Due to the cost of construction and recent changes in the IC2 energy net i think that we need to turn the steam turbine into a HV system otherwise it is simply not worth using.

It'd be nice if you elaborated on these "changes" that would warrant this change.

I guess what i am saying is that most players will not have high speed mass production of steel until mid to endgame. at which point your looking at energy net demands in the thousands of EU/t

especially if your running apparatus such as Mass Fab or Molecular Transformers each of which requires steady EV to function at a decent pace. additionally you can only run 2 turbines on a max sized high pressure boiler and that is only once it reaches maximum temperature. whereas i can easily run about 32 Thermal expansion steam dynamos which are not only dirt cheap but combined into a large gen-plant can provide a steady stream of 512 eu/t energy. you essentially have a single device that costs significantly more resources to produce not to mention the turbines having durability and therefore needing to be replaced every few days.

the turbines are producing only slightly above MV using half of the total capacity of a max sized boiler at significant fuel consumption. (remember that oil an therefor fuel is a finite resource) additionally boiler mechanics used to be high start up fuel consumption becoming more efficient making them quite attractive as a power source. Now they start up with less fuel but become a lot less efficient as the heat rises basically increasing the total cost of operation while producing less than desirable energy.

in all this is yet another example of the overbalancing that has plagued RC since it's inception. no one has used the multiblock blast furnaces since TE's induction smelter added a steel recipe. no one has used the tunnel bore since steves carts came out with drills and noone will be using the steam turbines unless they can produce adequate energy.

It makes me wonder whether or not railcraft is really intended to be useable as a standalone or whether it is designed specifically for integration into mod packs that can compensate for it's shortcomings and if this is the case than why does rail craft even bother to have it's own processing systems when they are slower and less effective than any comparable mod out there?

The current values of the Steam Turbine were heavily influenced by input from Player. If you want to change them, you will have to break out your math skills and bring me charts and equations and cross comparisons like he did (they used to be a lot worse). After Player's rebalance, they had twice the conversion efficiency rate of the nearest competitor (to offset the massive cost). If that is no longer true, its not because of anything Railcraft did.

Also, I don't care what Thermal Expansion (or any other mod besides IC2) is doing in this realm. I refuse to participate in a escalating arms race of OPness.

Also, you have are completely wrong about Boiler mechanics. Boilers become MORE efficient as they heat up, just like before. There is a slight increase in fuel usage as they warm up, very slight (like less than 10%?), but this loss is massively outclassed by the increase in steam production at higher temps. Not only that, but when I reworked the numbers, I wasn't comparing min-temp fuel usage to the old values, it was max-temp usage. The increase is baked into the system so that the final value is the balance point.

All those mods you are comparing Railcraft to are mods that I don't use, and probably never will. Not that Steve's Carts isn't awesome, but I prefer to innovate without being influenced by similar mods. I admit the Bore needs work though. But as for Thermal Expansion, I do not like the mod, I find it massively overpowered and just plain makes things too easy. Also, KL has a habit of matching every buff, percentage increase by percentage increase, making any attempt to coexist in a single ecosystem pointless anyway.