'Sup, let's get this show on the road.

Thermoelectric generators are clearly OP, and unrealistic. Is there a way to make them work like real TE Gens?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator#Practical_limitations

A real TE Gen has low thermal conductivity (i.e. it doesn't generate cold, it is room-temperature and is difficult to change it's internal temperature), and is therefore very difficult to cool property and overheats easily.

Could it be possible to make it so the TE Gen actually has an overheat temperature around 100 C (or whatever it's materials are), a base heat of around 20 C (or whatever it is constructed with), and generates power based on the difference between it's base heat and max-heat (so the closer it gets to it's overheat temperature, the more it generates power)?

In short it would start to operate like a Steam turbine, without the need for steam or a direction, and similar to the stirling engine (also a mod), without the need to absorb heat from any given direction. The main differences between these other heat-types of power generation should be a lack of thermal conductivity and propensity to overheating.

@Forlorn Actually I do like your solution alot, which is also easier to figure since the example is the steam turbine, but, I do want to use the TE to remove some heat from the game, I know it is less realistic but it doesn't mean it have to be OP.

What do u think?

Some heat should be deleted in the power conversion process, so it is similar to how the ice machine or steam turbine work (they both delete heat in some capacity). It makes them useful without being OP or too unrealistic.

Ice maker deletes 20% of heat: https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Ice_Maker
Steam turbine deletes 10% plus 4kDTU operational cost: https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Steam_Turbine#Heat_Deletion

I'm thinking a TE Generator should have a low thermal conductivity, so that even though the TE Gen absorbs heat, it shouldn't be able to absorb heat very quickly unless there is a huge difference in the surrounding heat temperature. Cooling a TE Generator should be difficult and require intelligent solutions, such as ethanol coolers, space radiators, or even manual dupe labor to power an ice-fan.

The TE generator shouldn't delete more than 25% of heat transferred to power (a very efficient number, making the TE Generator worthwhile), with the rest being transferred into the machine (like a steam turbine).

Here is an example of how one might design a fair TE Generator:

- Imagine a steam turbine setup and next to the steam turbine are two TE Gens, one on each side.
- The steam turbine draws in steam from below, and itself becomes heated. Behind the steam turbine is an output radiant pipe carrying the heated water in radiant pipes right behind the TE Gens. Each TE Gen absorbs 20 C degrees from the water per tick over two squares and the machines slowly heat up to 70 C each, producing around 100 W of power each. In the process of heat conversion, around 5 C of heat is deleted in the conversion.

- The rest of the heated water, which has cooled down to 80 C from the TE Gens, is piped off somewhere for further cooling with a more dedicated cooling process, or to other TE generators to absorb and delete some more heat.

Get it? A realistic TE Gen is slow to heat and cool, but as long as it is heated up will produce a small amount of power and delete a bit of heat in the process. It can't be used to cheese the game (because it should overheat at 100 C), but it could be used to optimize and generate a bit more power of out hot processes. Also, these machines won't be space effective and if one were to solely use them to cool down a base, it would be cost prohibitive in terms of metal, decor, and space.

Let me know what you think!

Hey, a small update, I started to work hard on this idea to deliver more moderate sense of power generation, Also I would add Stirling generator at some point which will differ from this one as this one is actual thremoelectric.
This type of change is really big and force me to improve old code which I never actually dealt with so it will take time.
Also I would like you to join my betas and I want to hear your opinion on new stats
(e.g. about 10C degrees == 250Watt or so)

Originally posted by Missilexent:

Hey, a small update, I started to work hard on this idea to deliver more moderate sense of power generation, Also I would add Stirling generator at some point which will differ from this one as this one is actual thremoelectric.
This type of change is really big and force me to improve old code which I never actually dealt with so it will take time.
Also I would like you to join my betas and I want to hear your opinion on new stats
(e.g. about 10C degrees == 250Watt or so)

It's still good energy and such a method to keep power generation rooms chill!

Good to hear Missilexent, can't wait to see it. Sure I can help beta test. From what I can tell, the amount of power generated by the TEG is too high, both overpowered and unrealistic.

It shouldn't be able to just make a room super cold, super fast. It shouldn't be able to chill anything, just remove some excess heat into power, and the power shouldn't be super significant, just enough to help out the base.

I'd say 10C degrees should === 5W. It shouldn't be able to generate more than 1 W per degree, as that violates the second law of thermodynamics.

Also, the machine should work slowly, with a very low thermal conductivity. Something like 10 seconds of in game time before the machine heats up a single degree.