Bummer. I suppose that is why other mods that work with steam have gone with the first. A little bit of a book here but please bear with me.
I believe the first option to be the better way of the listed options.
-Chaining together steam production via 2 way connections would be pretty neat and makes some logical sense (if that matters). Also, mechanically that is already how steam works in game.
-I have been resorting to small chest fed flexible production "nodes" for automated production and manually shuttling materials between chests until electricity is available. Reason being, early waste management requirements (ash+recyclables) and belt resource requirements (meteor ore) make it way easier to mostly skip belts until high quality fuel is available and the base is defended enough to venture out for meteor ore. By that time, boilers -> electricity are right around the corner so why bother redesigning for them -just wait until electricity is available and design for that. Allowing for a smoother transition between steam and electricity would make steam more attractive. This change may also make burner -> steam transition designs possible, which keeps interest but also makes the efficiency incentive of steam more worth the early effort.
- Tech wise steam boiler -> electricity is so quick, why bother trying to design for both? To me this means that steam -> electricity should be mostly a drop-in upgrade (with pipe removal of course) and that the front of the electrical tech tree should be made a bit more expensive.
An alternative or even supplementary method of dealing with this may be kind of interesting (but more effort for you), is to borrow "MF" (mechanical energy) from Yuoki Engines (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/yi_engines) or use something like it. Then have production buildings consume mechanical energy, and have various levels of "outbuildings" that convert from whatever transportation method to MF. Examples:
- "Windmill" (wind -> low yield MF)
- "Stirling" (solid fuels -> MF + ash)
- "Hothouse" (solid fuels + water -> MF + ash)
- "Steam Engine" (steam -> MF)
- "Steam Generator" (steam -> Ec)
- "Electric motor" (Ec -> MF)
With various tech levels of each effecting conversion efficiency. This would decouple the power transportation method from the consumers and create some interesting design choices/decisions on the players part. Do I spend a few extra resources and space to make future efficiency upgrades cheaper or maximize space and material efficiency at the cost of increased future upgrade and redesign effort? I can see this being a really neat way to go, but also a lot of work, so please take this as "wouldn't it be cool" spit-balling and not "hey, you should do this". :) Example: https://imgur.com/a/815nEgg
