Rebalance Diesel Generators, Boilers, and the Large Steam Turbine

[Swedz]

Warrants some more discussion before merging, thus this is a draft.

Changes are as follows:

• Removed Tritium and Deuterium as fluid fuels (because why?).
• Buffed Hydrogen as a fluid fuel to 2 EU per mb. Still slightly energy negative when making it directly, though (which is good IMO).
• Boilers only get 2x fuel efficiency from item fuels.
• Diesel generators get 2x fuel efficiency from fluid fuels (it can only do fluid fuels anyway, obviously).
• Large Steam Turbine is now EV tier, and costs 2 Processing Units total.
  • Before it only took Digital Circuits (HV). There was no real reason not to make it over normal HV turbines despite it taking a few more circuits. This makes it a proper upgrade from HV to EV, as well as more consistent with the Large Diesel Generator, which acts as its Diesel counterpart.
• Large Diesel Generator is still EV tier, but costs 2 Processing Units total rather than the previous 10.

---

Some things to consider for the future:

• Perhaps the Large Diesel Generator could get efficiency scaling depending on how much EU is actually being produced. For example, when producing <10% of what it could theoretically produce, it would get extra fuel efficiency (+20%?). Conversely, when producing >90% of what it could theoretically produce, it would get decreased fuel efficiency (-20%?).
• Perhaps the Large Diesel Generator could be made out of Stainless Steel instead of Titanium? Although, Titanium does have very few uses and this would mean it'd have even one less use.
• Maybe we make the fuel waste and heat up time from boilers less forgiving. Simply extending the time it takes a large boiler to go from 0% heat to 100% heat to a minute or longer would go a long way. As well as increasing the speed that heat is lost. This means that even with a redstone controlled system, your power output can fluctuate a lot unless you're wasting a lot of fuel. Since redstone locking doesn't preserve heat anymore. This would give even more credibility to Diesel over Boilers, since coal is really easy and has little to no downside.

[James103]

Doubling all fluid fuel values will also approximately double the mining speed and attack damage of all diesel tools unless a / 8.0f is replaced with / 16.0f and a / 600 is replaced with / 1200 here:

Modern-Industrialization/src/main/java/aztech/modern_industrialization/items/diesel_tools/DieselToolItem.java

Line 125 in 71de75d

return 1.0f + burnTicks / 8.0f;

Modern-Industrialization/src/main/java/aztech/modern_industrialization/items/diesel_tools/DieselToolItem.java

Line 134 in 71de75d

return ItemHelper.getToolModifiers(damage * FluidFuel.getEu(FluidFuelItemHelper.getFluid(stack).getFluid()) / 600);

Diesel Jetpack maximum speed will also be doubled unless a couple / 200.0 are replaced with / 400.0 here:

Modern-Industrialization/src/main/java/aztech/modern_industrialization/items/armor/JetpackItem.java

Lines 96 to 101 in 71de75d

	double maxSpeed = Math.sqrt(FluidFuel.getEu(fluid.getFluid()) / 200.0);
	double attenuationFactor = 0.5;
	player.setDeltaMovement(playerVelocity.scale(attenuationFactor).add(playerFacing.scale(maxSpeed)));
	} else {
	// Otherwise boost vertically
	double maxSpeed = Math.sqrt(FluidFuel.getEu(fluid.getFluid()) / 200.0);

Feel free to pick different divisors if you mean to actually buff these diesel-powered tools and jetpack.

[James103]

The failing test is caused by Biodiesel fuel value being adjusted from 250 to 500 EU/mB.

Modern-Industrialization/src/main/java/aztech/modern_industrialization/test/GeneratorTests.java

Lines 56 to 62 in 71de75d

	// Should produce 64 per tick: 192 after 3 ticks and only 250 (the biodiesel value) after 4 ticks
	helper.startSequence()
	.thenIdle(3)
	.thenExecute(() -> helper.assertEnergy(generatorPos, 192, Direction.NORTH))
	.thenIdle(1)
	.thenExecute(() -> helper.assertEnergy(generatorPos, 250, Direction.NORTH))
	.thenSucceed();

It should be adjusted to:

Should produce 64 per tick: 448 after 7 ticks and only 500 (the biodiesel value) after 8 ticks

[Swedz]

Should produce 64 per tick: 448 after 7 ticks and only 500 (the biodiesel value) after 8 ticks

It should actually be 960 after 15 ticks and 1000 after 16 ticks, since Diesel Generators get 2x fuel efficiency with this PR.

[James103]

If I understand accurately, the net effect of this change divides all fuel consumption of diesel generators by 4 while leaving their EU production unchanged, or equivalently makes each bucket of a fluid fuel produce 4x more EU than before.

For example, 100 mB/t of boosted diesel is enough to generate 80,000 EU/t before this change, 320,000 EU/t afterward.
However, the required number of Diesel Generators to extract all EU increases from 5 before this change to 20 after.

[Swedz]

Effectively, yes. It's still being discussed, this is not a final draft.

[MuteTiefling]

Perhaps the Large Diesel Generator could be made out of Stainless Steel instead of Titanium? Although, Titanium does have very few uses and this would mean it'd have even one less use.

Currently, the diesel system doesn't even feel worth interacting with since coal for boilers is so easy. Moving to diesel is a massive investment and risky since it means even more complexity in the fuel chain and more potential points of failure.

Moving it to stainless could help since you'd significantly reduce the barrier to entry.

Maybe the large turbines could then use titanium in their place?

[Swedz]

Yes, coal is really easy. The hope is to make Diesel more appealing with these changes.

With regards to titanium, to be fair, it is not that far off to obtain once you have processing units available anyway. Which these multiblocks require now.

The arguments in favor of Diesel here would be:

• It is perfectly fuel efficient out of the box. Diesel generators stop consuming fuel when they become full. There is no heat up time where you are producing less EU/t.
  • Potentially, an additional change could be to make the fuel waste and heat up time from boilers less forgiving. Since redstone locking doesn't preserve heat anymore.
• Diesel generators, while they are a similar resource cost to turbines, have double the EU/t output per turbine (excluding the multiblock). This means half as many generators and no boilers are needed for the same EU/t output.

Which for some might not be strong enough to scale up Diesel production for it to be sustainable. Considering you already have to produce the fuels required to make Diesel, I don't think it's asking too much of the player.

[GW-Dev]

I personally think making boilers have a less efficient ramp up and down, coupled with the proposed diesel generator efficiency curve mechanic, would make for a far more interesting power generation system since it would add unique drawbacks to each generation type.

[MuteTiefling]

Yes, coal is really easy.

Not only is it easy, it's just more reliable. Coal only requires very simplistic bronze drills to obtain, these are easy to scale up and the lower relative complexity means if something does go wrong, it's easier to get a system back online from a blackout.

Oil, on the other hand, not only needs higher complexity drills (aluminum being a challenge to keep up with at most levels of play), but also a higher complexity processing line. So, if your system isn't properly balanced and you end up in a blackout scenario, getting back online is rough. Unless, of course, you maintain a boiler system as emergency power for the diesel system... at which point you're not really off coal.

That, for me, is the challenge to overcome. From a player's perspective, there's no reason to go to Diesel because it's such high risk. I had constant materials shortages around Aluminum, any one of which would have stopped my entire system. At least with coal, I knew I wasn't going to lose power if my aluminum production got stuck for some reason. Diesel needs to look attractive enough to try, and it needs to be reliable.