FACTORIO STEAM HOW TO
FACTORIO STEAM FULL

As discussed on page 14 of this thread, the number aesthetics and tiny increase in energy production from 60/120 rows is generally not worth losing the permanent sustainability of a 59/118 setup. To calculate how many steam engines worth of coal a fast belt can support, you may use the following formula: 8000 KW (Fuel value) * 0.5 (Boiler efficiency) * 26.67 items/s (Fast belt throughput) / 900 KW (Steam engine output) = ~118.53 engines. If you're wondering why the design uses 59/118 instead of 60/120 rows, the reason may be found in fast belt throughput. I have also kept the high emphasis on resource efficiency and low tech requirements (with fast belt tech being the highest needed) present in previous designs and discussions, so power pole usage continues to be only a minimal number of small poles. This is equivalent to 4.5 fast belts, hence, supplying coal via the shore side of the setup supports a maximum limit of 118 * 8.5 = 1003 engines. As the shore between the engines and water is 3 tiles wide, up to 3 express belts may be used. It is also critical for vertically compacting the belts, pipes, and offshore pumps between each pair of rows enough for express underground belts to clear, allowing for one to weave fast/express belts on the same lane, which enables this design to stack more than twice as much as the setup shown. The compacted pipes provide two benefits - it greatly shortens the distance the underground pipes need to carry water to, from the expected 30th boiler or so to just the 15th. The underground pipes carrying water are essential for this design to work, since as row length is so long, one must distribute water pressure beyond just the initial boilers. To overcome the water pressure issues required to make such long rows work, I had to introduce several new designs never needed before - carrying water beyond the initial boilers with underground pipes, and compacting pipes as close as possible to the boilers, with help of offshore pumps on landfilled ground.

FACTORIO STEAM FULL

Each row's engine count is maximized to utilize the full throughput of a fast belt.

FACTORIO STEAM HOW TO

Shown above are 4 rows of boilers/steam engines, stacked for your understanding on how to stack one row with another, as well as how to stack pairs of rows with each other. 30/60 boiler/engine rows have since become considered optimal, so I'm happy to say that I've worked out how to nearly double that length, to 59/118. As such, the previous steam engine designs are no longer applicable.

So a while ago, it came to my attention that boilers are now implemented differently, as of Factorio 0.15.xx.

Factorio steam