Double Boiler Tutorial
I have a separate post that just includes the cross section of this build, plus some explanation on settings and such. This post will go more in depth on how to build it from scratch.
This is not my design, but I've modified it a little. Original design by Gamer43.
I'm building this in dev mode for convenience, but this tutorial is for people wanting to build it in survival mode.
The first thing you need to do is make sure you have enough space around your volcano. To start with, measure 4 tiles to the left, 33 tiles to the right, 19 tiles from the bottom, and 22 tiles from the top. I've marked this off with wire; this is a simple counting trick as the game gives you a small counter as you plan wires or pipes. Don't actually build the wires! It's just a guideline.
In this seed, I just barely have enough space above the iron volcano. As it is, I wouldn't be able to use it effectively without modifying the boiler's design.
Next, measure and mark the entire structure's dimensions. It's 48 tiles high and 51 tiles wide. I've added the remaining part to the left and top as I have no room on the bottom and right.
The ladders represent the infrastructure you might already have in place from digging out your world.
You won't use all of this space. Scroll down to see if any existing builds will be in the way.
Your volcano may be in a slightly different place, but it should fit as long as you did the initial measurement right.
Now you can start adding the bones:
**Make sure any anything that will come into contact with magma is made from obsidian! And the window tiles must be diamond.
Here I've built everything necessary to start vacuuming out the space, including liquid locks (I used oil and petroleum but viscogel works, too). The space between the double locks need to be vacuumed as well.
The ladders aren't necessary for the build, they're just scaffolding.
I've gone ahead and built the tempshift plates now, as they're easier to see before everything else gets added in. Some of them must be made from diamond:
-the two bottom-most single tiles and the 2x2 spaces directly above them
-the horseshoe shape near the top
The rest can be anything with a melting point above 600C.
Once all that is done, build pumps and the necessary pipes/power to vacuum out the space. Now is a good time to set up your large transformers that you'll need for the build (six of them) and connect to your main power grid:
I've left out the joint plate for now, just to make it easier to walk through the area. You won't need it until you're ready to siphon power from the turbines.
I won't build the gas pumps/pipes for vacuuming in this tutorial. You can just do that as you like.
While you're waiting on the vacuuming process, you can start filling the coolant pool with supercoolant. And while you wait on that, you can build all the inner workings in that area:
The top radiant pipe snakes can be anything (they're just for cooling the turbines), but the bottom ones must be thermium. There are going to be more below them but we'll come back to those.
Set the thermo sensor to above -178C.
Fill in that row of insulated tiles in the steam room, add the aquatuners, and add just enough water to force the gas from the corner tiles:
Now you can close off the steam room and get rid of those ladders that are in the way of where the turbines will be built.
Go ahead and connect up to your power grid if you haven't already.
Next, we want to get the first coolant loop up and running. Build the rest of the loop and fill it with supercoolant. I've also added the bottom row of diamond window tiles so that more ladders aren't necessary:
To the right, build the ventilation:
Those pipes will supply up to 44 natural gas generators if this rig is run at full capacity. Ofc, doing so will require six or seven of them lol.
The next step will be the remaining plumbing in the middle section. I'll leave out the liquid vents and valves for now, as it's easier to see without them.
**I realized after the fact that there are two small mistakes here. These are the missing pipes:
Now the power and automation:
Sensor settings:
-left atmo sensor = below 20,000
-right atmo sensor = above 1000
-hydro sensor = above 0 (not really necessary but there just in case)
-filter gate (in between the and-gate and the not-gate) = 30
Also, you'll want a shipping line out:
I've run it past the turbines and transformers for a little bit of cooling, but that's optional.
Let's assume the space is fully vacuumed out now. Get rid of the unnecessary pumps/pipes/wires and add in [most of] the remaining tiles/machines/etc. (You might have noticed already I filled in some of the insulated tiles in this middle section, mostly for ease of access.) Machines need to be made out of steel or better.
Liquid valve settings are as follows:
-Bottom row, left to right: 5000, [your desired input, max 9900] (first one on oil line, 3000
-Lower right side: 7000
-Upper left side (x2): 1500
-Upper right side: 1500
-2x 1500 (middle coolant loop)
-1500 (upper coolant loop)
Finally, build your steam turbines, add the joint plate, and close up that room.
And that's it for that section! Hopefully your build is still vacuum sealed and no random gasses have found their way in. Your aquatuners should be working hard to get the freezing room the right temp, so we'll move on to the other section.
**Again, anything here that could possibly have a chance of being touched by magma must be made out of obsidian, steel, or diamond (or something with a melting temp above 1727C).
I've filled in the right-most vertical shaft, added the mesh tiles at the top of it, and added some more of the basic structure to to the rest.
You'll want to unblock your volcano soon, to start collecting magma, so next we'll do the automation so you don't have any accidents with the doors.
(I added this picture after finishing the build because I messed up the automation switches. Both need to be OFF right now.)
The square gates are memory toggles, the ones above them are filter gates (left:50, right:45), and the two at the top are not-gates.
The thermo sensors on the left should be set to below 500 (lower) and above 350 (upper). (We'll change that second one later.) The ones on the right are below 800 (lower) and above 540 (upper).
Hydro sensor should be set to above 500.
Once all of that is done, you can unblock your volcano.
Next, we'll add plumbing and power.
**The radiant pipes must be aluminum, except for the last two at the top left must be gold.
At the bottom I've added a reservoir, shutoff, and valve. Those are optional. They're for controlling the in-flow of oil into the part of the build that creates petroleum. The shutoff is connected to the reservoir via automation.
From the left, the vertical pipes are: robominer cooling loop, oil in-line, petroleum out-line, robominer cooling loop, and oil in-line for the sour gas boiler. Ofc you could also use petroleum in the sour gas boiler, but it would be silly to waste your magma making petroleum only to turn it into sour gas.
The cooling loop for the robominers probably isn't strictly necessary, as a drop of supercoolant on top of each of them will probably last hundreds of cycles, especially if you make them out of thermium. But better to plan for the worst imo.
Finally, we'll add the rest of the machines/tiles/etc. Don't forget that the window tiles need to be diamond. The metal tiles need to be steel.
Let's take a look at the entire rig's plumbing system and get the other cooling loops going:
Don't overfill the supercoolant loop that has all of the pumps/valves. Just give it enough to have a steady flow going.
The other cooling loops (turbines and robominers) will go out to wherever you have your cooling system(s) set up.
The final step is to activate the boilers. This requires caution and, in my experience, luck.
Before, we set one of the thermo sensors on the left to 350C. That'll need to be higher, but if you set it too high to start out with, the oil will flash to sour gas and ruin your day.
Start by piping 1000kg of crude oil to each of the 2x2 tempshift squares. Each tile should have around 500kg. Now cross your fingers, say a prayer, and activate one of the automation switches. Let in a couple tiles of magma and turn the switch off. Make sure you let in enough to form igneous rock tiles. If it's not enough, the magma will turn to debris and it'll take a lot longer for the heat to transfer.
The oil should heat up quickly and some of it will flash to petroleum. Check to make sure there's no sour gas. Once the door opens and the temp settles, start slowly bumping the temp up until all of the oil has turned to petroleum.
Once that's done, you can continue piping in oil. Wait until that 2x2 area is full, then you can raise the temp to it's final value of 400C.
The reason for this caution is that two things can go wrong:
There isn't enough oil mass and the temp spikes too high too quickly and flashes to sour gas.
Half the oil changes to petroleum and what's left is trapped between petroleum and tile, creating an overpressure that damages the tile.
So you don't want too much to start with, and you don't want too little. You want enough mass that the temp goes up slowly, but not so much mass that the oil still under-temp has nowhere to go.
Fortunately, getting the other side of the boiler running is much easier, since sour gas is the goal. Simply activate the switch, wait a few seconds, and turn it off.
Once the oil flashes you can go ahead an start pumping in more oil at your desired flow rate (up to 9900g/s). And that's it! Congrats on getting all the way to the end.
