Liquids processing in large quantities

[KAA]

Hi there! So I wonder, how do you produce/transport Oil products (Light OIL, Acid, Petroleum) in large quantities?

I use some ugly setups sometimes making them even worse by balancing with circuitry:

Here is my current Oil processing module:

2021-06-01 15_29_04-Factorio 1.1.34.png (5.51 MiB) Viewed 3860 times

It's pretty obvious and balanced with circuitry.

And here is a station that loads liquid as fast as I can:

2021-06-01 19_14_34-Factorio 1.1.34.png (2.46 MiB) Viewed 3860 times

Logic is used to make wagons fill at equal speed with no loss in throughput.

Acid production - something that I'm not proud of:

2021-06-01 19_20_10-Factorio 1.1.34.png (4.86 MiB) Viewed 3860 times

Fast petroleum wagon unload for plastics - did not figure out anything more clever:

2021-06-01 19_21_12-Factorio 1.1.34.png (4.09 MiB) Viewed 3860 times

These were enough for up to 500 SPM base, but now they are now, so I'm here for the ideas.

How do you do these things in more efficient way and in larger scale?

[astroshak]

Wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system

Look at the flows attainable based on how many piping sections are between each pump. Bear in mind, for Pipe-to-Ground, each piece (going down, and combinator back up) each count as 1, so you have two for any Pipe-to-Ground connection.

Once you know how frequently you need your Pumps, design accordingly. Do NOT try to mix lines together; keep them separate (but in parallel, usually) and discrete. The more cross connections you have, the harder the system has to work. Tee off, or merge into a Storage Tank and then Pump from said Tank. Avoid using Tank<->Tank setups; use pumps after every tank, and ideally before as well (prevents back flow from the tank to the line that is supposed to be supplying it).

Personally, I tend to have a tree system feeding the Storage Tanks for a Loading station. Each Fluid Wagon has two tanks, in series (NOT in parallel) that I fill the Fluid Wagon from. The first tank fills the second tank which fills the train. Assuming all tanks were full when the first train comes, this ensures the second train will have a load even if the second set of storage tanks is not finished refilling. Its just a buffer, in other words. Buffer according to your own needs.

That said … I tend to use 10 or 20 Refineries with my main base. I’ll build a giant 50 or 80 Refinery outpost for processing bulk Crude Oil into Lubricant (shipped to my bot factory), Rocket Fuel (shipped for trains and for Space Science), Nuclear Rocket Fuel (Replaces Rocket Fuel for trains), Sulfur (for science), Sulfur Acid (BC, uranium mining). I’ll make another plant elsewhere that makes Plastic in bulk (takes Crude Oil and Coal in, converts everything to Petroleum Gas and then to Plastic).

I do the math myself. I use a priority system. I prioritize Lubricant production over cracking to Light Oil. I prioritize Rocket Fuel, and then Solid Fuel, over cracking to Petroleum Gas. I prioritize making Sulfur over making Solid Fuel out of the PG - but I prioritize the Solid Fuel MADE FROM Petroleum Gas over the Solid Fuel made from Light Oil in making the Rocket Fuel. This ensures that all the Crude Oil and its products get used, unless Rocket/Nuclear Rocket Fuel also backs up. I do the math to see how many Chem Plants I need to turn *all* of the HO made into Lube. I then determine how many Chem Plants it takes to turn *all* of the Heavy Oil into Light Oil. Knowing how much Light Oil I’m making per second tells me how many Rocket Fuel making machines I can have, and how many Solid Fuel from Light Oil machines I can have, and how many Chem Plants turning Light Oil into Petroleum Gas I can have.

So long as I can run the fluid through one pipe, I’m happy to do that. If I need to run parallel pipes (too much Crude Oil being used, or more likely, too much Petroleum Gas being made and used) I’m not afraid to use parallel pipes there, either. One Advanced Oil Processing Refinery uses 20 Crude Oil/second. At 3 pipe sections between Pumps, that’s one down Pipe to Ground, one up Pipe to ground, and one pipe in between, which is where I tee off to go to the Refinery. One can get over 100 Refineries in a row that way. (Up Pipe to Ground, Pump, Pipe teeing off to refinery, down Pipe to Ground). The pipe sections between the Tee and the Refinery are not important, as even 1000 pipe sections would still provide well above the necessary throughput to run one Refinery. A fully Speed Beacon’d and Productivity Moduled Refinery has a crafting speed, IIRC, of 5.55, meaning it consumes 111 (5.55 * 20) Crude Oil/second, reducing that 100+ Refinery pipe to just over 20 … meaning a need for four such pipes carrying Crude Oil to more than 60 Refineries. Parallel piping!

Think of the Pipes as a multi-speed Bus for your fluids. The longer between Pumps, the less throughput you have. Just don’t connect parallel piping while you are thinking that way and you will be fine.

[disentius]

make smaller, and duplicate?

[Laie]

make smaller, and duplicate?

This. Build smaller refineries but more of them. Ultimately you end up having more train stops, but less traffic per stop.

[KAA]

I'm still thinking on the 1st comment - a lot of info.

But having lot of small refineries has one significant downside for me - that is train control:
a) if refinery train stops have different names then balancing train load for every station becomes complicated as hell.
b) if refinery train stops have same names and separate waiting bays - then trains will still sometimes travel to overloaded refineries while more distanced idle refineries will be left idle.
c) if refinery train stops have same names and same waiting bay - then the structure becomes quite large and it could be much more space efficient with a single large optimized print then a set of small duplicating prints.

That's how I see it.

[disentius]

a) and c) agreed.
b) is avoidable with variable train limits.
you only get delivery problems when you have not enough oil/water sources.

[Laie]

But having lot of small refineries has one significant downside for me - that is train control:

The one thing I learned is that there is no right way to play Factorio. You and me, for example, appear to have wholly different design philosophies. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but just for the heck of it, here's what works for me: This refinery is good for 450 SPM. Rocket fuel is made elsewhere (don't ask).

It doesn't extend too far to the right, 22 refineries deep, just enough to load both petroleum gas pipelines with a little under 1k/sec each. This was important to me. I'd rather build a second refinery than develop one with lots of pumps. Arguably I've put dozens of productivity modules into the plastics plant just to save a few pumps. Ahem.

On the petroleum-consuming end, I've got the plastics factories right next to the train station (that's one way to save a few inserters). My plastics consumers draw, at most, two red belts each. Each of these plastic-producing stations can work a little faster than that. So it's merely a matter of having one plastic-producing station for every plastic-consuming station, and one train for every consuming station. The producing stations will set the train limit to 1 when they have a load ready for pick-up. There's no further balancing mechanism beyond that.

More generally: I do not plan for maximum throughput, "fast enough" will do. I've got four inserters for loading the plastic, only because I also have four factories per wagon; on the unloading side, I only have two inserters per wagon. Yes, that means it takes me more than a minute to unload the train; but as a train feeds no more than two red belts, a train load is good for almost 9 minutes of operation. Even after factoring in the loading and unloading times, that leaves me with 7 minutes to complete the round trip from consumer to refinery and back. I do not feel like I need a waiting area for plastic, neither here nor on the receiving side.

I do have waiting areas for coal/ore/stone, which are consumed in greater quantities and may be brought in from great distances; but the plan is to always have a matching set of plastic producers and consumers in the same neighborhood, so that the average round-trip time can be reasonably short. I have yet to try this at scale, though -- if trains develop a habit of going to the most remote provider, i will be in trouble. For the time being, all distances are short enough that round-trip time is of no concern (also, 7 minutes is a lot).

Finally, there is one point I would like to convince you of: IMO, sulfur for making acid should be directly inserted factory->factory, just like copper wire for green circuits.

[KAA]

The image is not displayed

[Bauer]

So I wonder, how do you produce/transport Oil products (Light OIL, Acid, Petroleum) in large quantities?

I use a few of those.

oil setup.jpg (924.33 KiB) Viewed 3497 times

Oil goes in from the top, Output is PET, rocket fuel, lube.
You need one for 2700 SPM.

I'd love to share the BP but it's too large.

[KAA]

Wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system
...

So, I've read the article and tried your approach just with a little bit different priority system because of some custom science packs production setup.
This really changed everything.
Having this stuff with one line of pipes and pumps set as you've mentioned gives actually 2250/s throughput via factories and 3000/s transition speed which allows to expand very much and the most valuable for me - predictable. Throughput is stable while controlled by pipeline length between pumps.

So now I have much more efficient extendable and robust setups.
Thanks a lot for help!

[KAA]

So I wonder, how do you produce/transport Oil products (Light OIL, Acid, Petroleum) in large quantities?

I use a few of those.
oil setup.jpg


Oil goes in from the top, Output is PET, rocket fuel, lube.
You need one for 2700 SPM.

I'd love to share the BP but it's too large.

Thanks Bauer, this also helps. No need in BP, I've got how it's build. This also gives scale idea which is great. I'm targetting now to 2000 or 2500SPM so it's good to know that I need 75 refineries.
My current setup that I made based on the 1st comment can afford 84 refineries so it seems I'm ok with the capacity. Also rates are clear and it's also useful.