Oil refinary output logjams (pre-SP3)

[Gregorovitch]

I seem to be getting problems with plastics and battery production halted because heavy and light oil conversion to solid fuel keeps getting clogged up - I have nothing else to do with oil at the moment and don't use the solid fuel either.

Is it correct that if the refinery cannot output the heavy and light oil then it stops producing petroleum gas as well (i.e. its all or nothing so to speak)?

I know there are lots of things to do about this but most of the sensible ones require Oil Processing 2 which in turn requires Science Pack 3's which in turn require plastic and batteries which of course require Petroleum Gas - hence the chicken and egg problem. Made worse when you are trying to build Science Pack 3 production for the first time I might add.

[Edit] Sugar I meant to post this in the help sub-forum - could some kind person move it for me?

[JoeSchmoe]

Make bigger storage tanks for light / dark.
Start using the solid fuel in all of your burners / boilers.
Or stockpile the solid fuel in chests.

[BurnHard]

You can crack heavy oil into light oil, and light oil into petrolem gas in the chemical plants after researching advanced oil processing. Before that, just build enough storage tanks for light and heavy oil. Personally I never create solid fuel, because the wells run almost dry sooner or later.

[chainedlupine]

My solution was to fast-track Advanced Oil Processing. A single storage tank of crude oil will make a lot of a batteries and plastic bars, more than enough to do the necessary research. You just have to plan ahead and make sure your science assemblers are ready to accept plastic bars and batteries and that you already have an electronics production line up and running (for advanced electronics).

Another solution is to insert storage tanks at every output of your refinery and leave enough room to add more storage tanks if needed. That requires a lot of space and a somewhat ugly pipe arrangement, however, at least IMHO.

[Gregorovitch]

My solution was to fast-track Advanced Oil Processing. A single storage tank of crude oil will make a lot of a batteries and plastic bars, more than enough to do the necessary research. You just have to plan ahead and make sure your science assemblers are ready to accept plastic bars and batteries and that you already have an electronics production line up and running (for advanced electronics).

Another solution is to insert storage tanks at every output of your refinery and leave enough room to add more storage tanks if needed. That requires a lot of space and a somewhat ugly pipe arrangement, however, at least IMHO.

Yeah, obviously the "planing ahead" bit is a problem the first time you do it since you have no idea what you're doing at that stage. It's probably a good idea to make the necessary science pack 3's more or less manually with minimal commitment to get Advanced Oil Processing first, but of course you don't know that to start with. Trying to figure out automating Science Pack 3 production at the same time as trying to figure out the oil refining system and particularly the piping systems you need is too much IMO - too many moving parts to learn at once.

The two things that made it extra difficult for me were a) cross-contamination of pipes and b) dealing with the unwanted heavy and light oil. I can see why the pipes automatically connect to each other the way they do as this is very convenient and time saving in many situations, but here it's a real problem until you get an idea of how to lay things out and learn a few tricks. Equally it's totally realistic that if you put oil through fractional distillation you get a variety of products, you can't just get the gas you want, but it makes life difficult getting Science Pack 3 up.

All in all i would say Science Pack 3 is a big difficulty spike, but dovetailing the Oil tech into the mix turns it into a mind f*ck.

[Hazard]

You can just pour the light and heavy oil fractions into a steam engine and see it magically disappear. A bit exploitative of the game mechanics (it should lead to a mass pollution spike at minimum) but it's one way to solve the clogged pipes problem.

[chainedlupine]

Yes, it becomes a nightmare rapidly. My first factory was a mess and never quite that functional when I hit that hump.

My second fared a bit better, because I knew I needed Adv Oil Processing in advance this time. But it became a nightmare to manage. (See below!) I am not at all happy with it because there's zero space to upgrade and/or adjust percentages. But I produce batteries and plastic bars in enough quantity that I can advance in the game.

I am sure my third factory will be a lot better.

I do think piping needs some work. It's not as clear-cut as the belt transport system. Pipes don't have linearly like the belts, so it's hard to set up concurrent networks, as you need to make sure to mix dissimilar pipe types (underground/regular) so the regulars won't try to cross-connect fluid sources.

[SuperSandro2000]

Your second factory is also a mess. A picture of my oil industry.