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As one of the comment threads on the Youtube video mentions, this setup of having tiered power generation comes up naturally in the video game Factorio. You hav

As one of the comment threads on the Youtube video mentions, this setup of having tiered power generation comes up naturally in the video game Factorio. You have mining drils feeding coal to boilers, and the boilers feeding steam to steam engines. If the power runs out, the system can't start back up because the drills need power. So you end up automating the setup so that if the steam reserves drop too low, the rest of the factory gets disconnected from the steam engines until it builds back up. Furthermore, some mods make it so that even pumping the water to the boilers requires power (*), and add a separate "burner generator" that directly burns coal to produce power. So you end up setting the automation so that tier one power generation uses the burner generators to build up water reserves, then tier two power generation turns off the burner generators and uses the boilers to build up steam reserves, and then finally switches on the rest of the factory once steam reserves have been built up. (*) In the base game the water pumps magically work without needing electric power, because the devs don't want to complicate the experience of setting up power. So it's an amusing situation where the Factorio character starts with the innate knowledge of how to build magic water pumps and steam engines out of iron plates and gears, but needs to "research" more trivial things like dumping rocks into a lake to landfill it and create a buildable surface.

tehbeard 4y ago
I mean in theory that research involves understanding how best to layer the rocks to prevent erosion, shifting or flooding of the foundation of a new section of the factory. We were taught the basic physics of the Newcomen engine in school as part of history on the industrial revolution, but nothing about geo-engineering for land reclamation.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Grady's got a video on that too...
blibble 4y ago
with the mods: how do you start that process at all? the steam engine is the only (early) way to produce electricity, and the pump needs electric, and the steam engine needss water (I tried googling for the mod but came up short)
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  AAI Industries? [1] There's a separate building (Burner Turbine Generator) to generate electricity from combustion without needing water - though less efficiently. https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-industry https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-industry
- Arnavion 4y ago
  Like I said, there's a coal burner generator that burns coal directly into electricity. Its efficiency (energy produced per energy consumed) is less than the water boiler + steam engine, so you have an incentive to switch to steam once you've researched it. But you need to keep the burner generators around for re-bootstrapping.
  - cesarb 4y ago
    Another step you forgot to mention is that, in both the base game and the modded (AAI Industry) game, there's a much less efficient kind of mining drill (burner mining drill) which is directly powered with coal (or other solid fuels), instead of electricity; when mining coal with it, you usually loop back its output to its input (through a burner inserter, another device powered directly with coal or other solid fuels instead of electricity), so the only thing you need to start up the whole system is a single piece of wood as the fuel for the farthest burner mining drill.
    - krallja 4y ago
      You can also mine coal by hand, so you don't even need wood. Which is convenient, if you start on a desert biome.
- rcxdude 4y ago
  There's a few different mods which do this and it depends on which one how they solve it. Some start you off with power in the first place in the form of wind turbines, and some give you an inefficient way to produce power from fuel which doesn't require water.
johannes1234321 4y ago
> (*) In the base game the water pumps magically work without needing electric power The bigger magic: hand crafted belts work for transporting goods reliably over long distance without any energy supply. Quite some engineering there.
- mat_epice 4y ago
  Perhaps they have very long tendrils extending into the ground that can allow them to use geothermal energy! I'd usually say built-in solar and batteries, but they work even if you place them at night.
Aloha 4y ago
In the games where I've reserved spare coal capacity, I kept burning loaders there, so if there is an issue with the main coal line, it can restart.
xeromal 4y ago
There's a game called Satisfactory that I've played that is kind of similar. When I played, there was no way to automated those breakers so I'd cut the lines to my power grid when I had an outage. I'd then have to fire up my biofuel generators to kick start everything including the coal miners. lol. Loved that game. You did need to power the water pumps and it sucked depending on the distance.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  I built "power hubs" that had 8 coal generators with an included set of backup batteries which I connected a modded wind generator to (literally free constant minuscule energy) so everything could be self restarting with the flip of like one switch to turn off power distribution.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  Factorio liquid handling sucks. And it's just water pumps that don't need power--because your first power generation technology is coal-fired burners and they need water to convert to steam to run the steam turbines. They gave us magic pumps rather than provide some means of making power without water. Likewise, magic belts because belts come far earlier than power.
jcranmer 4y ago
My initial setup is to use burner inserters (which don't need an electrical connection to move) to feed the boilers, combined with priority splitters so that the ore smelters only get whatever coal the power doesn't get. Combined with overprovisioning of steam power, it means that the factory will start shutting down before the power grid gets overheated to the point that it can't keep itself up. Later, I move to nuclear power, where fuel use is such that even glacial low-power inserters can keep the facilities fed through a power spiral. Although my massive 12-reactor facility did rely on pumps to keep the steam moving fast enough through my flowmeter to regulate power... but when you have a 12 reactor powerplant, power death spirals take long enough to occur that you will have ample time to fix them before things start needing black start.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  I haven't played it that much, I've normally worked from an overprovisioning approach. Extra power plants are a trivial cost compared to your research. Even vast solar fields aren't all that expensive. I do agree that if you try to go for a most optimum setup you do risk getting in a black start situation. My current game I'm trying a totally different idea--I'm trying to play it with no defenses at all, rely purely on killing biter bases before they get upset.

tehbeard 4y ago

I mean in theory that research involves understanding how best to layer the rocks to prevent erosion, shifting or flooding of the foundation of a new section of the factory. We were taught the basic physics of the Newcomen engine in school as part of history on the industrial revolution, but nothing about geo-engineering for land reclamation.

jeffrallen 4y ago
Grady's got a video on that too...

blibble 4y ago

with the mods: how do you start that process at all? the steam engine is the only (early) way to produce electricity, and the pump needs electric, and the steam engine needss water (I tried googling for the mod but came up short)

FeepingCreature 4y ago
AAI Industries? [1] There's a separate building (Burner Turbine Generator) to generate electricity from combustion without needing water - though less efficiently. https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-industry https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-industry
Arnavion 4y ago
Like I said, there's a coal burner generator that burns coal directly into electricity. Its efficiency (energy produced per energy consumed) is less than the water boiler + steam engine, so you have an incentive to switch to steam once you've researched it. But you need to keep the burner generators around for re-bootstrapping.
- cesarb 4y ago
  Another step you forgot to mention is that, in both the base game and the modded (AAI Industry) game, there's a much less efficient kind of mining drill (burner mining drill) which is directly powered with coal (or other solid fuels), instead of electricity; when mining coal with it, you usually loop back its output to its input (through a burner inserter, another device powered directly with coal or other solid fuels instead of electricity), so the only thing you need to start up the whole system is a single piece of wood as the fuel for the farthest burner mining drill.
  - krallja 4y ago
    You can also mine coal by hand, so you don't even need wood. Which is convenient, if you start on a desert biome.
rcxdude 4y ago
There's a few different mods which do this and it depends on which one how they solve it. Some start you off with power in the first place in the form of wind turbines, and some give you an inefficient way to produce power from fuel which doesn't require water.

johannes1234321 4y ago

> (*) In the base game the water pumps magically work without needing electric power The bigger magic: hand crafted belts work for transporting goods reliably over long distance without any energy supply. Quite some engineering there.

mat_epice 4y ago
Perhaps they have very long tendrils extending into the ground that can allow them to use geothermal energy! I'd usually say built-in solar and batteries, but they work even if you place them at night.

Aloha 4y ago

In the games where I've reserved spare coal capacity, I kept burning loaders there, so if there is an issue with the main coal line, it can restart.

xeromal 4y ago

There's a game called Satisfactory that I've played that is kind of similar. When I played, there was no way to automated those breakers so I'd cut the lines to my power grid when I had an outage. I'd then have to fire up my biofuel generators to kick start everything including the coal miners. lol. Loved that game. You did need to power the water pumps and it sucked depending on the distance.

mrguyorama 4y ago
I built "power hubs" that had 8 coal generators with an included set of backup batteries which I connected a modded wind generator to (literally free constant minuscule energy) so everything could be self restarting with the flip of like one switch to turn off power distribution.
LorenPechtel 4y ago
Factorio liquid handling sucks. And it's just water pumps that don't need power--because your first power generation technology is coal-fired burners and they need water to convert to steam to run the steam turbines. They gave us magic pumps rather than provide some means of making power without water. Likewise, magic belts because belts come far earlier than power.

jcranmer 4y ago

My initial setup is to use burner inserters (which don't need an electrical connection to move) to feed the boilers, combined with priority splitters so that the ore smelters only get whatever coal the power doesn't get. Combined with overprovisioning of steam power, it means that the factory will start shutting down before the power grid gets overheated to the point that it can't keep itself up. Later, I move to nuclear power, where fuel use is such that even glacial low-power inserters can keep the facilities fed through a power spiral. Although my massive 12-reactor facility did rely on pumps to keep the steam moving fast enough through my flowmeter to regulate power... but when you have a 12 reactor powerplant, power death spirals take long enough to occur that you will have ample time to fix them before things start needing black start.

LorenPechtel 4y ago
I haven't played it that much, I've normally worked from an overprovisioning approach. Extra power plants are a trivial cost compared to your research. Even vast solar fields aren't all that expensive. I do agree that if you try to go for a most optimum setup you do risk getting in a black start situation. My current game I'm trying a totally different idea--I'm trying to play it with no defenses at all, rely purely on killing biter bases before they get upset.