Steam engines
are the most basic
electricity
generator, available to the player at the start of the game. They produce electricity by consuming
steam
, using
water
pumped from an
offshore pump
that was heated to 165°C steam with
boilers
or to 500°C steam with
heat exchangers
. Steam that has a higher temperature than the maximum temperature of the steam engine (165°C) is consumed at the normal rate (30 units/s), and does not yield more electricity. This means the energy that was put into the steam to heat it to a higher temperature is wasted.
Steam engines will automatically adjust their power production and steam usage based on the current demands of the electricity network. Hovering the mouse over a steam engine will display their current power production (
Performance
) and their possible power production (
Available Performance
), in a display on the right.
Steam engines have two ports, allowing excess steam to flow through. This allows steam engines to be chained together. The current optimal ratio is 1
offshore pump
to 200
boilers
to 400 steam engines. For more information, see
power production
.
Using steam engines for power does not produce
pollution
, however using
boilers
to heat up the water does.
On
Aquilo
, steam engines need to be heated up to working temperature before they will start working, but will still pass steam through when frozen.
When producing power, the steam engine will display a working animation:
History
-
0.18.18
:
-
Adjusted steam engine and
turbine
collision boxes so player can walk between two steam engines.
-
0.15.0
:
-
Steam
is now internally a separate fluid from hot
water
.
-
Added high graphics quality option for the steam engine.
-
Increased the maximum
power production
of the steam engine from 510kW to 900kW.
-
Doubled the heat capacity of water from 0.1kJ per degree per liter to 0.2kJ.
-
Change fluidbox height and base level of boiler, steam engine and pump to improve fluid flow.
-
0.10.7
:
-
Made bounding box smaller.
-
0.10.0
:
-
New graphics.
-
New sounds.
See also
