Transmitters designed to transfer heat from producers (fusion reactor, maybe some generators) to consumers (steam boiler, stirling generator?). I have an idea for how to design the actual heat flow mechanic of the transmitters, giving each their own temperature and thus deviating slightly from the model we've been using for energy/fluid/gas transmission. We could also use a system of network-wide temperature but that would be less realistic, and potentially more confusing.

Maybe doing some heat-thing with solar panels and salt?

I'm closing this as the conductors are now just about polished.

@aidancbrady sounds good - I've got a lab placement starting in a few weeks (working with massive lasers, which is exciting) so that will probably keep me fairly busy - I'll try and get as much as I can done before that starts, and I should have evenings and weekends free to do small amounts of work on Mek. After that I'll be a fair bit busier until around Christmas time but I'll try and help out over that holiday too.

The main things that I think need discussion, re: heat pipes are

• Is the simulation I've written efficient enough for production (needs profiling)? What do we do if it isn't?
• How deeply should it be integrated with the mod's other systems? Solar Evaporation Towers seem like a natural candidate, but how far should we go with using it in Generators? We could convert some of the burning generators to produce heat instead of electricity, but would that be annoying for early-game players? Would it be too similar to what IC2 is apparently doing recently?

I'll resume working on the heat system ASAP, in the meantime if anyone has anything to contribute on those concerns (or any others), do let me know

@unpairedbracket, I'm going to be pushing v8.1.6 this week with a few fixes and v8.2 a bit further down the road with an asset redesign I've had in progress for a while. Once I get the transmitter issue worked out I'm probably going to create the v9 branch and start work on some of the ideas I have listed in the milestone- I'm going to try to do another major release in the February/March timeframe.

Are you going to have any time to work on this between then? I totally understand if you're occupied with your studies, I'd be happy to finish it myself. If not, though, awesome- I have a feeling you have a better idea of where you want this to go with your background :)

I've started working on this again, and I've added a block that acts as a fluid radiator, turning pools of lava/water into heat sinks/sources. Still needs work as could be unbalanced.

Coolant pipes?
Black pipes, require coolant (water, or a added item), which is put into multiblock pumps (3x3x3, costly in terms of steel, inner block (pump) uses 20 steel ingots for the blades, the 2 valves into the pump have to be on the middle of the 3x3 face, cannot be on a corner or edge, valves same recipe as salination valves,copper replaced with steel, other blocks same recipe as salination block, copper replaced with steel) recipe for pipes: (+= steel, &= glass, $= coolant pipe, ^= coal/charcoal.), high energy loss. (1 kJ / block)
^ + ^
&&& = $ x 8
+++
Or, High energy particle transfer pipe, no energy loss, extremely expensive. needs power to transfer coolant, 30 J / block. Recipe (! = Atomic alloy, @ = Ultimate mechanical pipe, # = Ultimate universal cable, $ = Glowstone ingot, ^ = obsidian ingot, 0 = HEPTP, (high energy particle transfer pipe)
! # !
@ $ # = 0 x 5
^ @ ^

I'm planning on different types of heat-pipe having different conductivity coefficients (which determine how fast heat transfers from higher to lower temperatures, and also affects the speed at which heat is lost to the environment), and different levels of insulation (which affects the speed of heat loss to environment, but not to pipes and machines). Not sure about how cooling will work yet, or even if it will be a factor, but it'll probably be achieved by cryogenic machines that hold their temperature at -160 or so - they will draw heat away from things and cool them down that way.

k