Compact Coal Engine

Overview

There are two general methods players utilize coal power; centralized or distributed systems. This guide demonstrates variations on how the compact setup is utilized in those methods. The reason to use the compact coal engine, is it provides the lowest cost for the most power output, and why alternative setups are inferior. We will learn good design, by looking at bad design.

Introduction

Using the most efficient build order will speed your game progression, because you will not be wasting the slow trickle of early game resources on material which does not create an advantage to your position. This material advantage pays it forward, and knowing the flow rates and consumption of the machines is how you build the most efficient base.

That being said, there is no perfect ratio of power/output or resource/input in this game, because these two things are in constant fluctuation due to supply and demand, or throughput and capacity. As an easy example, 3 basic belts coming out of a hopper will saturate a standard conveyor belt. However, if the line where those belts are going accept less than three belts of input, then your supply line will back up, so your hopper no longer a “perfect ratio” of flow. Now the proper solution is to increase the consumption. As you can see, this constant see-saw means there is always going to be a bottleneck or shortage somewhere in your production line. The simple rule of thumb is, If you need more power, make it; If you need more throughput, build it. But never attempt to build systems which have a “perfect ratio” of balanced inputs and outputs, because some technology advancement could be 10x more efficient, and now that careful ratio of elaborate machinery you worked out is irrelevant.

Extractor Loop

In a survival situation, you’re supposed to make use of the materials that you have available, before you attempt to source more resources. To be the most efficient, build a system as cheaply as possible to satisfy your immediate requirements. For example, here is an extractor setup in every early game world created by default.

There are two extra Power Storage Blocks and Storage Hopper you can pick up for free (for the free Induction Charger, see Compact Research Lab). Powering the extractor with a basic laser from the CPH keeps the CPH fed with coal.

Not knowing how much power the CPH consumes, the flow rate of material, and how the machines work together, leads noobs to build this horribly wrong example I found on a multiplayer server:

First, this coal line is only feeding one machine, the CPH. So the investment of a coal enricher, built for the single purpose of powering the CPH is inefficient. Secondly, two generators touching the CPH are useless. The CPH already has a generator in it. You could argue that they power the Induction Charger when the CPH loses power during an attack. But the counter-argument is now you’ve got an induction charger and two generators powering a MK0 laser, all built around a fragile system that routinely loses power. A power level output of about 100pps, yet the ability to transfer less than 1% of that output. This terrible design is overly expensive, and too complicated for it’s purpose, which was to just power the extractor.

Good Design
Demonstrated in panel A is the cheapest, and most basic, powering loop you can make. The minihopper takes no more than 2 copper+tin bars, and when placed next to each other, they share resources. In this case, this creates an infinite loop where the extractor sends coal to the generator, which generates the power for the extractor. In panel B, an additional hopper is used to create a saturated line of coal coming out of the hopper.

Bad Design
In this screenshot, we have the same end result of saturating a standard belt with coal. However, the method used is overbuilt, while not proving more throughput for the investment of material in the system. In order to saturate the belt, 4 standard hoppers are used. Early game, not only is this very expensive. But additionally, there’s no actual reason to store 400 coal. A bit obscured from view, is the fact 2 generators are powering a Power Storage Block, which is touching 2 extractors. This demonstrates that the builder doesn’t understand the power consumption of the attached machines. Extractors don’t consume 2 generators worth of power so the additional generator and battery block don’t make the system more efficient. And considering there are 3x more hoppers than required, this extraction site more than double the cost of what is necessary.

Enrichment + Infusion

The Pyrothermic Generator (PTG) has an internal energy storage which is 5x larger than the MK1 Power Storage Block (PSB). This makes it an ideal compact power source that can power machines without needing contact with PSBs.

Good Design
Shown here is how using multiple faces of power sources makes an efficient power core when consuming machines are wrapped around it. The coal is fed into the Logistic Hopper which powers the generator. The excess coal is split 4 ways. Power is transferred to the PSB with a laser, and this PSB will power 4 Infusing machines.

At the output of this machine, the coal is merged into a standard belt for transport. Notice how easy it would be to contain this machine in a room, or build it into a tower to make a smaller footprint.

Bad Design

The problem with this system, is first knowing the 0.1 rate of power consumption of a single enrichment machine on the Induction Charger (IC). The IC is a machine which takes 25 MK1 PSB’s to construct. Without calculating any other costs, this system is already more than 25x more expensive than necessary.

An additional problem is the MK2 laser attached to this machine. By extrapolation, it’s probably going to have more lasers attached, leading to a situation where a prolonged attack will consume the total power output required by the coal enrichment system, and this will leave the base without power. Again, there is an additional problem of storing 600 lumps of coal here. These large reserves are useless because if there is a problem in your coal supply, you won’t notice until all the coal is gone. Therefore, it’s better to see that your belts are thin, which would indicate a problem to you earlier, rather than waiting until coal reserves are completely empty before you realize the supply was insufficient.

Summary

The best thing about coal power is that upgrading the system is easier than distributing power using laser transmitters. Because every time you need to increase the throughput of a laser, you have to destroy the existing one and replace it, or swap lenses into them. Contrariwise, inserting an enricher/infuser onto the coal line will upgrade itself as you use it.

A lot of players seem to build an array of laser power transmission because it’s cheaper to get power at a location with lasers than it is with coal. While that may be true in some cases, what’s been demonstrated above, is that the time, expense, and difficulty of setting up a coal system was due to the inefficiency of how they’re built in a bad design. Built correctly, it’s a time saver.

Coal is readily available everywhere on the map, so whether you choose to build multiple extraction sites distributed about the map where needed, or a centralized system which handles the upgrades in a single room, doing this compactly keeps the base neat and organized.