ingot of iron.
Wire, iRon
WWW
WRW
WWW

Then build some means to provide mechanical energy such as a turbine. Since tin is a catch-all for metal usage we'll probably just make it out of that, but in reality it's not very strong, and Iron seems to be to important to waste material. I don't want to use wood in a nuclear reactor do you? We could make it out of bronze, there isn't too much use for it yet and real bronze is used in applications requiring resistance to corrosion, but making bronze requires machines to do so (in my opinion bronze should be more accessible since it was in wide use before iron was made)

So we could have something like this for a turbine:
Bronze, _: Empty
B_B
_B_
B_B

These can be combined to make a single dynamo item, then added to a furnace and a rechargeable battery in place of the machine block to make the furnace generator we all start out with:
Rebattery, Dynamo, Furnace _: Space
_R_
_D_
_F_

Since what I think Alblaka was going for in our solar panels was a photovoltaic source of electricity and not a solar heater, (the latter requires a generator and the former, photovoltaic cells) I think we should eschew the generator block and put a rechargeable battery in there. To make up for the material cost cost, I propose we have a craft tree for making photovoltaic cells and arrays out of glass since in real life they are made of crystalline silicon and glass. Pure silicon is made by reacting silicon dioxide (glass) with carbon (charcoal/coal) in a furnace, but we could just stuff a bunch of glass into a compressor and say it's turning it into silicon wafers. We can layer 6 wafers with 3 glass to make 1 photovoltaic cell like so:
Silicon Wafer, Glass
SSS
GGG
SSS

and combine 9 cells into 1 array:
Photovoltaic Cell
CCC
CCC
CCC

Then build a solar panel like this:
Glass,Photovoltaic Array, Copper Cable, Rebattery
GGG
AAA
CRC

In addition we have silicon to make electric circuits out of instead of our precious refined iron.