Factorio Forums

This has nothing to do with power stations.
I want to run a long length of pipe from a small lake to my Sulphuric Acid production. Every setup has caused shortfalls.
What is the optimum way to set up a pipe like this to run at full capacity?
How many offshore pumps per line?
How often do I put normal repeater pumps in with this pipe?(and how many in each section?)
Do 90 degree bends matter ?
(I don't want to use rail for this)

(I searched for nearly an hour and there are lots of conflicting posts, also apparently things changed in 0.15)
ty

p.s. I am using underground pipes

If 1000 water/s is acceptable, you need a pump every 200 pipes. There is a very harsh penalty for going over 1000 fluid/s.

If you want to run your offshore pump at full capacity (1200 water/s) you need a pump every 16 pipes.

If you want to run two offshore pumps at full capacity (2400 water/s) you need a pump between every pipe.

When you say 1000 or 1200 what do you mean ?
If I hover mouse over pipe, I get different values in different places, like 100, 45,16,32...but nothing as large as 1000 ?
ty

dognosh wrote:When you say 1000 or 1200 what do you mean ?
If I hover mouse over pipe, I get different values in different places, like 100, 45,16,32...but nothing as large as 1000 ?
ty

That's how much water is in the pipe. He's talking about how much water goes though the pipe each second, which isn't direcly connected to how much water is in the pipe.

Ty all, still a dark art but I will experiment

dognosh: First you need to know how much water your chem plants/refineries (or whatever) need. If you need less than 1000 water/sec then you need a pump roughly every 200 pipes. (If it's a lot less than 1000 you might get away with a pump every 250 or 300 pipes). If you need more than 1000 water/sec over a long distance then you probably need to run 2 parallel pipes.

Ty, yes was looking at usage

You can also try the alternative and use rail and fluid wagons to haul water back and forth.

i've seen repeater pumps with tanks. is there an optimal setup?

For modest refining needs, I would expect 1000/s is more than enough. But of course I don't know if your refining needs are modest

You can also ship in water by train. I got tired of running pipes, and a single train can provide quite a bit of water...

vanatteveldt wrote:For modest refining needs, I would expect 1000/s is more than enough. But of course I don't know if your refining needs are modest

You can also ship in water by train. I got tired of running pipes, and a single train can provide quite a bit of water...

This. A large train on a closed rail loop can move high volumes across a large distance for relatively low power requirements. And if you need more throughput, you can always add more trains. A single wagon can sustain a turbine for 40 seconds. Takes roughly 5 seconds to fill a wagon with 3 pumps pouring into the tanks. Cordon off the rail that these trains run on though, 'cause the tracks will be busy.

dognosh wrote:When you say 1000 or 1200 what do you mean ?
If I hover mouse over pipe, I get different values in different places, like 100, 45,16,32...but nothing as large as 1000 ?
ty

What you see when hovering over the pipe is more like pressure. The greater the pressure differential the more fluid flows.

Here is how you evaluate your fluid flow:

1) If the pipe in front of the chemical plants reads anything above 0 then you have enough fluids for sure.
2) Even if the pipe in front of the chemical plant reads 0 you might be fine. If it has it's input fluid box full (stops going up) before it starts the next cycle then your pipe is fine.
3) Even if the fluid box is still going up it might be fine if the next cycle can still start. It buffers 2 cycles worth of fluids so anything above 50% full is fine. But this is getting real borderline here. Think about improving the pipe.
4) If you are waiting for fluids then the pipe is certainly not fine.

So what needs to be fixed in the pipe?

Look at the producer that fills the pipe. In your case the offshore pump. Look at the pipe connected to that pump. If it reads 100% pressure then water ifs backed up in the pipe. The pump can't put more water in it. More pumps won't help, the pipe is simply full at that end.

Now if the pipe is at full pressure at one end and no pressure at the other end then the pressure differential is not enough for your fluid flow. You need pumps to increase the differential along the pipe. You want to place pumps at regular intervals, every X pipes. Note that an underground pipe counts as 2 pipes while covering a much longer distance. It's the number of pipes that count, not the distance. Obviously if you consume more fluids than you put in no amount of pumping will fix the shortfall. But then the pipe wouldn't be at 100% pressure at the producer side.

As mentioned in the other posts a pump every 200 pipes gives you 1000 fluid/s while a offshore pump can deliver 1200 fluid/s.Given the cost of an offshore pump I wouldn't bother with doing anything complex like having 6 parallel pipes and pumps per 5 offshore pumps. In my experiences cross connecting pipes only leads to less flow. Build one offshore pump, pipe and pumps for 1000 fluids/s and enough consumers to use that much and then start a separate setup for the next.

As for using tanks it is best to put a pump before and after a tank. While tanks have a large storage volume they don't have a good flow. Try placing 2 tanks 2 m apart. Fill one of them with water. Place a pipe between them and watch how slow the second tank fills up. Do the same but put a pump between them and watch how much quicker the second tank fills up. As a second experiment build 2 tanks 8m apart. Put pipe, pump, pipe, pipe, pump, pipe between the tanks. Then do it again but with pump, pipe, pipe, pipe, pipe, pump.