The burner generator is a composite entity, which uses script to transfer the steam between the boiler component to the steam engine component to operate (you can make single entity burner generators, but I think they don't support working visualization the way boilers do, which is why my suggestion to move to it was not passed).

looking at the power values, the boiler entity has an exit power of ~4 MW, but the steam engine entity has a usage value of 2MW. Which means it only ever produces half the power it adverises it can output.

Do you have any idea how would those two entities fall out of synch?

These are the relevant values from the code.

boiler_eff = 0.85
gen_eff = 0.5

So the boiler part has its efficiency multiplied by 0.85, and the engine part has its efficiency multiplied by 0.5. The loss of more than 50% of the energy in the fuel is purposeful, as this is realistic; the fuel values of items have been multiplied by the inverse factor so that you get the same bang for your buck. At first I suspected you are seeing the application of this differential in efficiencies between those items. What might be happening is that the 0.85 efficiency is applies at the front end, and then the 0.5 efficiency is applied at the interface, thus reducing the total output power of the system by 50%. But in vanilla, each boiler is supposed to be connected to two steam engines, since each steam engine has an input/output power (default is 100% efficiency, thus input and output power are equal) half that of one boiler, so are you sure it wasn't this way in the first place?

But since you don't break ratio for normal boilers\steam turbines, why would it break it for the AAI ones?

The entity is a compsite entity, and the player never builds the steam turbine entity by hand ,it's done through script. So there's no point at having two instead of one with double the power.

I understand, but I don't know whether Earendel is using the vanilla steam engine or another prototype he made for this purpose. If he uses the vanilla steam engine prototype, then what you said makes perfect sense. If he made his own then the only thing I can think of is that application of efficiency differentials I mentioned. The problem is that my code is setup to make things more realistic, but his code is setup to take advantage of the technical structure of the model without thinking about the realism (most people aren't physicists, so it's understandable that it doesn't bother them that steam engines are 100% efficient, but it drives me insane). I can consider some sort of blacklist, possibly, but it becomes more to maintain in a time when I have less and less time (since my professional function is to develop and support automation code for a Fortune 50 company's international network -- highly in demand at the moment for virus reasons). Have you looked at his code? Do you have any suggestions? I'll think about it over the weekend when I have some time to look at things.

One thing I can guarantee you is that you're not losing energy. The boiler will burn the fuel at the correct rate to provide the output power of the STEAM ENGINE. So right now, you're still getting your full fuel value, just at the power (speed) of the steam engine, not the boiler. This is guaranteed because the boiler conserves energy from the fuel into the steam, where energy is converted into temperature and amount, and then converted back to energy in the steam engine from those values. This conservation is only violated by the efficiency numbers, which I've applied, but again I multiplied the fuel values of the fuels themselves by the inverse factor so that you still get the same amount of energy from each fuel item relative to the vanilla game.

Edit: although, come to think of it, you mentioned he is scripting something, so he could be bypassing the energy mechanics. I won't know until I look closer. I'll definitely think about what can be done, though. Happy to take all your suggestions and I appreciate your feedback on my mods.

I understand the 50% efficiency thing. For the normal steam engines, you also double their energy imput so that the final energy output is still the same. And the Boiler entity's output power does match that doubled value - Except, the steam engine entity doesn't double. It just halves.
Which means that the burner generator that's supposed to output ~2mw only outputs 1.

I'll look deeper into your code, and see if I can figure anything out later.

I'll be looking at this in my current run of mod changes. I'm fixing bugs first but then I'll take a look at how this code would affect his exact prototype and see if there's a clear exception to be made.

This is actually not an issue any more, since AAI Industry now uses the burner generator prototype for the burner generator.

Fantastico.