Hey all. I'm just getting set up with oil, so I built 5 refineries. I then built 2 sulfur chemical plants, and 3 producing plastic. Right away I noticed they were starved for petrol, so I did some math on petrol production (basic, not advanced):
1 Oil Refinery = 4 petrol - 5 seconds
1 Chemical Plant - 3 petrol - 1 second (sulfur or plastic) = 15 petrol in 5 seconds
So I need 4 oil refineries (16 petrol every 5 seconds) to support a single chemical plant producing sulfur or plastic?
If so, then my factory requires 20 oil refineries to feed 2 sulfur and 3 plastic making plants? This ratio seems a bit absurd... On the other hand, I've slept a total of about an hour in the last 2 days, so my thinking could be skewed. Any help or advice would be appreciated. I know I need at least 2 sulfur plants to feed the sulfuric acid plant (and that's only providing 4 out of a needed 5 sulfur every 1 second). Not sure how much plastic I need for the rest of the game...
Oil Refineries, can this math be right?
Re: Oil Refineries, can this math be right?
I usually start out with building things in a certain order when it comes to refinery stuff. First, I build a lot of tank space to build up a buffer. First is crude and I get that filling from the wells while I build the rest of the refinery complex.
I start out with two refineries and have them linked together on output (you can see some videos to get some ideas if you want; I used Exterminators). I have a couple of tanks for heavy while I use more tanks for light oil and gas. By far the most important one right off the bat is gas since you are likely wanting to build plastic for the red circuit cards. I usually do 1 for sulfur and it feeds the plastic plant and I add a battery plant to get blue science going as well. That will typically hold me to get started, but if you are also trying to build all sorts of explosives as well, you are going to come up short.
Advance refining comes a bit later which allows you to have the refineries change the ratio to favor more gas and light oil at the expense of heavy oil. You can also "crack" heavy oil into light and light oil into gas. Having a good storage tank capacity helps all this. After I get advanced refining is when I look to get into the explosives business and also look to expand red circuit card production as needed.
Be mindful you do need heavy oil to make lube for your robots, so it does have a use and not very much of it is produced (only 1) when you are using the version that creates more gas.
I start out with two refineries and have them linked together on output (you can see some videos to get some ideas if you want; I used Exterminators). I have a couple of tanks for heavy while I use more tanks for light oil and gas. By far the most important one right off the bat is gas since you are likely wanting to build plastic for the red circuit cards. I usually do 1 for sulfur and it feeds the plastic plant and I add a battery plant to get blue science going as well. That will typically hold me to get started, but if you are also trying to build all sorts of explosives as well, you are going to come up short.
Advance refining comes a bit later which allows you to have the refineries change the ratio to favor more gas and light oil at the expense of heavy oil. You can also "crack" heavy oil into light and light oil into gas. Having a good storage tank capacity helps all this. After I get advanced refining is when I look to get into the explosives business and also look to expand red circuit card production as needed.
Be mindful you do need heavy oil to make lube for your robots, so it does have a use and not very much of it is produced (only 1) when you are using the version that creates more gas.
Re: Oil Refineries, can this math be right?
To help you with you ratios, I advise the use of Foreman's tool : viewtopic.php?f=134&t=5576
I know it's not ideal when it comes to oil industry because you have several alternatives (basic or advanced oil processing), but it helps nonetheless.
I know it's not ideal when it comes to oil industry because you have several alternatives (basic or advanced oil processing), but it helps nonetheless.
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.
Re: Oil Refineries, can this math be right?
Early on it's difficult to use the output of even a single plastic plant, even more impossible to use the output of a sulfur plant and also for the sulfuric acid, well you need an absurd amount of battery/processing unit plants to utilize that, something like 50. Normally sulfur and acid will be mostly idle (it's okay, machines don't consume any power when idle)
Productivity modules make things a lot more favorable especially for the very high capacity sulfur and acid recipes where you can easily afford -30% speed where there is almost no reason to not use prod modules, putting prod modules in the plastic plants increases plastic per petroleum by 8%/12%/20% - putting prod modules in the batteries line increases batteries per petroleum by 26%/40%/72% and as such significantly reduces the need for refineries. Generally speaking it is worth using productivity modules throughout the oil processing line unless you have a true abundance of crude in which case you might decide to use efficiency modules instead.
Note that later on you can offset the speed penalty of productivity modules with speed modules in beacons.
For what it's worth I normally start with 1 plastics plant and 1 sulfur 1 acid 2 battery plants, supplied by 2 to 4 refineries (depending how much oil I have), later I increase that to 2 plastic and 3 batteries, and later still I add productivity 3 modules and speed 3 beacons to multiply the output of everything (i.e. normally I never get more than 4 refineries, I just add 2x prod3 modules and half a dozen speed3 beacons and have them running at double or triple speed).
Productivity modules make things a lot more favorable especially for the very high capacity sulfur and acid recipes where you can easily afford -30% speed where there is almost no reason to not use prod modules, putting prod modules in the plastic plants increases plastic per petroleum by 8%/12%/20% - putting prod modules in the batteries line increases batteries per petroleum by 26%/40%/72% and as such significantly reduces the need for refineries. Generally speaking it is worth using productivity modules throughout the oil processing line unless you have a true abundance of crude in which case you might decide to use efficiency modules instead.
Note that later on you can offset the speed penalty of productivity modules with speed modules in beacons.
For what it's worth I normally start with 1 plastics plant and 1 sulfur 1 acid 2 battery plants, supplied by 2 to 4 refineries (depending how much oil I have), later I increase that to 2 plastic and 3 batteries, and later still I add productivity 3 modules and speed 3 beacons to multiply the output of everything (i.e. normally I never get more than 4 refineries, I just add 2x prod3 modules and half a dozen speed3 beacons and have them running at double or triple speed).
Re: Oil Refineries, can this math be right?
Something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet: When you use the Beacons (in the above example, using Speed modules in the beacons), it transmits the effect at a reduced rate, but does it also transmit the negative side effects (more power usage)? And if so, are they transmitted at a reduced rate also?
Re: Oil Refineries, can this math be right?
It transmits both beneficial and detrimental effects at half rate.Targa wrote:Something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet: When you use the Beacons (in the above example, using Speed modules in the beacons), it transmits the effect at a reduced rate, but does it also transmit the negative side effects (more power usage)? And if so, are they transmitted at a reduced rate also?