Posts by Vorheart

Hello everyone!

I recently updated to the newest IC2 Experimental version and I'm quite interested in the new Water Mill (mostly because I really don't like spamming the Wind Mills across the landscape).
However, I can't seem to find any decent information on how to use them other than biome requirement.
Here is what I found/tried so far:

1. The generator cube itself has to be inside River or Ocean biome.
I don't have an ocean nearby so I tried expanding a river bed and placing it there. Ok, this worked, so far so good.

Result: Generator has to be placed inside River or Ocean (F3 to check biome).

2. Rotors?
I tried using wooden rotor which should be compatible according to Wiki, but it is not. When I open up the generator interface and hover over rotors, it says wooden ones are not compatible, which is a shame as this would have been a really nice starting watermill.
I tried making an iron rotor, and this one actually worked (have not tested steel or carbon yet... not enough power and blast furnace time in the new world).

Result: Wood rotors don't work. Iron rotors at least work.

3. Kinetic units/efficiency and calculation?
How does this work?
With wind generator I understood that there was a maximum kinetic generation determined by rotor type and wind strength, and this was reduced by any objects present inside a certain area around rotor (rotor size in left/right/up/down). I was never sure how far forward and back had to be cleared, except that if there was another rotor anywhere within 32 cubes forward or backwards, the rotor would not turn.

How is water kinetic generator efficiency calculated? Is it the same formula as for the wind, but instead of counting empty air blocks it counts water source blocks? Up/down/left/right needs to be cleared enough to accommodate the rotor, that much I confirmed. But how much clearance do we need in the front / back direction to have a working rotor, and how does presence of water/air in the affected area change generated kinetic energy? If we dig and some cubes below water surface are not source blocks (e.g. if we dig several layers deep to make room for the rotor), do these count against efficiency?
How big a distance front/back do we need so as not to conflict with another water kinetic generator?

I've been checking the rotation speed and wind and it definitely does go up and down on my (newest) IC2 exp build. Windmills drop down to standstill from time to time, as well as going up to more than x2 from average generation during storms.

How would you change the current winds to make the windmills more in line with other things? Because with current power generation of nearly 4 mil EU per unit of material used, it might actually be feasible to produce UU matter from gained EU, and have more than enough of it to craft new rotors...

Wind power is definitely OP... Consider the current version:

Wood turbine setup - I put them on a stone platform around 165 height like so (from behind):

--R--
C
t
t
tttttt
SSSSSSSSSSSS

R is rotor for the turbine, C is a CESU unit directly beneath, t is wire, S is the stone platform. From the side:
|
|
KR>
C |
t |
t
SSSSS

Horizontally, there is a 4 cube gap between rotor heads so that the propellers rotate, but almost touch.
The measurement of generated power for wooden rotor is 0-45 EU/tick, average being around 15-27EU/tick, and 35+ happening only during thunderstorms and doing large damage to rotors in the process.
If I took down the rotors during storms, they would last a total of 3 hours IRL, costing 18 wood logs (12 logs 24 planks) and 1 iron ingot. At 20EU/tick they generate 400 EU/second = 1.44 mil EU per hour = 4.32 mil EU per rotor in its lifetime.
One iron and 18 logs spent generate 4.32 mil EU.
Both are easily obtainable or renewable.

I tried same setup with carbon rotor, but placed it on 7th tile above platform (5 for rotor plus one extra just in case since I don't know it's clearance calculation).
This did an average of 130 EU/tick, with peaks well in high 200s. Practically as much as the best regular Mk1 nuclear generator possible (mine do 260 EU/tick with 3 quad fuel rods).
The difference is that carbon lasts 7 IRL days, while nuke fuel is spent in less than 3 hours.

So how much does a carbon rotor cost and how much does it generate?
It costs 288 coal dust and 9 refined iron, both of which are relatively easily obtainable.
It generates 130 EU/tick average = 2600 EU/second = 9.36M EU per hour = 1.57 billion EU during its 168 hours of lifetime.
If we take coal and iron as a material unit, that's 1572M EU per 297 material units = 5,29 mil EU per material unit.

You get similar gains in the highest efficiency nuclear reactor (one fuel rod = 4.33 mil EU in my best design) using uranium. So, this makes coal dust and iron ingots on par with uranium in terms of energy generation. A bit too high I would say.
Especially considering the difficulties in building and handling a nuclear reactor compared to building and maintaining a windmill. Also, this lasts for 7 days, while during the same time you have to replace your fuel rods a total of 60 times (you use ~360 uranium fuel rods to achieve what a single carbon rotor does).

Regarding power transfer - with power losses turned on - do what I did. Put an MFSU unit on the propeller. If you're not using power, it will be full in just 4 hours. Then from there run a high voltage iron cable to wherever you need it, and step down with HV/MV/LV transformer, possibly with additional battery after each. Your losses for a 100 long line will be ~100, but packets sent over the cable are 2048: which leaves 1948 EU still inside the packet. These are less than 5% losses, and you would have to have a 400 long cable before it just becomes more efficient to dismantle the MFSU using electric wrench and bring it to wherever you need it. Or you can use the new batteries.

Either way, even with 5% transport losses, wind power is so rediculously easier and better to do compared to any other source of EU that I just see no point in using other sources.
At first I build a regular generator, then added two geothermals, then 10 solars and 16 water mills. And all together just paled compared to using 3 wooden rotors for which I could grow rotors in my spruce orchard at a rate of many, many rotors per hour. No trips to get lava, no baking trees, no waiting for sun, no waiting for insanely small trickle from water mills...
Sure, wind goes down sometimes. But sometimes it goes up a lot. And if you have the capacity to store that extra power, you're good and supplied even during wind standstills.

So yeah, wind is currently the best power source by far (in terms of power / effort, in terms of efficiency, and easily obtainable).