Understanding Modular Engines in Stormworks (Engineer Explains)

[@4tonmike]

Your buckel trucks are a frickin godsend. Started playing stormworks last week, couldn't do it without your workshop designs. Thank you so much!

[@dinoplays1019]

Hey man I hope your having fun in stormworks I have amassed 1800 hours playing this game heads up there is a pretty big curve yet people like this man will help you so much to over come this happy building!

[@lucky7th331]

I dont mind calling it a V6 in the game but it's called a Flat 6 if anyone is wondering and there are cars in real life which have engines with cilinders placed like this, mostly in porsches and subarus

[@demonicsquid7217]

Or a boxer. Cylinders placed at 90° or 60° would be a V, regardless of orientation, although technically it would be an L if one bank of cylinders was aligned horizontally (0°).

[@lucky7th331]

@@demonicsquid7217 spot on

[@Zorro9129]

Absolutely! Hearing him calling it a V6 rustled my jimmies considering he's an engineer.

[@Jduekengn]

@@demonicsquid7217 I use a boxer engine in my Toyota Hilux because otherwise it wouldn't fit, and I try to be size realistic. Boxers are also common in small planes, very good engine layout i like it. More space for manifolds in your builds.

[@djhagrid300]

​@demonicsquid7217 Boxer and flat aren't the same. A boxer is a flat engine, but flat engines aren't all boxers. Boxer has opposed pistons that do their strokes at the same time. So they move outwards and inwards at the same time. A flat V or 180° V has the pistons at alternating strokes.

[@jzzz-qd1nj]

Your omua truck and research container got featured in recent spycakes video, glad to see your creations being used by big youtubers!

[@RedDead-rl9nf]

Love your content!!

[@gregorypfeifer9117]

I'm curious, why does no one seem to use the flywheel on their mod engine builds? It is always crank to clutch

[@jzzz-qd1nj]

it is massive and there isnt really a proper use for it

[@gregorypfeifer9117]

@@jzzz-qd1nj fair enough, if it serves no purpose why use it. I can vibe with that answer

[@demonicsquid7217]

It can have some niche uses with aero engines or sea going vessels. In SW its drawbacks outweigh its usefulness in most use cases - harder to start the engine, oversized especially on smaller engines, not enough performance gain etc...

[@Jduekengn]

I think I once tried using a flywheel, but truth is, it doesn't really help. With no flywheel, quick start, and you can easily gain speed and if you want to loose speed you just stop throttling. With a flywheel you would need an advanced clutch system for good performance, when braking enable clutch, then when release make clutch 0, while mainting updown counter and backup reset and all the other things.

[@Fancycattophat]

I have found a problem I think you left out parts of the video recording that should've been shown, for instance the 2nd throttle lever, and I followed every step and even went through the video multiple times and sometime after 26:12 you leave the microcontroller thing and the other throttle lever appears out of nowhere

[@david_3248]

i have the same issue and you can see that its plugged into the clutch but when i spawn it i cant use the lever

[@WeirdDuck781]

​@david_3248I actually watched another video where he uses a similar ECU for the starter boat and that is lever is for controlling the clutch. The clutch lever never actually plugs into the ECU and goes straight for the main engine clutch and shouldn't be an issue. Be sure to set it at zero before starting the engine and carefully increase it to engage the clutch as you'd do with manual transmission vehicles except the part where you shouldn't have to throttle the fuel up as the idle level shouldn't be plenty throttle to get the engine going when engaging the clutch (throttling while engaging the clutch creates a lot of unnecessary friction on the clutch damaging/consuming it prematurely). Either find a idle throttle level that consistently works with your clutch (depends on lots of variables like engine power, vehicle weight and medium, gear ratio, etc..) or create programming that automatically controls the throttle while engaging the clutch in order to prevent stalling

[@Mbxstudios]

The engine you made looks like a very realistic engine

[@JDealer18]

anyone else have the issue where the W/S control he set up in the last video works in reverse, like S raises throttle and vice versa?

[@Jduekengn]

Just use a numerical inverter, or inside a microcontroller: Get W/S signal into a Function block with one variable. Then make x*-1, this will reverse the number back again. Then make the function output to the throttle or whatever you wanted

[@chinchin3274]

​@@Jduekengn -x works too.

[@Adesterr]

The amount of air a fluid pump delivers into a pipe system is fixed, but the amount of air a engine uses is variable. And the small 3x1x1 fluid pump shuts down if it reaches a pressure of 10. So, the pump pumps air into the air intake and the fuel multiplier "runs" behind, until the pipe system reaches a pressure of 10, at which point the pump shuts down and the pressure in the pipe system for the air intake quickly drops, which makes the fuel multiplier do a 180° and run in the other direction, again behind. A supercharger with either the fluid pump (3x1x1) or the large fluid pump (2x2x2) without any pressure regulation is always either above or below the optimal stoichiometric. There are serveral ways to deal with this. The easiest is a air scoop. Place it facing in the direction of travel without any pumps directly on the air intake and it will provide the maximum pressure at relative low speeds. Another way would be a variable fluid valve, which one can use like as bypass. You will have to control it with a function that takes the rps and air intake throttle into account. Impeller pumps can work, too, but are very inefficient. I also saw people using wildly different methods that also work great. But why does it matter? Because you don't just randomly run your engine on any stoichiometric. You are an engineer, or not? You use the optimal stoichiometric for the current situation. But a oscillating afr means that the stoichiometric is also oscillating, which means that the engine always runs above or below the optimum. Doesn't matter if that optimum is fuel efficiency, max power or whatever, you will always not use the optimum. It also makes things like traction control very difficult, as the power output of the engine can be way less in one frame than in the other. edit: one more thing. The optimal fuel ratio for real life engines does not apply to this game. For fuel efficiency, the optimum is for some bizzare reason a stoichiometric of 0.2 and the afr for this is: 13.6+clamp(x*0.004,0,0.4) x is the temperature of a cylinder This function will never go above 14

[@454ss_gaming]

The beauty of the game is you can get as detailed as you want! I only touched on the supercharger in this video, and this video is intended for beginners :) Yes, I am an engineer

[@bajsapa3892]

@@454ss_gaming i bet you need to be an engineer to play this game lmfao

[@Officer_duh]

My modular engine is audibly revving and I can see it going up to 60 reps but the prop for me isn’t spinning, there’s no clutch. Anyone know how to fix?

[@454ss_gaming]

You must but the modular clutch and make sure it is set to 1

[@Officer_duh]

Thank you so much, do you know if there’s any way to control it as well?@@454ss_gaming

[@sijonda]

I'd like your opinion of my EFI creation. I've had this for some time now and I haven't seen anybody else create a controller like this before me but haven't been looking since. It's an EFI controller for modular engines that regulates fuel based on the air flow. If we get proper turbochargers that vary in pressure I think this would be invaluable For some reason my comment gets deleted when I include a link to the steam creation.

[@FlyingWind]

mine wont go past 3.84 rps and wont stay on. it gos forward and backwards but only at 3.84 rps but idk whats wrong

[@invention64]

That means you are just being moved by the starter

[@FlyingWind]

@invention64 ya in the month since I posted that comment I figured it out. Got the fuel and air right and have the mix hooked up to the throttle and fun block. Starts up now

[@khmcc5556]

Im building a bus, so would i need everything?

[@adamcumley3950]

Im sure there are some killer Radial aircraft engine builds.

[@penguinboyplayz9692]

I did it correctly but it didn't start

[@bobcog0001]

you technically built the porsche 6 cylinder boxer engine.

[@Fleppy20224]

It dosent work ;(

[@bajsapa3892]

modular engines are underpowered, flat 8 engine cant even drive a small tank track just use pre built ones.

[@ProbablyRexB]

The point of the modular engines is they are completely customizable

[@mrdaveofdaveshire4047]

Just for reference some tank engines were 27 litres could that be why an 8 cylinder is underpowered? Genuine question or are they underpowered in this game?

[@bajsapa3892]

i got no idea what you mean by "engines were 27 litres" because you cant change how big the engine size is in stormworks i mean theres 1x1 3x3 and 5x5 size but thats it.