How to Engine

[Vitatroll]

Spoiler!

I welcome people to make the point that my furnace setup is either "messy" or "dangerous"

I also accept that erikhanson may have meant "easier" and not "easier to set up" and that he mis-spoke.



Again, I am not arguing that it requires any less maintenance (since people seem to like arguing that)

I do accept, however, that a less easy-to-set-up method may, in fact, incorrectly feel easier-to-set-up.



And I still welcome someone to make the argument that there is some other way to set up - set up, not run, set up - the engine that is easier than my method (which let's not forget was originally outlined by vitatroll; it's not like I invented it, I'm just pointing out it's the best)




Edited to add

I am fully planning on arguing why my prefered engine setup is the best, but I can not do so until we agree what words mean.


Edited to further add

This thread has become "the engine thread" and as such, if you have a tried and true method, outline it here, and I will add it to the first post. I won't stop from arguing my methods are the best in the thread, but if this is going to be "the" engine thread, I will keep the first post relatively neutral.


Final edit to this post

I strongly feel that the furnace method should be THE first method that all new players should do. If a new player is the only one working in engineering, and come into this thread, I, very strongly feel that the furnace method is what they need to do.

Nothing about the furnace method prevents them from turning it into a hellburn, or, experimenting with the combustion chamber, or anything else of the sort. It is safe - if you do what I've put in the image nothing will catch fire, ever. It is easy - you can do the entire thing before the 3 minute mark, roundstart lag included. And it is low maintenance. Even if you don't want to come back to refill the furnace, or, ask the AI to just turn on another furnace you've prefilled, the fact that you have two if not four full SMES units will mean the station will continue running with power for 90 minutes to 2 hours, at which point, its extremely likely that someone, anyone, will have wandered by a furnace, and can easily turn it on with a single click.

If you've done the engine before, fine, go for a hellburn, but if you've not, you should start with the furnace method.

Goodness you take this seriously.

If one has fun setting up the engine with furnaces, that's cool. When I ask people new to the engine about how they want me to teach them, they tend to choose the raging, droning inferno bent on devouring the souls of the living. That's cool too. Even if somebody just wants to dump all of the gases in randomly to see what happens, it's all cool. Nobody has any actual responsibilities sans Security. Do whatever you find fun. Simple as that.

There never was and never will be a best method for anything in this game. Since the objective is fun, then the goal is subjective to the player.