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i hate water

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=104479

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i hate water

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2022 11:56 pm
by osbornx22
Look at this ugly thing:
water1.jpg
water1.jpg (108.42 KiB) Viewed 2117 times
input/output pump water/s from top to bottom:
2250 (ok normal)
3000 (double?)
3890 (triple?)
more possible to reach 6k?

holy shit, water is so complicated, i dont understand it. After reading the wiki, i have more questions then before.

The problem is, i need water for nuclear power. Im trying to get enough water to the heat exchangers and also have to make sure, that the steam turbines also get enough steam, which is also a fluid.

Ok, i can transport water like this:
pumps.jpg
pumps.jpg (63.25 KiB) Viewed 2117 times
With a pumps between every 2 pipe, the throuput stays at 3k.

But this is so ugly and my feeling is like, half of the nuclear power is just for the pumps, so forget nuclear power, just do solar.

But hell i want this nuclear power. I have to solve this. It must be possible in a beatiful way.

Look at this shit:
he.jpg
he.jpg (452.87 KiB) Viewed 2117 times
Each heat exchanger consumes 103 water/s. If you want just one pump at the connection point between to columns of heat exchangers and just one normale pipeline between the both columns of heat exchangers, then max possible column lenght is 8 or if you count both sides 16 heat exchangers.

If you connect more heat exchangers to the column, some will not get enough water (and i dont want to do pumps everywhere).
dont ask me why, but i tried it. 9/18 exchangers dont work.

But ok, i can live with that. But now get enough water with trains to to nuclear power input station for 2*8 reactors. Kill me. Thank you.

btw here is my blueprint with water testing stuff:

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 12:20 am
by Khagan
osbornx22 wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 19, 2022 11:56 pm
 But now get enough water with trains to to nuclear power input station for 2*8 reactors.
For 16 cores you can just pipe it direct from a nearby lake: tedious but effective. For really big nuclear power stations people often prefer to build on a lake: expensive in landfill, but much simpler. Each directly connected offshore pump can feed a set of 12 heat exchangers and 20 turbines.

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 12:29 am
by osbornx22
but i still dont understand water:

try to guess input or output:
3.jpg
3.jpg (38.79 KiB) Viewed 2107 times
para.jpg
para.jpg (60.14 KiB) Viewed 2107 times
result:

first pic 3990

sec pic 6k 6k 3k wtf

(but results change, if i just copy the build)

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 1:11 am
by astroshak
This is why my reactor blueprints are designed to be landfilled in on a lake. I put the offshore pumps at either end of 13-long Heat Exchanger columns. (One offshore pump provides water enough for 11 and a fraction Heat Exchangers; so putting the second at the other end gets me the water I need nicely.)

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 2:28 am
by Tertius
Like astroshak, I designed my blueprints for nuclear reactor plants to be placed on water with landfill. So you can put the offshore pumps directly inside the plant where you need the water. Long pipes from the sea to the plant aren't necessary. You need the saved space for all the other things required for a bigger plant.
You can find examples for this in the "Show Your Creation/Energy Production" subforum.

If you design your own setup, you should know about fluid mechanics. The most important thing to know is that the throughput is limited by the pipe length, and what maximum throughput can be achieved with a given pipe length.

See the table in this wiki article: https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines
Througput above 1200/s is tedious to achive, because pipes cannot be very long.
For example you need a pump after 8 heat exchangers to keep throughput. You have only 8 heat exchangers in a row and immediately after them a pump, so it works, but if you add more heat exchangers, you have to keep the pump and add another pump just after the next two exchangers you might add.

It's also kind of unpredictable, if you split a pipe or merge pipes. As soon as the fluid has the theoretical possibility to flow in a circle, it somehow will. Your last 2 pictures are such an example - try to not do this. The engine doesn't handle this well. It's because the fluid transport of every pump and through every pipe piece cannot be handled simultaneously as in real life but sequentially.
Splitting pipes is ok usually, but merging pipes not that much. Merge only if the fluid level isn't too high and not directly after pumps. If you split pipes, it could happen the fluid isn't distributed equally to both outgoing pipes: one gets almost all, the other much less.

If you want to know even more and understand some details, consult this wiki page: https://wiki.factorio.com/Types/FluidBox
It's for modding, but look at the image with the fluidboxes with their base level and height. It's what describes the inputs and outputs of entities that produce, carry and consume fluids and explains why fluids can flow very fast even without pumps.

Fluids are one of the more obscure and mysterious things in the game. However, the game fluid mechanics is modelled after real world fluid mechanics. It's not artificial - it's a real world simulation.

And if you not only just want a 2x8 setup but a tileable 2x8 setup, consider a 2x6 tileable setup instead. It's the smallest possible and most compact tileable nuclear power plant setup. And for a tileable setup, it's simply not feasible to bring water in from far away - all blueprints I saw build on water with landfill.

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 2:42 am
by osbornx22
Ok thank you very much.

I think i will do that too with the landfill.

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 8:55 am
by coppercoil
Hey, what's wrong with water pumps? :D High-performance setups require specific design, this is normal.

I never build nuclear power stations on water, because this is to easy. Delivering resources is a key point in Factorio.
pums.jpg
pums.jpg (3.05 MiB) Viewed 2007 times

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 12:14 pm
by osbornx22
hahaha, very nice

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 2:51 pm
by Tertius
Also keep in mind pipes don't have a direction like belts. Fluids flow from a higher fluid level to a lower level in a try to even out the level, no matter where the "output" or "input" of a pipe is - outputs and inputs are only the fluidboxes with their corresponding blue arrow icons. Everything else is true bidirectional.

If, due to some loop later or some consumer behavior, the level further down is higher than the level more near, the fluid will flow backwards. It's a bit difficult to explain how, but it's even possible to get something that will appear similar to waves within the pipe system: oscillating fluid levels between far and near parts. You will not see this with simple long straight oil pipelines, but with a complex system as in a nuclear power plant this can happen.

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 3:11 pm
by FuryoftheStars
Tertius wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 20, 2022 2:51 pm
 it's even possible to get something that will appear similar to waves within the pipe system: oscillating fluid levels between far and near parts.
Very much like real-world water hammer in household pipes. :) Our shower does this frequently when we turn it on. Constant hammering from the water oscillating. We need to either turn on another faucet (and then slowly turn it off) or close the valve to the shower slightly in order to stop it. :/

Re: i hate water

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 3:38 pm
by MEOWMI
Pipe throughput is highest just after a pump. Also, parallel pipes offer more throughput than a single one. Therefore, it should stand to reason that splitting the pipe connection after the pump offers higher overall throughput.

You can think of it as pressure, which is dependent both on the length of the pipe, but also on its diameter i.e. the amount of parallel pipes. Looking at the third example in your first picture, the first pipe would have high throughput because it is very short, and every pipe splitting from it in the intersection will still have decent combined throughput, despite their length, because there are now 3 parallel pipes compared to the initial 1, effectively increasing the cross-sectional area. The last pipe would be similar to the first pipe, and simply be a sum of the pressures of each of the 3 incoming pipes. (However, throughput would still be constrained to be the maximum that a single pipe can offer, which is 6000 according to the wiki.)

Reaching 6000/s should be trivial, when allowing intersections, by simply placing more pumps. However, in most practical cases, it's probably more useful to think that each pipe has at least 1000/s throughput. Nuclear power plants are definitely the big exception, and when designing large reactors, you have to be careful with every bit of fluid and heat throughput. Again, you would want to closely consult the fluid throughput table on the wiki.

There is, however, one quirk in the game regarding pipes and pumps, where some builds will have vastly different throughput rates depending on the order in which every object was placed down (and even the orientation of them). As far as I know though, if you plan your build for the worst-case throughput, i.e. not trying to use weird behaviors to your advantage, then it will still work as expected.
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