Fuel
Fuel can be inserted into burner devices and burned to power them. Different types of fuel provide different amounts of energy, measured in megajoules (MJ).
Types
This is a list of all items usable as fuel in burner devices, ordered by fuel value:
| Item | Fuel value | Fuel value per raw total | Fuel value per stack |
Vehicle acceleration |
Vehicle top speed |
Train max speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
2 MJ | 2 MJ per wood | 200 MJ | 100% | 100% | 259.2 km/h (72 m/s)1 |
 |
4 MJ | 4 MJ per coal | 200 MJ | 100% | 100% | 259.2 km/h (72 m/s) |
 |
12 MJ | 0.96 MJ per unit of crude oil2, or 8.7 MJ per coal3 |
600 MJ | 120% | 105% | 272.2 km/h (~75.6 m/s) |
 |
100 MJ | 0.8 MJ per unit of crude oil2 | 1 GJ | 180% | 115% | 298.1 km/h (83 m/s) |
 |
1.21 GJ | 9.68 MJ per unit of crude oil2, and 1.21 GJ per Uranium-235 |
1.21 GJ | 250% | 115% | 298.1 km/h (83 m/s) |
 |
8 GJ4 | 507 MJ per uranium ore5 | 400 GJ | Unusable | Unusable | Unusable |
(1) For the purposes of in-game speed display, the game assumes 1 tile = 1 meter. I.e., a train on basic fuel travels at 72 tiles per second at full speed, and so on.
(2) This assumes the crude oil is processed completely into solid fuel using advanced oil processing and heavy oil cracking as intermediate steps, but not light oil cracking. More efficient methods are possible. In practice, the petroleum gas is more likely to be used for something other than solid fuel.
(3) Using coal liquefaction and heavy oil cracking, converting all light oil and petroleum gas into solid fuel. Does not include energy requirements of refining/mining.
(4) This fuel type can only be used in a nuclear reactor. Unlike other fuel types, it cannot be placed into standard burners.
(5) Assuming that all U-238 is enriched, all used up cells are reprocessed, and there is no reactor neighbor bonus.
Consumption
The following formula can be used to find how long a fuel will last in a device:
Burn time (s) = Fuel value (MJ) ÷ Energy consumption (MW)
Trivia
- Though the top speeds given by solid fuel, rocket fuel and nuclear fuel are presented as +5%, +15% and +15% respectively, this seems to only be true for trains. The top speeds for cars and tanks are instead approximately +9.5%, +34% and +58% respectively when these fuels are used.
History
- 0.15.0:
- Fuel type affects vehicle acceleration and top speed.
