Difference between revisions of "Wood-fired generator"

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(→‎Wood powered appliances: shorten intro, compress references)
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=== Wood powered appliances ===
 
=== Wood powered appliances ===
A variety of buildings are powered directly by wood, including [[fueled stove]]s, [[fueled smithy|fueled smithies]], [[campfire]]s, [[passive cooler]]s, and [[torch lamp]]s. In all cases it is significantly more efficient to fuel a generator and run the electric equivalents of each option, however these equivalents require more infrastructure, are vulnerable to [[solar flare]]s and other interuptions, and as a generator's fuel consumption does not scale with the power consumed, there can be inefficiencies that make fueled versions more efficient if the entire capacity of the generator is not used.  
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A variety of buildings are powered directly by wood, such as [[campfire]]s and [[torch lamp]]s. It is significantly more efficient to fuel a generator and run the electric equivalents, if all 1000 W of power is used. The generator does not scale with power use, so if power is wasted, then fueled versions may be superior. In addition, electric buildings require more infrastructure, and are vulnerable to [[solar flare]]s and other interuptions.
  
 
{| class="wikitable"
 
{| class="wikitable"
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! Equivalent wood per day<ref>Equivalent wood per day is assuming is the percentage of a wood fired generator power generation multiplied by the generators wood consumption. Note that this assumes that the generators entire production capacity is used.</ref>
 
! Equivalent wood per day<ref>Equivalent wood per day is assuming is the percentage of a wood fired generator power generation multiplied by the generators wood consumption. Note that this assumes that the generators entire production capacity is used.</ref>
 
|-
 
|-
| [[Campfire]] <ref name="low power">Campfires and passive coolers cannot go into low power mode to save power like their electric equivalents.</ref>
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| [[Campfire]]<ref name="temperature">Campfires and passive coolers regulate temperature at the same rate as heaters and coolers, respectively. In addition, campfires and passive coolers cannot be turned off.</ref> (roofed)
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| 10}}
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| 10}}
| [[Heater]]<ref>Campfires and heaters heat at the same rate.</ref>
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| [[Heater]]<ref name="temperature" />
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Heater|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Heater|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
|-
 
|-
| [[Passive cooler]]<ref name="low power" />
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| [[Passive cooler]]<ref name="temperature" />
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| 10}}
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| 10}}
| [[Cooler]]<ref>Passive coolers and coolers cool at the same rate.</ref>
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| [[Cooler]]<ref name="temperature" />
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Cooler|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Cooler|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
|-
 
|-
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| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Electric smithy|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Electric smithy|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
|-
 
|-
| [[Torch lamp]]
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| [[Torch lamp]] (roofed)
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood||  2}}
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood||  2}}
| [[Standing lamp]]<ref>Standing lamps don't produce heat, unlike torch lamps, but light a larger area. This also does not include the effect of the [[Research#Advanced Lighting|Advanced lighting]] halving the power consumption.</ref><ref>Torch lamps and campfires consume more fuel when in the [[rain]]. This is not accounted for.</ref>
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| [[Standing lamp]]<ref>Standing lamps don't produce heat, unlike torch lamps, but light a larger area. This also does not include the effect of the [[Research#Advanced Lighting|Advanced lighting]] halving the power consumption.</ref>
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Standing lamp|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
| {{Icon Small|Wood|| {{#expr: -22*{{Q|Standing lamp|Power Consumption #}}/{{P|Power Consumption #}}}}}}
 
|}
 
|}

Revision as of 07:41, 21 December 2022

Wood-fired generator

Wood-fired generator

Produces power by consuming wood. Must be periodically loaded with wood fuel by hand.

Base Stats

Type
BuildingPower
Market Value
265 Silver [Note]
Beauty
-20
HP
300
Flammability
100%
Path Cost
50

Building

Size
2 × 2
Minifiable
False
Placeable
True
Passability
pass through only
Cover Effectiveness
75%
Blocks Wind
True
Terrain Affordance
Medium
Power
1000 W
Light Radius
3.44
Heat Per Second
6

Creation

Required Research
Electricity
Skill Required
Construction 4
Work To Make
2,500 ticks (41.67 secs)
Resources to make
Steel 100 + Component 2
Deconstruct yield
Steel 50 + Component 1
Destroy yield
Steel 25 + Component 0 - 1

A wood-fired generator is a power source that runs by burning wood as fuel. Holds up to 75 wood max, and consumes it at a rate 22 per day for a constant supply of 1,000W for roughly 3 days and 9 hours before running out. It also produces a slight amount of heat and light while running as secondary effect and thus should not be placed in or adjacent to spaces you want to cool.

Acquisition

Wood-fired generators can be constructed once the Electricity research project has been completed. They require Steel 100 Steel, Component 2 Components, 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, and a Construction skill of 4.

Summary

The wood-fired generator consumes Wood 22 wood per day and generates a constant 1000W as long as it is switched on and fueled. It can hold up to 75 fuel at a time, for a maximum run time of 3.27 days. Fuel consumption is not dependent on how much power is actually drawn. Fuel has to be delivered to the generator by a hauler colonists. It can be switched off; in the off state it will neither consume fuel nor produce power.

It outputs light in a 6 tile radius, with the nearest 3.442 tiles being above 50% light level and considered lit. Note that the light source is centered at the bottom-left tile of the generator, rather than the "true" center of the generator. It heats at a rate of 6 heat per second[Exact mechanic unclear].

Analysis

Wood-fired generators incur considerable labor costs for chopping and hauling wood, but provide an improvement from neolithic technology.

Wood powered appliances

A variety of buildings are powered directly by wood, such as campfires and torch lamps. It is significantly more efficient to fuel a generator and run the electric equivalents, if all 1000 W of power is used. The generator does not scale with power use, so if power is wasted, then fueled versions may be superior. In addition, electric buildings require more infrastructure, and are vulnerable to solar flares and other interuptions.

Wood-powered appliance Wood per day Electric equivalent Equivalent wood per day[1]
Campfire[2] (roofed) Wood  10 Heater[2] Wood  3.85
Passive cooler[2] Wood  10 Cooler[2] Wood  4.4
Fueled stove Wood 160[Verify] Electric stove[3] Wood  7.7
Fueled smithy Wood  ?[Detail] Electric smithy[3] Wood  4.62
Torch lamp (roofed) Wood  2 Standing lamp[4] Wood  0.66
  1. Equivalent wood per day is assuming is the percentage of a wood fired generator power generation multiplied by the generators wood consumption. Note that this assumes that the generators entire production capacity is used.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Campfires and passive coolers regulate temperature at the same rate as heaters and coolers, respectively. In addition, campfires and passive coolers cannot be turned off.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Fueled stoves and smithies only consume power when being actively worked, while electric stoves and smithies have to manually toggled off to save power. This comparison assumes they are on for the same length of time.
  4. Standing lamps don't produce heat, unlike torch lamps, but light a larger area. This also does not include the effect of the Advanced lighting halving the power consumption.

Wind turbines

Wind turbines are also unlocked via researching Electricity. They require no labor to maintain, but do require a large amount of space free of structures and trees. This can make them difficult to defend, and completely unsuitable in certain base layouts. Wind turbine power output is variable, realistically forcing the construction of batteries to smooth out periods of low power production. Since you can turn off a wood generator, there's no restriction to having both wind and wood generators, keeping the latter in reserve until you need them.

Chemfuel powered generators

Each chemfuel powered generator generates 1,000 W of power. Assuming the colony is running a biofuel refinery to make chemfuel from wood, each consumes Wood 9 wood per day and an extra 257 ticks (4.28 secs) of work. Powering the biofuel refinery takes -170 W of power, but takes only 2,000 ticks (0.8 in-game hours) to produce enough fuel for 3.89 in-game days of fuel, or on average equivalent of a constant load of only 1.46 W.

The extra 257 ticks (4.28 secs) of work is not nothing, but the reduced wood saves at least 390 ticks (6.5 secs) of work in tree cutting work, assuming the most efficient harvest tree and that the tree doesn't have to be planted first. This means that a pawn requires a Plant Work Speed of 152% to make it more work efficient to use the wood fired generator, and this increases to a massive 489% if the tree has to be planted as well. The wood-fired generator will always require more growing space as well.

Also, you can make chemfuel out of raw food; Corn corn or even Rice rice are faster to cultivate than trees, while insect meat can be extremely plentiful.

One flaw is that Biofuel Refining costs 700 points of research to acquire. However, boomalopes require no research to acquire. If you have them, chemfuel becomes even more efficient, assuming they can graze for extended periods of time.

Version history

  • 0.13.1135 - Added.
  • 0.15.1279 - Fueled generator will consume fuel faster. Fuel duration 5 days -> 3 days 9 hours.
  • Beta 18 - Name changed from fueled generator to wood-fired generator to prevent ambiguity with the Chemfuel powered generator, which was added in the same update. No other changes made.
  • 1.1.0 - Refueling is now toggleable.