Factorio Forums

Problem: Electrolyte is replenished without any source attached to the Electromagnetic plant in which it's being used
Mods: Base game + Space Exploration DLC + Editor Extensions

To recreate:
1 - Place a Electromagnetic plant and select any recipe which uses electrolyte;
2 - Fill with all ingredients and fill the buffer of Electrolyte;
3 - Remove all sources of Electrolyte
4 - Plant will now produce without consuming Electrolyte.

Things I've observed:
-I have tested it across saves and it is repeatable;
-Crafts around 80 batches until it starts consuming Fluid again for no discernible reason;
-Only affects Electrolyte other fluids behave normally;

Setup I used to test:
Connect the pipe to fill the buffer then disconnect it again;
Here's video proof that I'm not insane System:
-Ryzen 7 7800x3D
-Radeon RX 7900 XT
-Windows 10 x86

I also found this bug and I searched the forum and found this post.

I was making blue circuits with sulfuric acid in the electromagnetic plant. I noticed the amount of acid was staying at 400 units even after I disconnected the pipe.

I investigated and figured out the reason. The building actually can hold double the amount shown. I verified this by filling up one plant with "400" units of sulfuric acid and connecting a second one and the amount of fluid balanced between both and shown just under 400 units, as the first plant was actively consuming it.

Video: https://youtu.be/IP7f9O7yi7Y

I have noticed EM plants have excessively large internal buffers, more than just what's shown in the recipe screen. It's not unlimited, I can't remember the exact number though I did count it at the time, but I got a lot of crafts out of an unconnected plant.

edit: I repeated my test. Can confirm an EM plant crafting superconductors can hold 800 light oil, 400 is shown in the recipe screen. So it does not start visibly depleting until 80 crafts (ignoring productivity) have been completed. As noted by the other posts here.

It's no secret, you can see the internal fluid boxes from the source at:
Factorio\data\space-age\prototypes\entity\entities.lua
Line 1660 starts "electromagnetic-plant".
There should be 4 fluid boxes, volumes 200, 200, 100 and 100. They are necessary for the plant's operation.

I would query why it is not possible to display the combined total in the interface, but if it's a current limitation then sure not a bug. Just unintuitive and will continue to cause confusion.

Ref 122194.

The_Sane wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 9:18 am I have noticed EM plants have excessively large internal buffers, more than just what's shown in the recipe screen. It's not unlimited, I can't remember the exact number though I did count it at the time, but I got a lot of crafts out of an unconnected plant.

Also noticed this with the excessive buffers but otherwise, I think it would be possible to run into issues on the opposite end of the spectrum (e.g. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=120867)

This isn't actually a bug, but it is unintuitive. The plant has two "pools" of electrolyte: the internal buffer that you see in the GUI, and the portion that forms a fluid segment. The internal buffer is pulling from electrolyte that is inside the segment, giving the illusion of free fluid.

Right now I am leaning towards simply removing this double-buffering nonsense, but that means input-starved EM plants won't consume fluid evenly like other crafting machines will. It's a trade-off.

raiguard wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2024 9:12 pm This isn't actually a bug, but it is unintuitive. The plant has two "pools" of electrolyte: the internal buffer that you see in the GUI, and the portion that forms a fluid segment. The internal buffer is pulling from electrolyte that is inside the segment, giving the illusion of free fluid.

Right now I am leaning towards simply removing this double-buffering nonsense, but that means input-starved EM plants won't consume fluid evenly like other crafting machines will. It's a trade-off.

I think clarity is more important than even consumption. Hiding information from the player makes it harder to understand what's going on, and if you don't understand what's going on it's harder to make good decisions about what to do.

Even consumption is something that the player should address in an input starved situation.