Steam Age: Difference between revisions
cleanup, better info on solars.
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== Steam ==
[[File:TooltipBronzeFluidPipe.png|thumb|alt=Black tooltip for Bronze Fluid Pipe stating a Fluid Capacity of 2,400 liters per second and a heat limit of 2,000 K.|Hover over pipes to see a tooltip.]]The machines in this era use '''steam''' as energy. Steam is produced in a Boiler by combining heat and water, and is used to power machines at a rate of 2 Steam:1 EU. The amount of steam needed is determined by the recipe.
[[File:ExplodingSteamPipes.gif|thumb|alt=short animation of a dark brown wood pipe leaking white steam, then exploding and catching the nearby boiler on fire.|Do ''not'' use wooden pipes for steam!]]
Steam is hot. Wooden pipes can't handle steam - they'll leak, and eventually blow up, catching fire to nearby blocks. Don't touch uncovered pipes filled with steam or stand near the vents of steam machines; these cause contact damage. Wooden pipes can be used for transporting water to the boilers, but steam needs metal pipes with a higher Heat Limit. Luckily all that bronze you just made will do nicely.
* 1mB = 1 Liter or 1L
* 1 bucket = 1000 Liter = 1 cubic meter = 1 block worth of fluid
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File:BasicSteamRCTankBuffer.png|thumb|alt=Dark brown wooden water tank on fence legs, feeding water via wooden fluid pipes into three bronze solar boilers. Orange bronze pipes connect the boilers to a white 3x5 tank with glass windows. Lower bronze pipe on the other side connects to machines.|Solar boilers, with [[Railcraft Tank]] as buffer
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There are multiple Boilers available in Gregtech. All boilers need both water and fuel to produce steam, except the simple solar boiler, which needs to be picked up and placed back every once in a while rather than fuelled. They produce steam in different rates and use more fuel the more advanced they are. In most GT boilers 1L of water equals 150L of steam. However, this is not true for the Lava Boiler as it creates 300L of steam from 1L of water.
There are also Multiblock Boilers available in higher tiers. Information about these Large Boilers will be available in another book. For information on other power producing options see [[Power Generation Options|here]].▼
If you have extra resources, build an Iron Tank (Railcraft) and use it as a steam buffer between the Boilers and machines. Until you have an Iron Tank, you can use a line of Large or Huge Bronze Fluid Pipe between the boiler(s) and machines to buffer steam instead. A buffer is helpful because many steam machines consume power faster than you're able to generate it with only one or two boilers.
▲To avoid problems with automation of these boilers, it is recommended to input water from below and output steam from the top since the sides can be used for both auto input and output, causing steam to get into your water pipes.
▲There are also Multiblock Boilers available in higher tiers.
=== Small Coal Boiler (Bronze) ===
This is your first Boiler. It will accept all kinds of coal as fuel (not compressed blocks), and will produce 6L/t of steam while heated. When the boiler is fully heated one piece of charcoal will last for 360 seconds. During the heating process one charcoal lasts 96 seconds. Upgrades to the '''High Pressure Coal Boiler''', which burns fuel twice as fast but produces 15L/t of steam while heated.
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Solar boliers use no fuel; instead they must have a clear view of the sky to heat up, producing up to 6L/t. Solars can be placed under glass and other non-solid blocks without issues, but will not function if covered by water. Solar output begins to diminish after running for more than 3.5 hours cumulative of real time. Wrench and replace solar boilers to reset them, or supply distilled water. Distilled water is only economical much later when it can be produced cheaply. Unlike other boilers, solars will only send steam through its square marked side; default side for this is the back side, but it can be rotated to any side face with the wrench. '''High Pressure Solar Boilers''' are the upgraded version of this block, outputting three times as much steam and never shutting down fully even when calcified. After 3.5 hours their output will be the same as a simple solar and remain that way until reset.
=== High Pressure Lava Boiler
This is the most efficient single block Boiler. It uses lava as fuel and produces 30L/t while heated. One bucket of lava equals to 200,000L of steam while it is heated. The downside is the difficulty of collecting or creating lava to run it.
=== Railcraft Boilers ===
Railcraft also offers a set of [[Railcraft Boiler|multiblock boilers]] that produce steam with
== Steam Machines ==
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