High-Tec 'Clean water' engine

[CosmicKobal]

in addition to my other thread on a wood-gasifier engine, what it we went the other way and had an engine that ran on water through Hydrolosis? it is after all a future where power armor and energy weapons are a thing.

I’m picturing this requiring at least 8 in each mechanics/electronics/fabrication; and POSSIBLY to only find the recipe on an SD card looted from labs( along with other hightec recipes)

you could even have a funnel in the roof of your vehicle than collects rain water for you to purify into fuel

this is kept from being OP and broken by needing to have the high skills to build the engine and finding the recipe in the first place. I suggest that NO vehicle should spawn with this engine.

Thoughts?

[Coolthulhu]

You mean fusion engine running on hydrogen from water, hydrogen engine burning hydrogen gas, or pseudoscientific “engine that burns water that companies don’t want you to know about”?

Fusion engine is too high tech for the game, hydrogen engine existed for a while but was unused due to how hard is it to get enough hydrogen to run the engine, pseudoscientific perpetum mobile wannabe would make pretty funny mod content.

As for the most feasible: hydrogen engine requires a lot of relatively pure hydrogen. Such hydrogen is hard to store and needs specialized tanks. Those tanks have to be fed by specialized compressors. And creating that hydrogen through electrolysis would take a lot of power.
It would be basically an electric engine with an extra step in the middle, larger storage and more downtime to recharge.

[CosmicKobal]

Well… Wasnt expecting get shot down quite that expertly. I was mostly thinking of of the engine in the book 'sphere’by michael chriton. You seem to be a lot more knowledgable about the topic than me though, so I’ll just trust that it is unrealistic even by the sci-future lore of the game.

[wad67]

You can get a gasoline engine to run quite easily off the right type of cell.
Typically an agent is added to the electrolyte in order to increase the production of hydrogen, Most typical setup is hydroxy generation system, a bubbler of some description and then a hose from that typically jammed into the air inlet or directly into the carburetor.

Additionally I have seen a ‘booster’ system attached directly to a vehicle, current typically comes from the alternator, then same aforementioned system in addition to the original gasoline system.

[RedPine]

Well… Wasnt expecting get shot down quite that expertly. I was mostly thinking of of the engine in the book 'sphere’by michael chriton. You seem to be a lot more knowledgable about the topic than me though, so I’ll just trust that it is unrealistic even by the sci-future lore of the game.

Nah, you’re on a good train of thought, the idea just needs some adjustments. The game currently does not lack for powerful engines or fuel sources. What it does lack is fuel STORAGE, which is where a “water->hydrogen” converter would actually be useful as a type of high tech “battery” aka “fuel cell”.

Water->Hydrogen based fuel cells are a real life thing, their only limitations are low efficiency (it takes a lot of power to store a little power) and the problem of handling explosive hydrogen gas. Such a system could easily fit into the lore of the game, while also filling a need (high storage batteries) that is not yet in the game.

As far as game mechanics, I’m thinking a “fuel cell” would have 5x the energy storage of a Storage Battery but half the durability, and would store electric charge at half efficiency (every 2 charge received is 1 charge stored). Note: Fuel Cells would only begin charging after all batteries are charged. The result would be a (relatively) light high tier battery that takes longer to charge but stores a lot more power. This would allow for small electric vehicles that take awhile to charge but can easily go to a new city on a single charge, as well as a “battery” suitable for massive electric vehicles with ridiculous power generation.