How to avoid an oil deadlock

[MeduSalem]

There should be LO->PG cracking setup as emergency when PG level is very low.

If you are refering to my post, then that's not really required.

The factory demand for Petroleum always takes lower priority than Light Oil demand for Solid Fuel.

Because if I'd start to crack Light Oil to Petroleum Gas when Petrol is low I'd disturb/bottlneck the Solid Fuel production. And because less Light Oil would be able for Solid Fuel it would automatically start to turn the Petrol into Solid Fuel as well to keep up with the Solid Fuel demand. Which then is completely counterproductive because of the worse conversion ratio.

So in a build entirely using Steam Engines and Solid Fuel... you know that really strange things are happening in your factory/oil industry if any Light Oil gets cracked to Petroleum Gas.

The only case where it would be acceptible to crack LO->PG is when Light Oil gets piled up because the power plant is almost idle. Then it might be a good idea to turn LO into PG if the factory really needs the additional PG. But I rarely have that happening because if the factory needs PG a lot then it's almost sure that the Power demand goes up as well at which point there is no Light Oil to spare for cracking anymore.

[Jupiter]

The factory demand for Petroleum always takes lower priority than Light Oil demand for Solid Fuel.

Because if I'd start to crack Light Oil to Petroleum Gas when Petrol is low I'd disturb/bottlneck the Solid Fuel production. And because less Light Oil would be able for Solid Fuel it would automatically start to turn the Petrol into Solid Fuel as well to keep up with the Solid Fuel demand...

In my mind this should be completely the other way around. Not only that demand for PG should be higher than that of LO but also that there shouldn't be any demand of solid fuel at all. Making solid fuel is just to have a sink for your fluids, not to actually replace coal. Oil is way to valuable for burning. And if you are making solid fuel, then you should convert it immediately to rocket fuel and store it to launch rockets. I'm basing my view on the first few posts in this thread.

[Kelderek]

Yeah the difference is there is only one way to make oil products like plastic and sulfur but there are multiple ways to fuel devices like boilers and furnaces. So the priority should generally be to have the higher priority for oil to be for oil products and have solid/rocket fuel be a lower priority. But who are we to tell anyone how to play, if you have fun with a factory making solid fuel and rocket fuel to power everything, then far be it for us to say that is wrong.

I think the whole point of this discussion though is that oil refining always has 3 outputs and if you want to keep refining then you have to do something with all 3 or you will get a deadlock. Since solid fuel can be made from all 3, then that is an easy way to consume extra liquid and allow refineries to run non-stop.

[Harkonnen604]

Assuming solid fuel is used only for rocket fuel, I think scheme should be like this:

HO -> LB (when LB < 500). get enough chemical plants to outrun refineries
HO -> LO (when LB >= 500). get enough chemical plants to outrun refineries

LO -> solid fuel (when rocket fuel < 100). get enough chemical plants and assemblers to outrun refineries together with HO->LO process
LO -> PG (when rocket fuel >= 100). get enough chemical plants to outrun refineries together with HO->LO process

HO, LO - no tanks at all
LB - one tank
PG - many tanks

The idea is that you can get blocked by only one end-product - PG, but on the way you get all necessary HO/LO byproducts. Also you also don't waste any oil by storing unneeded HO/LO.

splitting PG to sulfur and plastics is another story

[MeduSalem]

In my mind this should be completely the other way around. Not only that demand for PG should be higher than that of LO but also that there shouldn't be any demand of solid fuel at all. Making solid fuel is just to have a sink for your fluids, not to actually replace coal. Oil is way to valuable for burning. And if you are making solid fuel, then you should convert it immediately to rocket fuel and store it to launch rockets. I'm basing my view on the first few posts in this thread.

Yeah, I get your viewpoint...

My point is that I hate Solar Power and I hate setting up Coal Mining... and that I would have to transport 3 times the amount of items to my Boilers if I used Coal to match with the energy Solid Fuel provides. After a certain size of the Steam Power plant this really gets inefficient.
Currently I'm burning about something in the magnitude of 1800-2000 Solid Fuel per minute if the power plant is running at 100%... So with one of the next upgrades to my power plants I'm planning on I'm about to hit the limit on a regular express belt. With Coal I'd require 3 express belts already.

So apart from the throughput concerns I'm also not that desperate about Oil Products anyways. It's not like I want to produce x rockets per minute because realistically that goal is an even bigger resource waste/sink than burning Oil for power production because of how you get nothing in return from all the launched rockets. So I'm perfectly fine with powering my Steam Power Plant with Oil.


But I understand that not everyone would classify this strategy as efficient, especially not if one is using Solar Power. Then cracking Light Oil to Petrol makes perfectly sense. But then you will run into the problem that the Refinery output of Heavy Oil will be blocked if Petroleum Gas is stocked up without usage. So eventually you have to turn Petrol to Solid Fuel to get the outputs unclogged... that or you have to produce something else that uses Petroleum gas... like Advanced Circuits or so.

[Harkonnen604]

you get nothing in return from all the launched rockets

You get the purpose of building that megafactory What's the point in placing a lot of assemblers, modules and trains if factory is standing still because it has no output at some constant rate? For me factorio is about reaching production rates, not about some single one-shot purchases.

But then you will run into the problem that the Refinery output of Heavy Oil will be blocked if Petroleum Gas is stocked up without usage.

So what's the problem? You don't need heavy oil for anything but petroleum (and a few lubricant). So if your refineries are blocked due to petroleum - it means that your oil production is sufficient and overall bottleneck is somewhere else like in iron/steel. Just leave it be full of petroleum - no problem with that, just get more iron/copper/whatever to make that petroleum used

[Jupiter]

Yeah, I get your viewpoint...

My point is that I hate Solar Power and I hate setting up Coal Mining... and that I would have to transport 3 times the amount of items to my Boilers if I used Coal to match with the energy Solid Fuel provides. After a certain size of the Steam Power plant this really gets inefficient.
Currently I'm burning about something in the magnitude of 1800-2000 Solid Fuel per minute if the power plant is running at 100%... So with one of the next upgrades to my power plants I'm planning on I'm about to hit the limit on a regular express belt. With Coal I'd require 3 express belts already.

So apart from the throughput concerns I'm also not that desperate about Oil Products anyways. It's not like I want to produce x rockets per minute because realistically that goal is an even bigger resource waste/sink than burning Oil for power production because of how you get nothing in return from all the launched rockets. So I'm perfectly fine with powering my Steam Power Plant with Oil.


But I understand that not everyone would classify this strategy as efficient, especially not if one is using Solar Power. Then cracking Light Oil to Petrol makes perfectly sense. But then you will run into the problem that the Refinery output of Heavy Oil will be blocked if Petroleum Gas is stocked up without usage. So eventually you have to turn Petrol to Solid Fuel to get the outputs unclogged... that or you have to produce something else that uses Petroleum gas... like Advanced Circuits or so.

With those considerations I completely agree with you. You might even consider burning rocket fuel because that compresses the solid fuel even more.

[MeduSalem]

With those considerations I completely agree with you. You might even consider burning rocket fuel because that compresses the solid fuel even more.

I've set up a Rocket Fuel assembler line already for that... Only downside is that it only results in 225MJ of energy instead of 10*25MJ. Somehow I think the Rocket Fuel should give something like 300MJ instead to make the conversion more profitable.

[Nilixen]

With those considerations I completely agree with you. You might even consider burning rocket fuel because that compresses the solid fuel even more.

I've set up a Rocket Fuel assembler line already for that... Only downside is that it only results in 225MJ of energy instead of 10*25MJ. Somehow I think the Rocket Fuel should give something like 300MJ instead to make the conversion more profitable.

You can actually increase the net energy gain from rocket fuel by using productivity 3 modules and speed 3 beacons. You get 138-140 MJ from rocket fuel this way vs 125 MJ from solid fuel.

[MeduSalem]

You can actually increase the net energy gain from rocket fuel by using productivity 3 modules and speed 3 beacons. You get 138-140 MJ from rocket fuel this way vs 125 MJ from solid fuel.

I'm also doing that already but such a setup still requires massively more energy to keep the production going compared to a oil industry setup using EMs in all stages. But that said the PMs really cut back on overall oil consumption.

[Jupiter]

I settled with this conceptual design (which I was able to create thanks to all you guys, thank you!):



This isn't to scale of course and water isn't even hooked up but it shows the idea quite well.

The inputs below accept, from left to right, heavy oil, light oil and pet. gas.

Logic:
The pumps to the gas tank are on if A > 0 (if gas < 2.5K).
The pumps to production of solid fuel from gas are on if A == 0 (if gas == 2.5K).
The pumps to LO->gas cracking are on if A > 0 (if gas < 2.4K).
The pumps to production of solid fuel from LO are on if A == 0 (if gas >= 2.4K).
The pumps to lubricant production are on if A > 0 (if lubricant < 2.5K).
The pumps to HO->LO cracking are on if A == 0 (if lubricant == 2.5K).

This ensures that the consumption of HO and gas (for lub and sulfur/plastics) always has priority over production of rocket fuel but if there is no consumption then everything is used for rocket fuel; no buffering. My pumpjacks should never be idle.

[steinio]

U don't need combinators you can connect the pumps directly to the tanks.

[Jupiter]

U don't need combinators you can connect the pumps directly to the tanks.

Huh! Yea, you're right. I would still need the combis to shut off the pumps to cracking and solid fuel production though. I don't want them to run unnecessarily or when I need all my fluids for consumption for acid etc. I also would still need the pumps for the tanks themselves to prevent the fluid from flowing back. But it would me save some wires.

[Frightning]

Well, after I noticed the issue I setup something similar to this in an attempt to solve the problem but this doesn't really work if you are in a situation where you need more heavy oil (lub) than gas (which I think is true for the creation of bots, haven't checked the math). Because what happens is that you slowly build up an excess of gas and light oil so the system will stall eventually if you don't have an alternative sink for these 2 liquids (e.g. making rocket fuel).
It is true that I wasn't doing anything else besides creating robots (but that needs both lub and gas for batteries and plastics).

Even then, you are demanding 6 Petroleum Gas to 2 Heavy Oil, so if you are having issues with petrol and LO stacking up, consider switching to Basic Oil Processing (3 to 3 to 4 ratio for HO-LO-Petrol), even if you crack all the LO to Petrol, you still get 3 HO to 6 Petrol which means more than enough HO, you should be running out of petrol eventually, and can then switch back to Advanced Oil Processing for a while. (there you have a 1 HO to 5.5-8.5 Petrol, depending on how much LO you are cracking, which is why you can run into petrol overflow making logi bots).

Note: #s change when Prod modules are used in cracking plants, in general ratio of HO to Petrol gets smaller (more petrol), but even with 2x prod3 in LO cracking plants and all LO cracked to petrol, Basic Oil Processing should still leave you with enough HO relative to Petrol (Ratio is 3 to 6.4 there, which is still 2 to 4.2(6)...<6, so plenty enough HO).

[Harkonnen604]

What's the problem in putting like 16 tanks for PG and LB (with pumps at exit) and a lot of chemical plants to convert HO/LO instantly before they start blocking the whole process? In other words - what is the purpose of storing HO/LO?

[brunzenstein]

What's the problem in putting like 16 tanks for PG and LB (with pumps at exit) and a lot of chemical plants to convert HO/LO instantly before they start blocking the whole process? In other words - what is the purpose of storing HO/LO?

The point is that the oil resource / well is used economical and don't run dry producing / dumping in never uses storage tanks.

[Kelderek]

There is very little point in storing any of the liquids, certainly not more than a single tank. You will still run into these deadlock problems when your tanks fill up. Tanks are useful for the ability to measure the liquid, but that is really only important for a few of the liquids, for other liquids you can safely convert the entire amount when using it without needing a measurement.

[Jupiter]

What's the problem in putting like 16 tanks for PG and LB (with pumps at exit) and a lot of chemical plants to convert HO/LO instantly before they start blocking the whole process? In other words - what is the purpose of storing HO/LO?

The point is that the oil resource / well is used economical and don't run dry producing / dumping in never uses storage tanks.

No, the point is to never let your wells stop producing. A well can provide an infinite amount of oil so not always 24/7 producing at max capacity is actually a waste of oil. You use a little for lub, acid and plastic and the rest goes into fuel.

[Harkonnen604]

What's the problem in putting like 16 tanks for PG and LB (with pumps at exit) and a lot of chemical plants to convert HO/LO instantly before they start blocking the whole process? In other words - what is the purpose of storing HO/LO?

The point is that the oil resource / well is used economical and don't run dry producing / dumping in never uses storage tanks.

This can be achieved as well by limiting PG/LB storage to just 1 tank and smart pump system that produces PG/LB/SF in desired proportion, so if your proportions were wrong you don't waste more than one tank (still it's a tank of LB or PG, not a tank of HO/LO).

[Frightning]

What's the problem in putting like 16 tanks for PG and LB (with pumps at exit) and a lot of chemical plants to convert HO/LO instantly before they start blocking the whole process? In other words - what is the purpose of storing HO/LO?

The point is that the oil resource / well is used economical and don't run dry producing / dumping in never uses storage tanks.

No, the point is to never let your wells stop producing. A well can provide an infinite amount of oil so not always 24/7 producing at max capacity is actually a waste of oil. You use a little for lub, acid and plastic and the rest goes into fuel.

This is precisely the reason why Crude Oil and its derivatives are worth storing in the event that you are producing more than you are consuming. That said, you also want to crack as needed to satiate demand (thereby reducing storage needs and optimally converting Crude Oil Products into the proportions you actually need).