Oil <> Train

[slay_mithos]

How is it unclear?

Just put a pipe that would connect to where the wagon stops, possibly with a pump to make sure it only loads or unloads (not both).

It would seem like a really standard way of handling it, but maybe I am missing something significant?

[ssilk]

Ever seen, how this really works?

https://www.google.de/search?q=tank%20w ... hip=Bilder

It is complicated and slow and a wagon has only one pipe and the wagon shifts every time it halts a bit, because the halt point is not that exact. You need something like a hose. Hose inserter... Or so. And even with a pump it is eventually unclear, which direction. Take two wagons. One full, one empty. Now you put a pipe on it. The fluid from the full wagon flows into the empty. Before it is pumped, because pipe capacity is much bigger than pump. Wanted? Or we need a pump for every wagon? But that is slow, very slow with the current pump.

I think it is important not to make it that easy and just put some pipes near to a train and hope that it works. Other games do that. Factorio always tooks a very clear standpoint, that the process, the physics is visible for the player, if he looks exactly enough.

Btw:
You need to put a ground-cable at the wagon before filling it with explosives to avoid sparks. Explosions? Hm. I would love exploding tanks. Built rails near to biter nest, drive backwards, leave wagon (uncoupling), fire at wagon. Boooooom.

[slay_mithos]

Well, inserters, even normal ones can extend enough to reach the buildings' and wagons' point of entry/exit, so I don't see why it would be any different for liquids.

I mean, loading/unloading is incredibly easy if you don't try to do tricky things (like multiple item kinds per wagon), just toss inserters that fit the wagon's collision box and it works.

If you start treating liquids too differently and give it much more complexity, it just make liquids a pain to deal with.

We already see what the oil processing does, using big chunks of space, quite harder to make work with the rest of the factory, because it is both a starting point and an intermediate crafting.

I personally push really using oil industry to a minimum, despite wanting to automate everything, because of the mess with all the pipes and infrastructure, blocking the way, where belts don't.


Sure, loading liquid wagons could require that a better, stronger pump is introduced (3x3 pump, with 3 entries and 3 exits, maybe?), to be able to load the wagon in a timely fashion, but I really don't get why liquids "have" to introduce so much more difficulty, just for the sake of it, when items are treated in a much easier fashion.

Add to that the fact that most liquids just can't be put into barrels, and that barrels don't contain that much to begin with, and there is no way to tailor your industries in various places, like a few bases for extracting oil, one to refine it, and then send the three liquids to various bases that require them.

It is also not feasible to play with water only on the starting area, and still using it in remote places, because transporting it is just not feasible without putting multiple pipe lines all over the map.

Hopefully, with dytech v2's mainline pipe, we will get a way to transport huge amount of liquids over big distances without it requiring steel, power, and a specialized infrastructure both at the loading and unloading, but it would be great if liquids were given the same panel of options that the items benefit from.