What to do with light oil?

[Gammro]

So I just built my first oil setup, but besides the solid fuel recipe, is there any other use for light oil? Is there a possible use to directly insert it into a boiler or maybe even make it into a product?

Right now it's accumulating into a couple of storage tanks, because all refining of oil will stop if one of the outputs is full.

[TGS]

You can turn it into solid fuel. I'm playing with it and while I do like the introduction of so many Intermediate products/items I think they might have gone just a wee bit too far with it in some ways. Steel seems a lot more needed now so I think the iron->steel conversion should probably be lowered to 4 and perhaps sped up a little bit. This is going to take quite a bit to work out how to optimize the production of everything. Just seems like everything is going to be much harder and slower now. Harder in terms of space and resource consumption. Will be interesting though. Might just take getting used to.

Also seems really odd that researching Oil Derricks doesn't seem to unlock the storage or the refinery or chemical plant. Which means you're effectively researching two techs just to start using oil. Not sure why you'd put Derricks down if you have no where to send the oil.

[immibis]

Completely random, barely-related and off-topic question: what happens if you pipe oil through a boiler into a steam engine?

[syneris]

Completely random, barely-related and off-topic question: what happens if you pipe oil through a boiler into a steam engine?

I actually came here to also ask what to do about the massive amount of light oil backing up production of the others. I did try running crude oil to a steam engine as the tooltip incorrectly displays a steam engine. It appeared to just vanish, so a possible solution could be to use an engine to burn excess light oil off. The advanced oil processing looks worse than basic with the reduced heavy oil that is actually needed for lubricant, but I'm not at the point of needing sulfur yet.

[kovarex]

Hello,
I will try to answer all the questions here:

It is possible that we went too far with the intermediate products, but we enjoyed the game this way and this is some kind of first attempt, if most of the people feel that it is too complicated we can dumb it down a little.

The only usage for light oil is now to be changed into solid fuel and used in boilers/furnaces/trains etc. the old way, we didn't have the time to implement engines powered directly by oil.
Using oil in the steam engine is way to rid of the fluids that are not needed (without getting anything), that we actually didn't think of, but for now it is a nice way to do it, we plan to do some kind of burner.

The icon of steam engine is really wrong in the oil processing, we will fix that.

Merging the first 2 oil technologies might make sense and we might do it, or we can find some primitive way to use crude oil as well.

[TGS]

Hello,
I will try to answer all the questions here:

It is possible that we went too far with the intermediate products, but we enjoyed the game this way and this is some kind of first attempt, if most of the people feel that it is too complicated we can dumb it down a little.

The only usage for light oil is now to be changed into solid fuel and used in boilers/furnaces/trains etc. the old way, we didn't have the time to implement engines powered directly by oil.
Using oil in the steam engine is way to rid of the fluids that are not needed (without getting anything), that we actually didn't think of, but for now it is a nice way to do it, we plan to do some kind of burner.

The icon of steam engine is really wrong in the oil processing, we will fix that.

Merging the first 2 oil technologies might make sense and we might do it, or we can find some primitive way to use crude oil as well.

Yeah I definitely think that merging the oil techs would be good. Or at least unlock the storage tanks with the Derrick. It seems really odd that you can't actually utilize it without wastage until you've researched two techs. Three to actually turn it into something useful.

I have to agree it probably went too far with the intermediate products. They're good don't get me wrong, but the structure slows the pace of the game down a bit too much and it complicates the game in a way that will put off new people and casual gamers. It would be fine if things were documented better. The documentation aspect of the crafting menu is a step in the right direction but because of the sheer amount of different things requiring different things it will get overwhelming very easily.

Plus given how many new things require steel I would seriously suggest lowering the 'cost' to smelt it. 4xplates would be good. 2xplates would probably be a bit too far, but it would certainly ease up the process. (Also it being an even number will make it work properly with the 128 plate stack when doing stack entry).

One thing to keep in mind is that not everyone is a pro that knows all the ratios and knows all the materials needed for everything to automate it at 'early' levels. I struggled for quite some time when playing the game with that. I generally don't bother automating production too much until later in the game.

[Balthazar]

Hey can you answer some other questions? like, what is the pump for and how does the oil production drop work?

[kovarex]

Hey can you answer some other questions? like, what is the pump for and how does the oil production drop work?

The pump is a) one way ventil b) Active machine pumping from one side to another. There are different usages, for example prioritised storage of liquid with the rest going to west etc.

[MaxStrategy]

I imagine there are power plants utilizing natural gas or oil in the works.

[Hogweed]

Hey can you answer some other questions? like, what is the pump for and how does the oil production drop work?

Used the Refinery and the Chem plant like an assembler, when you plug in the crude, you click on it to choose what you want to make. Its really fairly simple once your see how it works. That threw me for a while as well. I suggested in other posts to create a sticky post with links to short videos to show briefly how new add ons work. There just is NO information anywhere on how this works.

[Hogweed]

Hello,
I will try to answer all the questions here:

It is possible that we went too far with the intermediate products, but we enjoyed the game this way and this is some kind of first attempt, if most of the people feel that it is too complicated we can dumb it down a little.

The only usage for light oil is now to be changed into solid fuel and used in boilers/furnaces/trains etc. the old way, we didn't have the time to implement engines powered directly by oil.
Using oil in the steam engine is way to rid of the fluids that are not needed (without getting anything), that we actually didn't think of, but for now it is a nice way to do it, we plan to do some kind of burner.

The icon of steam engine is really wrong in the oil processing, we will fix that.

Merging the first 2 oil technologies might make sense and we might do it, or we can find some primitive way to use crude oil as well.

I really like the way it is now, and where it is going. I would hate to see you merge or remove anything, I really dont see that as necessary. To say that is to say why bother continuing to make any other advancements on the game! You did not go too far with the intermediate products. Making the game more immerse and challenging is the whole point, and you really are doing such a great job on it.

Its not a problem right now to create the solid fuel or tank the extra products until they have more uses, which I see they are starting too, and I look forward to see where it is going to go.

I just recommended in other posts having more tutorial information to help keep the gamers up to date. My suggestion is to create a permanent sticky post which has information for gamers to go to when new things come out. A link to a short Utube video, or some other quick tutorial (illustrations always help) would solve the entire oil confusion thing.

[rlerner]

I think the oil dynamic adds quite an interesting component to the game.

I would say that it would be nice if light and heavy oils had more uses, but for now I simply turn them into solid fuel and pack them into chests... I can use a good supply of crude, with one refinery, and three chemical plants (for each of the three oils) to more than provide for 24 engines worth of solid fuel.

I love the idea of barrels, and would love to see them added for all the oil types, and possibly even water. It would make storing items and providing for remote facilities easier.

Another nice addition would be a /dev/null storage chest, where items dumped into it would just vanish. I like to make factories and test the throughput of them, but usually I just can't empty chests fast enough. This would be a nice solution to that, it would also be a good spot to dump excess oil if needed... There can even be a pollution charge for the box -- maybe call it a scrap yard, and you can dump X entities in it before it becomes full, and is a permanent source of pollution when it is full?

I might be slightly off topic, but it seemed like a good topic to add it to seeing as I agree with the OP, and maybe this will help take care of the issue.