Rotational Asymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

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knightelite
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Rotational Asymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

Post by knightelite »

What
I have two blueprints for making rocket fuel which I have designed for this UPS Optimization Challenge. The blueprints contain offshore pumps placed on land, and may require a mod that allows that in order to work correctly. The blueprints are identical except that the pumpjack needs to be in a different spot for the north/south or east/west ones, as the location of the pipe isn't symmetrical on the pumpjack.

These blueprints are designed such that each one should produce 490 rocket fuel/minute, and all rocket fuel assemblers should be active.
Expected behavior
I would expect that when placed, regardless of orientation, the blueprint should produce 490 rocket fuel/minute.
What actually happens
When the blueprint is placed with the pumpjack at the West (Blueprint 1) or South (Blueprint 2) it works as intended.

When the blueprint is placed with the pumpjack at the East (Blueprint 1) or North (Blueprint 2) the last three refineries don't get enough oil to run consistently, and so the last six rocket fuel assemblers don't run, or run only rarely. The blueprint does not produce the expected quantity of rocket fuel.
Additional Notes
The attached save demonstrates the issue. There are 32 instances of these blueprints in the save, and all of them behave as described in the "what actually happens" section.
Attachments
ups_oil_wars.knightelite.testing.zip
(11.61 MiB) Downloaded 48 times
Last edited by knightelite on Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

Rseding91
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Re: Rotational Assymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

Post by Rseding91 »

I haven't actually looked at the save but based off your description I'm guessing it's fluid flow.

If that is the case, I doubt we'll do anything about it. The "fluid system" is a huge time-sink dev trap of never-ending yak-shaving.
If you want to get ahold of me I'm almost always on Discord.

knightelite
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Re: Rotational Assymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

Post by knightelite »

I was referred to this thread, and I agree it seems to be fluid flow unfortunately :( .

I tried removing all the pipes on one of the instances that doesn't behave as expected and replacing them all going from the pumpjack outwards, and it didn't seem to make a difference. I then tried the same with the refineries, and it also didn't change the behavior, so it doesn't seem to be a build order thing.

That seems to indicate it is the fluid flow direction that is the issue, as described here. Though the behavior seems to be the opposite of what is described in that comment for the north/south flow, as it flows better when moving S->N.

I guess I'll have to rotate all of the poorly performing ones to be in directions that perform better.

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Illiou
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Re: Rotational Assymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

Post by Illiou »

Rseding91 wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:49 am
If that is the case, I doubt we'll do anything about it. The "fluid system" is a huge time-sink dev trap of never-ending yak-shaving.
Unfortunately, it's also one of the major causes of frustration in the game right now.

Rseding91
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Re: Rotational Assymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

Post by Rseding91 »

Illiou wrote:
Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:54 pm
Rseding91 wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:49 am
If that is the case, I doubt we'll do anything about it. The "fluid system" is a huge time-sink dev trap of never-ending yak-shaving.
Unfortunately, it's also one of the major causes of frustration in the game right now.
Not really. Most if not all players will launch their first rocket without ever knowing it's "weird". It's only the 500+ hour players who are trying to transfer large volumes of everything in the minimal footprint that run into the issues.
If you want to get ahold of me I'm almost always on Discord.

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Illiou
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Re: Rotational Assymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

Post by Illiou »

Rseding91 wrote:
Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:05 am
Illiou wrote:
Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:54 pm
Rseding91 wrote:
Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:49 am
If that is the case, I doubt we'll do anything about it. The "fluid system" is a huge time-sink dev trap of never-ending yak-shaving.
Unfortunately, it's also one of the major causes of frustration in the game right now.
Not really. Most if not all players will launch their first rocket without ever knowing it's "weird". It's only the 500+ hour players who are trying to transfer large volumes of everything in the minimal footprint that run into the issues.
I wouldn't be so sure of that: I just finished my first proper nuclear power plant design today (nothing fancy, simple 2x2 reactors) and somewhere in the middle of testing it I realized that 2 out of 6 rows of steam turbines were getting essentially no steam while the other 4 were full at all times (with everything being symmetrical of course). So, being majorly frustrated, I had to redesign it to put pumps basically everywhere.

And with my (for this game not unreasonable) 300 hours of gameplay so far it's not the first time I have actively encountered this issue either. And of course, just because some people might not actively notice this issue doesn't mean it isn't negatively impacting their gameplay.

I also think it's especially frustrating because it's at the core of the game mechanics and there is nothing sensible you can do to avoid it. You are just using some simple pipes, like you are supposed to, and then it's just not working without resorting to silly workarounds like spamming pumps.

I would really love to see you reassess the prevalence of issues with the fluid system!

Edit: I should clarify that my original sentence was meant like "of everything that can cause frustration, this causes the most", not "the most common cause of frustration". All of the above still applies of course.
Last edited by Illiou on Fri Apr 24, 2020 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

orzelek
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Re: Rotational Asymetry - Different behavior depending on direction blueprint is placed

Post by orzelek »

This issue and other similar ones are one of reasons I'm staing away from fluid heavy mods.
It's simply to frustrating to try and look why producer/consumer X out of for example 10 of them doesn't want to work.

It also doesn't help to encourage building your own nuclear reactor setup.

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