Coal Liquefaction vs Oil?

[Rylant]

So, I haven't crunched the math. I have just discovered a fairly large uranium deposit and will start my uranium process about 15 hours into my current base. It is quite far from my oil production, so piping in Sulfuric Acid isn't realistic. However, there is a large patch of coal, a small patch of iron and a good oil field very close to this uranium deposit. So, making Sulfuric acid on site is quite realistic.

I have a good set up for Oil straight to petroleum and another good set up for Coal straight to petroleum. I have only just researched beacons so neither will be beaconed or moduled. Would it be better for me to go Oil to Petro for Acid? Or Coal to Petro for Acid? I am thinking coal, since coal is more common than Oil, but either is really realistic.

Thanks,
Rylant

[DaveMcW]

Oil depletes to 20%, coal depletes to 0%. So in the long run oil is better.

[cbhj1]

There are a couple questions to ask, is water close enough to not be a pain? And also will the coal patch outlast the uranium (math time)? If not, then the oil patch gets bonus points.

[Rylant]

There are a couple questions to ask, is water close enough to not be a pain? And also will the coal patch outlast the uranium (math time)? If not, then the oil patch gets bonus points.

I use a waterfill mod (a little cheaty?), so water won't be an issue. And I think that both the coal and the oil will outlast the uranium. The uranium is a large patch though (Like 20 million) so it will last a while. And there are closer Oil and Coal patches than these ones; they are far enough away from my base, that I will probably never use the coal or the oil for purposes other than to petro for Acid.

[eradicator]

It is quite far from my oil production, so piping in Sulfuric Acid isn't realistic.

A few stacks of underground pipes actually go a long way. About 9 chunks per stack. For low-throughput applications like uranium mining this has always been sufficient for me. I usually build a pipe parallel to my main train track and throw in a pump after each stack of undergrounds. For distances > 5000 tiles there's also fluid-tank wagons.

As for oil vs coal i'd go whichever one requires fewer buildings == power.

[Jap2.0]

It is quite far from my oil production, so piping in Sulfuric Acid isn't realistic.

A few stacks of underground pipes actually go a long way. About 9 chunks per stack. For low-throughput applications like uranium mining this has always been sufficient for me. I usually build a pipe parallel to my main train track and throw in a pump after each stack of undergrounds. Also don't forget about fluid-tank wagons.

As for oil vs coal i'd go whichever one requires fewer buildings == power.

I second fluid wagons. If it's too far to pipe oil, it's probably also too far to belt uranium, which means you'll probably have train infastructure.

[Aeternus]

Yep. A simple dual train station - 2 wide to load Uranium, 1 wide to unload acid. The amount of acid required is so low that you can service multiple uranium mines with a single train. Simply disable the acid unload stations if the amount of acid in the storage tanks at the unload station (assuming you use 2) is >15k.
That way you can keep the acid production near your primary refinery. Like lubricant production, acid production tends to need only a small facility for your entire factory. It is plastic from petroleum and solid fuel (-> rocket fuel) from light oil that are petrochem's primary uses.

Also, I find turning coal into oil wasteful. You'll need a lot of coal for plastic production, and it is a finite resource, unlike oil. If you are using nuclear power, you'll not be burning solid fuel much, so your oil demands should be low.

[MeduSalem]

I agree with Aeternus above. Use a train to deliver the Sulfuric Acid and produce it in your home base somewhere. That way you will never have to tear down the oil infrastructure required to produce the acid once the Uranium patch is gone.


Coal Liquefication is a nice alternative to have in case you are really low on oil and have a lot of excess coal around that you don't need. Otherwise it is better to go for oil.

Also ever since oil output drops to 20% it shouldn't happen as often anymore that people run out of oil.

I still run a very, very old map from an older version of the game though which I don't want to give up, where the oil wells drop to 0.1/s and there's nothing I can do about it because the devs stated they can't fix it retroactively. Believe me... I hate it so much I can't even put it into words. So I have no choice but to also turn coal into oil every now and then and that's where the coal liquefication really comes in handy, otherwise I would be seriously screwed and would have had to abandon the map a long time ago.