Hi!
How about some alternative power sources for cars(and, maybe, for generators and stuff)?
Steam engines are getting used again for their durability, performance and ease in use. They dont need gear boxes, power from the piston goes directly to the differential. (Maybe should add automatic gear boxes in game? And add penalties for using mechanical ones?)
They can be even made out of internal combustion engines, by sending high pressure steam right into cylinders.
The car then can start only after heating up and getting enough steam pressure. In the late 30s they used gasoline and car heted in 10 minutes. But if you use wood or charcoal you need 2 hours. But you can avoid extinguishing fireplace during all the night. (Dont you think wood burns too fast in game?)
When there isnt enough gasoline and you have int combustion engine and enough skill you can make a wood gasifier with minor changes to the engine. But you also need to heat it up. They did it in America in 70s. It is really homemade: http://driveonwood.com/resources/free-gasifier-plans
There was at least one person here attempting to code a steam engine, though a more simplified version that would just consume wood and water as fuel. I don’t see anything about it on the forum nor in pull requests, so the idea was probably dropped.
I like the general idea, because this sounds like one of those things you’d reproduce quickly after the world died, but I know nothing about automobile steam engines (only few bits about the huge, ultra-bulky power plant ones).
If someone did the necessary research and listed it in a readable format, I could help or even write it myself.
I’m looking for things like:
[ul][li]How to feed the boiler: automatic system or having a tar-covered man shovel in broken planks? How often?[/li]
[li]Water (or any other working fluid) use and reuse: open or closed system? Clean water or any water? How much water used?[/li]
[li]How to regulate output: some sort of super/turbocharger increasing/limiting oxygen input?[/li]
[li]How to clean it after usage? Can it work as a continuous process?[/li]
[li]Heating up: do the mechanics (other than power output) change before it gets ready to use?[/li][/ul]
Also, DYI solutions much preferred and nothing that requires an actual factory. When in doubt, assume that most of the technology in the game is like it is now in real life, rather than human-shaped robots running on energy provided by internal thorium reactors.
Some of the ideas can (and possibly should) be simplified, but realism is a bonus.
As for wood gasification, it looks like it would play less nicely with the current system than steam engines. The whole heating up with different fuel and re-using existing engines but limiting their output. I may be misreading things, but I think steam engines would be better here.
But again, I know next to nothing about wood gasification.
I’d say one or the other, because their in-game effect is pretty much identical (push wood, acquire torque).
OK, steam engines suck.
But why no adminstrator replied on the wood gasifiers?
Take a look at the video, theese gasifiers are easy to make by self. Or look at the plans in the first post.
Gasoline could be very scarce! During the WWII all the civil cars ran on wood.
Rare man believes me in real life when I tell about wood running cars.
Holz-gas modification ((I mean quite simple installation that can be make right in the center of the apocalypse) needs really old engines for this modification specifically for preprocessing need to use a four-stroke engine with a carburetor. Their large-scale production for cars ended in the mid 90’s that is in the game world you would have to find a car having not less than 50-60 years.