Alternate sources of Eu from other mods

1st Official Post

    With the plethora of mods out there, you've got several of them which have ways of producing Eu. The question here is... are they really worth it? These are simply my opinions, and others are free to chime in with their discoveries and/or opinions. Please keep it clean and flame-free, though.


    Forestry has the Biomass Generator. Produces 8 eu/tic on biomass and twice that on biofuel. However, biofuel requires the Refinery, which takes up two diamond gears, so rather expensive, and eats up its own BC power requirements. Honestly, two biomass generators on biomass is probably going to be more cost efficient than one running on biofuel.


    It's a novel concept, and biomass is a renewable resource (compost and saplings are what I use). Requires a bit more infrastructure than a regular Generator to get going, but that infrastructure can support several generators. I'd probably call it on par with a generator, but can't match the Geothermal.


    Compact Solars is an addon for IC2, and pretty much is a space-saver. If you like Solars, you'll really like Compact Solars.


    Transformers does what it says on the tin... converts BC MJ into IC2 Eu and vice versa. However, the conversion ratio does not favor Eu, and producing significant quantities of Eu with BC power doesn't seem very cost efficient. about 13 MJ for 32 Eu'Tic. That's roughly three Biogas Engines or Combustion Engines. You could also use a pair of Commercial Steam Engines with Railcraft, but that requires a whole infrastructure of its own.


    Railcraft just came out with the Steam Turbine which produces a whopping 100 Eu/Tic! Only... there's a few problems. First, the turbine itself requires a massive 486 steel! It is also a 2x2x3 block megastructure, and requires about four separate gold waterproof pipes to keep it supplied with steam, and a fairly large boiler to produce that much steam. But wait... there's more! In addition to this enormous material investment in the infrastructure and in the bloody thing itself, you've also got a turbine rotor, that's another 33 steel, which slowly takes damage and eventually needs to be replaced! Now you're effectively burning steel for power. Not worth it, in my opinion. If you want to use steam for Eu, use about seven Commercial Steam Engines and hook them up to a MV Pnumatic Generator from Transformers for 128 Eu/Tic. Sure, you've got a massive investment in infrastructure, lots of steel and blaze powder and magma cream to get it going, but at least those are mostly one-time investments. Your only real ongoing costs is fuel for the boiler.

    Don't compare other electric sources to compact solars, because they remove major balancing feature from solars. Overall every renewable source of energy has it's drawbacks in IC2, solars use a lot of space, wind need big towers, water produce very small amount of energy (automated manned generators are laggy, these feature IMO should be removed and mills could be reworked). For fuel cans you need quite a lot of tin, which can be remedied using forestry bottler (which with default settings is more efficient than using biofuel generators).


    Transformers mods are IMO OP. One bucket of fuel in combustion engine gives you 250 000 MJ, which using these mods is 625 000 EU. One bucket of biofuel is 500 000 EU, when using Biogenerator it is 32 000 EU (with bottler about 38 000). Forestry cheapens BC energy and coal measure isn't the best to compare these two energy systems (especially when coal in both systems is early game energy source). BC on it's own doesn't even have renewable energy (except redstone engine abuse), which is quite good for balancing aspects. I'd argue that with whole dimension full of lava geothermals should be nerfed when using pumped lava.


    RC turbine looks great, from my previous experiance with this mod I can assume it is balanced. More ways of producing EU is a great thing. Expensive parts, which take damage, but last for a long time can be a good balancing factor. It works great with forestry apiaries, you have 3 options, very slow (10 % of old apiaries) cheap maintenance free, fast (70 %), but needs frames which are used while working, or alvearies which are fast, maintenance free but extremely expensive and big.


    Overall renewable generators should stay as they are, huge, expensive or not 100 % cost-free. With them massfab produce matter from nothing, with addons like compact solars you get EE condenser. Normal (non-renewable) energy sources is an incentive for you to mine and explore world, which is a huge part of minecraft and mods shouldn't replace these experience (or be specifically made for this, like EE).

    Stirling engines are renewable energy, because they can run on wood.
    I don't think transformers are OP, but Forestry probably does. But not too much, because You still have to work to get high energy output.
    Turbine housings are indeed too expensive, for mere 100 eu/t output.
    You don't have to use pipes for steam and water, because you can just place turbines (or pump, or engine) adjactent to boiler.

    Some converter mod allow you to change its conversion ratio in the config


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    For me nothing is OP. It just a mod for fun and I'm playing it for fun. Unless it created items from nothing. Automining not included, neither do in case of self replicating machine. However GregTech is still good, so:


    GregTech Documentation Task Force Needed!

    Edited once, last by Thepowdertoy +Bleach ().

    If you're still on 1.2.5 (Like me :P), you can use Thaumcraft Thaumic Generators.

    I've just done some math on RC's steam boiler and came out with some pretty interesting numbers...


    RC's wiki gave me the formulas I used, haven't tested this yet:


    Assuming a maximum efficiency boiler (36 m³ LP) you get 3.96 fuel usage/tick at maximum heat.
    These are heat units, right? So charcoal (1600 heat) will last 404 ticks, producing 360 steam per tick (according to the RC wiki).
    5 steam equate 1MJ or 2.5 EU via Transformer.


    So the boiler will deliver 180 EU/Tick, and about 72700 EU per charcoal. One stack of charcoal should generate about 4.6 million EU.


    Using coal coke, which has a heat value of 6400 now, quadruples the result. One coal coke = 290k EU, one stack = 18.6 million EU. Instead of compressing 64 coal into one diamond, you could generate UU even without scrap, craft two diamonds from UU and still have some energy left ;)


    And that's using steam engines and transformers, the Turbine has even better efficiency than these. The investments in this infrastructure will surely be massive, but it seems to be highly efficient.
    Anyone wants to do some testing? :D


    Bonus: a power plant built this way should look wicked 8)

    I run some tests, one coke lasts 30 seconds, giving ~200 eu/t. 200*30*20 = 120k eu
    Charcoal lasts 7.5 seconds, and coal - 15 seconds. It was not on max heat, but close.
    Without scrap, coal is 150k in mass fab. But with scrap, coal is 25k, giving 60k eu even without being turned into coke.


    So, yes, perpetuum mobile. I dont like those :(


    As for turbines, for same amount of iron one can make wind mills that give about as much eu/t. Read calculations on BC/RC forum.


    So, right now boilers (together with coal recipe) are OP, and turbines are mostly useless for eu/t production.

    Just finished some testing too. The calculations are correct, at maximum heat I got 1.15 million EU from 16 charcoal (using the transformers mod for conversion)


    ...which means you get about 7 million EU out of 24 coal. This is a massive perpetuum mobile even without scrap.


    IMHO the problem lies with the 2:5 conversion ratio from the BC/IC crossover mods. Buckets of BC fuel can generate huge amounts of EU too, this just isn't too bad since oil is limited. Maybe the conversion ratio should be closer to 1:1.

    You may have a point. 2.5 ratio is based on Stirling engine power output, but it could just mean that Stirling engine just sucks with anything except lava:)


    But, I was testing with rotors, instead of engines/transformers, and it is still op, regardless of transformers ratio (if you don't consider rotor costs, that is).

    Do you have en estimation how long the rotor might last? RC wiki speaks of "several RL days", and it costs 99 steel... per 24 hours you could generate about 170 million EU with it. The iron alone would cost 124 UUM, though. I estimate it will still be a perpetuum mobile, but not that much.


    Well, unless you massively amplify the massfab using scrap, of course. But feeding a system tons of cobble can't really be called a perpetuum mobile. The real exploit there are the cobblegens.

    • Official Post

    Efficient EU sources i know from other mods :
    RP2 is optional for full automation


    Buildcraft + RP2 :


    Combustion Engines (fuel powered) + Transformer mod


    Forestry + RP2 :
    Bio-gas engine (milk powered as it is free) + transformer mod


    Thermal expansion + Power converters :
    Aqueous accumulator + waterstrainers


    Thaumcraft + RP2 :
    Thaumic generator + constant vis source (mob grinders like this or block generators)

    i don't think anything which has to have a component replaced can be considered perpetuum mobile. if the turbine breaks, then something is consumed. i'd like to see the total net eu gain on a cold start to breakage generator running on such a configuration, then calculate the total eu gain to the time it ran. figure in the cost of replacing the turbine at the end aswell. i have a feeling it's not as spectacular as one would expect...
    also, isn't the whole concept of ic2 one system built on top of another?

    Since alot of discussion is revolving around the interchange between IC:BC power conversion, I believe that it is overdue for a new standard for converting EU:MJ...


    In this case, a 3:4 ratio may be better to use (MJ:EU respectfully)


    Examples:
    BC Fuel - 250,000 MJ = 625,000EU (old) = 333,334 EU (new)
    Biogas Biofuel - 50,000 MJ = 500 000 EU (old) = 66,667 EU (new)
    Biogas Milk - 40,000 MJ = 100,000 EU (old) = 53,334 EU (new)
    Biogas Water - 1,000 MJ = 2,500 EU (old) = 1333 EU (new)


    I think this would help curb large outputting fuels quite nicely, and I do believe both Transformers and Power Converters have manuel configurations where you can insert this adjustment...

    Would anyone like to try a Slowpoke Tail?! Only 1 Million Yen!


    Quote

    this isn't about arrogance or ego, I have a block that I put a lot of freaking work into


    Every Mod Author, in existence. And yet, you STILL say otherwise.

    Quote from baturinsky

    Why not just 1:1? 3:4 is pointless overcomplication.


    Maybe its because there is many people that doesn't like lossless conversion (even real life hate it)


    Dota 2 player at SEA server.


    For me nothing is OP. It just a mod for fun and I'm playing it for fun. Unless it created items from nothing. Automining not included, neither do in case of self replicating machine. However GregTech is still good, so:


    GregTech Documentation Task Force Needed!

    Quote from Thepowdertoy +Bleach

    Maybe its because there is many people that doesn't like lossless conversion (even real life hate it)


    Erm...


    3:4 is as lossless as 1:1 or 2:5. Meaning: you can convert it back and forth without losses inherent in the conversion. It's just the relative value of EU and MJ that change with the ratio.



    EDIT:


    I'll be going with 1:1 for a while.
    This nerfs the buildcraft-based power generation even more, it's balanced on the worth of a bucket of lava (geothermal vs transformed stirling/combustion engine), and I like the scale of "what you can do with the energy" - powering a RC rolling machine with 15 MJ nets about the same processing speed as a macerator with 4 overclockers... which uses about 15 EU. Feels comparable.


    It has always bugged me how the buildcraft-based machines used huge amounts of electricity, and since I'm atm building a steam-powered rail factory I can feed the leftover steam into transformers without feeling like a cheater :)

    This would have been easier if there was a common powerplant between them that could be based of of the same technology, such as a photovoltaic array so we would have a common value, but BC energy, if I am not mistaken, is not electrical, but mechanical, in nature. What was it, pneumatic?


    Now, looking at the figures for the rolling machine and comparing them to actual rolling machines gives little hope. The scale suggests a Minecraft Joule is 100 Joules as making rails of that size hot can be done by hand, while cold would take a fair amount of energy. Assuming that is the right value, then the factor should be a little more than 20 (probably closer to 21) EU for one Minecraft Joule. If you are wondering where I got the EU to J conversion, I made a topic describing what I did a while back. Search for watts and it should appear.

    A Rock Raider trained as an Engineer, among other things.

    Edited 3 times, last by RockRaiderZulu ().

    Quote from RockRaiderZulu

    This would have been easier if there was a common powerplant between them that could be based of of the same technology, such as a photovoltaic array so we would have a common value..


    The steam/stirling engine vs the generator burning coal comes to mind, since RL coal power plants also burn coal to vaporize water and turn turbines with the steam.
    The 2:5 ratio is based on exactly this comparison, and that's the ratio that makes BC + transformer based power generation so powerful.


    On the other hand there's RC's hobbyists steam engine, which is much more effective burning coal than the stirling, and should essentially be using the same technology...


    While certainly interesting, I don't think your comparison to RL machines does much good here, honestly. Compared to RL values, you get too much energy from solar, too few from geothermal and far too few from nuclear. The scales just aren't comparable.

    You are forgetting that both EU/t and Minecraft Watts are attributary units, meaning that they were defined at a rather random value, if they were defined at all. And yes, that means a lot of the generators are out of whack, but then again, a one liter cylinder of uranium will not critical on its own either regardless of isotopic purity.

    A Rock Raider trained as an Engineer, among other things.