Friday Facts #305 - The Oil Changes

[Theikkru]

I'd like to just toss this out completely separate from my earlier ideas, but I find the "sulfur from all oil products" idea interesting. If it were scaled so that heavy oil yields the most, followed by light oil and finally petroleum, it would be somewhat realistic, while also changing it from a blocking factor to a balancing factor for oil outputs. The one obvious downside, of course, is that it adds two additional recipes.

[V453000]

So, I tried implementing the Heavy + Petroleum gas BOP.

Option 1: Solid fuel in Chemical science pack, Sulfur made from PG
- "don't make me produce SF inefficiently" people will hate. I don't find it to be a huge deal though, and it would be completely clear that AOP unlocks more efficient Solid Fuel - it could even be written in the technology description.
- AOP still mandatory for rocket fuel
- the idea of increasing the amount of solid fuel for the science pack is not stupid at all, the player could put all Heavy into SF if they do not use Lubricant, or add from PG if they are, or if they want to burn some
- easy change, no need for math as petroleum gas has a sink pretty much always (sulfur and/or plastic)

Option 2: Sulfur in Chemical science pack, Sulfur made from Heavy
- AOP still mandatory for rocket fuel
- Solid fuel only used by itself when the player would want to burn it or to boost vehicle speed
- the amount of obtainable sulfur would be limited by amount of consumed PG, which would be mainly for plastic. From quickly browsing through a few saves from different stages of the game I'm reading between 1,5x up to the theoretical 8,5x (science production only) more Petroleum gas being used by plastic than sulfur, which is a big range but having BOP make 1:1 heavy and gas would probably be a safe option, as the 8,5x would just use more cracking, likely AOP. Coal liquefaction is always there to increase the heavy:gas ratio.
With AOP and Coal liquefaction the amount of obtainable sulfur would also be limited by the amount of Light oil consumed, but that could be translated into Petroleum Gas.
Still, needing more Heavy for Sulfur than Gas for Plastic would probably be a very rare case to occur, and the player has the chance to adjust the ratio further by switching solid fuel production from gas on, in case PG backs up.
Chemical science pack alone would need 4 times more gas for plastic than heavy for sulfur (if the science pack needed 1 sulfur), unless the science pack 4x Sulfur which I would not have a problem with. If the player produced only up to Chemical science, BOP with a ratio of 1:1 would work forever. If the player needs lubricant/batteries, or more plastic for building purposes (robots, modular armor, modules, ...), they would need to somehow handle the excess on one side or the other.
I didn't do enough math yet on how much/ratio should AOP do. Coal liquefaction should definitely make a lot of heavy oil, same or similar as it does now.

[Theikkru]

- "don't make me produce SF inefficiently" people will hate. I don't find it to be a huge deal though, and it would be completely clear that AOP unlocks more efficient Solid Fuel - it could even be written in the technology description.

Please also consider tweaking either the heavy or gas solid fuel recipes slightly, so that players will see immediately that there are differences between solid fuel recipes, even before light oil. (For example, make the gasheavy one 15 so that it's slightly better than gasheavy.)

Edit: Option 1 is growing on me.

Edit2: Probably makes more realism sense for heavy to be the more efficient one at making a solid...

[Serenity]

- "don't make me produce SF inefficiently" people will hate. I don't find it to be a huge deal though, and it would be completely clear that AOP unlocks more efficient Solid Fuel - it could even be written in the technology description.

I don't think it's a deal breaker either. Switching between different sources for SF is a nice option to clear backlogs. Seeing SF made from petroleum isn't that uncommon among YouTubers. They just set it up in a way that LO is used when possible and PG is only a last resort.
When SF was introduced in science I set up a system that switched the SF type depending on what oil I had, but I found that it's not really necessary there. You just don't need much. And later on you have a proper SF/rocket fuel plant.

Making SF from HO for a while is fine. Most people will still get AOP soon and can switch if they want

Having different sulfur recipes could be nice for the same reasons, but I can understand that you don't want more recipes

[Adamo]

So, I tried implementing the Heavy + Petroleum gas BOP.

Option 1: Solid fuel in Chemical science pack, Sulfur made from PG
- "don't make me produce SF inefficiently" people will hate. I don't find it to be a huge deal though, and it would be completely clear that AOP unlocks more efficient Solid Fuel - it could even be written in the technology description.
- AOP still mandatory for rocket fuel
- the idea of increasing the amount of solid fuel for the science pack is not stupid at all, the player could put all Heavy into SF if they do not use Lubricant, or add from PG if they are, or if they want to burn some
- easy change, no need for math as petroleum gas has a sink pretty much always (sulfur and/or plastic)

Option 2: Sulfur in Chemical science pack, Sulfur made from Heavy
- the amount of obtainable sulfur would be limited by amount of consumed PG, which would be mainly for plastic. From quickly browsing through a few saves from different stages of the game I'm reading between 1,5x up to the theoretical 8,5x (science production only) more Petroleum gas being used by plastic than sulfur, which is a big range but having BOP make 1:1 heavy and gas would probably be a safe option, as the 8,5x would just use more cracking, likely AOP. Coal liquefaction is always there to increase the heavy:gas ratio.
With AOP and Coal liquefaction the amount of obtainable sulfur would also be limited by the amount of Light oil consumed, but that could be translated into Petroleum Gas.
Still, needing more Heavy for Sulfur than Gas for Plastic would probably be a very rare case to occur, and the player has the chance to adjust the ratio further by switching solid fuel production from gas on, in case PG backs up.
Chemical science pack alone would need 4 times more gas for plastic than heavy for sulfur (if the science pack needed 1 sulfur), unless the science pack 4x Sulfur which I would not have a problem with. If the player produced only up to Chemical science, BOP with a ratio of 1:1 would work forever. If the player needs lubricant/batteries, or more plastic for building purposes (robots, modular armor, modules, ...), they would need to somehow handle the excess on one side or the other.
I didn't do enough math yet on how much/ratio should AOP do. Coal liquefaction should definitely make a lot of heavy oil, same or similar as it does now.

While on the point of ratios: can we please change the new AOP recipe so that we are not magically creating more fluid? I know we don't want to always worry about realism at every stage, but at some point, let's be sure we aren't moving from playable semi-reality into the land of fantasy. The new ratios for AOP magically create 15 extra fluid. The BOP ratio: 100 CO--->45PG is reasonable enough, since while there is almost certainly nowhere near that much PG in crude oil, at least we're not magically creating new fluid.

Regarding the rest: Sulfur is a by-product of oil refining. There is far more sulfur available in oil than we can practically use, and in fact, we have invented new ways of using sulfur (such as using it as concrete) simply because it's piling up in mountains in real life and we want to figure out how to get rid of it all. In other words, if the situation is that there is plenty of sulfur compared to the other outputs, then you're probably on the right track. That said, it seems like this option has thrown out the idea that the new players can't handle multiple outputs: this option now requires them to again be able to figure out how to handle those multiple outputs to move on, which I thought we were trying to avoid.

It was based off last week’s changes but adding a heavy+light only recipe unlockable in logistic science. This process had petroleum gas as an input which would make sure the most basic one has to be done first, and this process was completely optional - the player could skip it and go to AOP directly. There was no cracking available before AOP. This would require keeping solid fuel in chemical science pack as a use for light oil.

Bit confused here, are you saying Petroleum=>Heavy+Light oil or Crude oil+Petroleum=>Heavy+Light oil?
I dislike the former but the latter's an interesting option I'd say, even if my gut reaction is "Why Petroleum make Heavy/Light?"

It was the latter.

V453000, please stop considering this option. Petroleum gas is gas that has been *removed from* the heavy and light hydrocarbons/oils. There is zero sense in then recombining it.

I really want to and will give the PG+HO more thought, but I'm not very optimistic.

The second thing that I have been considering recently would be to make BOP output heavy and gas only, no light. The point of “oil processing only feels like a complicated process if it has multiple outputs” is quite valid. This would allow to keep robots before chemical science. The argument of robots being a confusing trap that seems to be low tier, but requires many recipes can also be interpreted as a good thing, and a choice to discover.
The problem would be that heavy oil would need some use other than lubricant, as lubricant is entirely optional in this stage. Reverting the sulfur in science would help this for sure, but the point of “don’t make me produce SF out of anything else than light oil” has some value too, so I would keep sulfur in the chemical science pack.
Making sulfur from heavy oil instead of gas would work, and I can see it would make a lot more sense chemically, but heavy oil production would need a lot of number tweaks. Correct me if I’m wrong but petroleum gas would only go into plastic?

Maybe I could find a new place that would consume petroleum gas in addition to the existing recipe... Explosives? Batteries? Lubricant?
The science pack could easily be balanced in a way where the ratio of heavy:gas produced is the same as consumed when only making science. The rest of your consumption could either be smaller than a storage tank’s worth, or you would need additional storage until you could get AOP.

I’ll give it some more thought and try to implement the second option, and see where I get stuck or find issues.

Petroleum gas has about three uses: extremely clean motor fuel; heating and cooking; and refrigeration. It contains the *smallest* amounts of sulfur of the oils. Making plastic from it is typically either not easily possible or inefficient. But yet we have a sort of confusion going on where we're using petroleum gas to do these things. Let's please not make that any worse. No, petroleum gas would not be used in making store-able explosives, batteries, or lubricant. Making plastic is at least passable, since there is ethane, a precursor to polyethylene, in small concentrations, in petroleum gas. Leaving petroleum gas to only be used to make fuel and plastic is something that seems weird, but if you keep landing on the idea, it's probably because this is literally all petroleum gas is useful for, and arguably not even for making plastic.

At the point of BOP I would suggest making at least 2 products in the refinery and give 2 clear purposes for them. For example make it LO and PG and change Sulfur to be made from LO only.

So your max possibe sulfur is limited by plastic consumption?

A similar effect can occur with other solutions but only with lubricant and rocket fuel. You probably don't need to be producing only rocket fuel at any stage. Lubricant maybe. But sulfur is quite likely in case of solar upgrades/uranium mining/laser turrets.

you'd need lots of sulfur, you'd end up with excess petroleum if you use AOP or BOP or even Coal Liquefaction.

EDIT: the other risk is if you want to produce a lot of accumulator, you'd need to consume the PG somehow.

This is a big deal, and the response I gave to why there are so many things in PG. With the way cracking works everything else can reach this issue.

If you just removed light oil from coal liquefaction this would mean that you could always get all the heavy oil you need.

You could still get deadlocked by having too much petroleum gas though, simply because you aren't consuming enough plastic and your solid fuel is backed up.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing! But it appears to be what the change to BOP is trying to avoid.

At the point of BOP I would suggest making at least 2 products in the refinery and give 2 clear purposes for them. For example make it LO and PG and change Sulfur to be made from LO only.

So your max possibe sulfur is limited by plastic consumption?

A similar effect can occur with other solutions but only with lubricant and rocket fuel. You probably don't need to be producing only rocket fuel at any stage. Lubricant maybe. But sulfur is quite likely in case of solar upgrades/uranium mining/laser turrets.

It's silly to make sulfur from PG or by consuming any oil. We've been doing it forever and nobody complains. Sulfur is removed from oil in the refining process, to decontaminate the oil. We don't burn away heavy oil to get at the sulfur. There's far too much sulfur in the heavy oil and when we remove even the smallest necessary amounts we end up with *way too much sulfur*, which is why there are piles of it sitting outside our real-life refineries. So, if you want to put sulfur somewhere, I suggest you continue with the magic we have now, and put it anywhere that makes sense for gameplay (heavier oils are better for making chemical sense) that helps to balance the other, more realistic, outputs; or, reconsider the process altogether and realize that sulfur should be removed as a solid (well, really, as hydrogen sulfide, and then converted to a solid or to sulfuric acid) as part of the refining process, without destroying the oil it came from.

[Theikkru]

[...] So, if you want to put sulfur somewhere, either continue with the magic we have now, and put it anywhere that makes sense for gameplay (heavier oils are better for making chemical sense), or, reconsider the process altogether and realize that sulfur should be removed as a solid (well, really, as hydrogen sulfide, and then converted to a solid or to sulfuric acid) as part of the refining process, without destroying the oil it came from.

Unfortunately, having sulfur removed from refineries would make it a 4th blocking factor in the multiple outputs problem, so, as much as I like realism, I'd have to vote "magic" here, on the grounds that in direct conflict, game design trumps realism.

[Adamo]

[...] So, if you want to put sulfur somewhere, either continue with the magic we have now, and put it anywhere that makes sense for gameplay (heavier oils are better for making chemical sense), or, reconsider the process altogether and realize that sulfur should be removed as a solid (well, really, as hydrogen sulfide, and then converted to a solid or to sulfuric acid) as part of the refining process, without destroying the oil it came from.

Unfortunately, having sulfur removed from refineries would make it a 4th blocking factor in the multiple outputs problem, so, as much as I like realism, I'd have to vote "magic" here, on the grounds that in direct conflict, game design trumps realism.

This is what I proposed, yes: put it anywhere that makes sense for gameplay. The point is that sulfur is already the magic piece, and we all accept it and it's "good enough", so put it where it will fill in the gap, relative to the other things that have better realism. I will edit that line in the original post to improve clarity.

on the grounds that in direct conflict, game design trumps realism.

This is a false dichotomy that occurs under a lack of imagination.

[Antaios]

While on the point of ratios: can we please change the new AOP recipe so that we are not magically creating more fluid? I know we don't want to always worry about realism at every stage, but at some point, let's be sure we aren't moving from playable semi-reality into the land of fantasy. The new ratios for AOP magically create 15 extra fluid. The BOP ratio: 100 CO--->45PG is reasonable enough, since while there is almost certainly nowhere near that much PG in crude oil, at least we're not magically creating new fluid.

Not that I want to advocate these changes, because as per my last post I still firmly believe there is plentiful evidence to support the idea that this 'problem' is imagined and is merely a psychological response to the game state at that point in time combining with the relative fun/rewards of the various tasks at that stage in the tech tree. But,

Does the 50 water count for nothing?
I know very little about real life oil processing, but could we not explain away the extra fluid because we add water?
150 fluid in
(50 water, 100 crude)
125 fluid out
(55 Petroleum gas, 45 Light oil, 25 Heavy oil)

Or did I miss something?

[Adamo]

While on the point of ratios: can we please change the new AOP recipe so that we are not magically creating more fluid? I know we don't want to always worry about realism at every stage, but at some point, let's be sure we aren't moving from playable semi-reality into the land of fantasy. The new ratios for AOP magically create 15 extra fluid. The BOP ratio: 100 CO--->45PG is reasonable enough, since while there is almost certainly nowhere near that much PG in crude oil, at least we're not magically creating new fluid.

Not that I want to advocate these changes, because as per my last post I still firmly believe there is plentiful evidence to support the idea that this 'problem' is imagined and is merely a psychological response to the game state at that point in time combining with the relative fun/rewards of the various tasks at that stage in the tech tree. But,

Does the 50 water count for nothing?
I know very little about real life oil processing, but could we not explain away the extra fluid because we add water?
150 fluid in
(50 water, 100 crude)
125 fluid out
(55 Petroleum gas, 45 Light oil, 25 Heavy oil)

Or did I miss something?

Yes, the 50 water counts for nothing. It doesn't have any oil in it, or even carbon.

[Theikkru]

on the grounds that in direct conflict, game design trumps realism.

This is a false dichotomy that occurs under a lack of imagination.

There is no dichotomy here; this is a conditional statement, and the only implied claim in context is that adding another blocking factor to the multiple outputs problem constitutes a direct conflict, satisfying that condition. I am basing that implied claim upon the devs' reluctance to change BOP from the initial 1 to 2, and the increased complexity that entails, i.e. that (one of) the devs' game design goal(s) in this case is a reduction in the problem's complexity. By extension, adding another blocking factor would, by increasing the problem's complexity, constitute said direct conflict. If you believe you have a proposal that avoids this conflict, I'm all ears.

[Adamo]

Option 2: Sulfur in Chemical science pack, Sulfur made from Heavy
- the amount of obtainable sulfur would be limited by amount of consumed PG, which would be mainly for plastic. From quickly browsing through a few saves from different stages of the game I'm reading between 1,5x up to the theoretical 8,5x (science production only) more Petroleum gas being used by plastic than sulfur, which is a big range but having BOP make 1:1 heavy and gas would probably be a safe option, as the 8,5x would just use more cracking, likely AOP. Coal liquefaction is always there to increase the heavy:gas ratio.
With AOP and Coal liquefaction the amount of obtainable sulfur would also be limited by the amount of Light oil consumed, but that could be translated into Petroleum Gas.
Still, needing more Heavy for Sulfur than Gas for Plastic would probably be a very rare case to occur, and the player has the chance to adjust the ratio further by switching solid fuel production from gas on, in case PG backs up.
Chemical science pack alone would need 4 times more gas for plastic than heavy for sulfur (if the science pack needed 1 sulfur), unless the science pack 4x Sulfur which I would not have a problem with. If the player produced only up to Chemical science, BOP with a ratio of 1:1 would work forever. If the player needs lubricant/batteries, or more plastic for building purposes (robots, modular armor, modules, ...), they would need to somehow handle the excess on one side or the other.
I didn't do enough math yet on how much/ratio should AOP do. Coal liquefaction should definitely make a lot of heavy oil, same or similar as it does now.

I don't think I made myself clear in my last post that I am trying to support the idea of moving sulfur to heavy oil. I am not interested in offering any new ideas relative to the change proposed in FFF305. I made my arguments about this idea in FFF304. I am interested in maximizing the goodness of the change, now. However, if this is an alternative to the change you are considering, I am trying to double down on it. I explained in the last post why this is marginally better than pulling sulfur from PG from a chemistry perspective. But the more I think about it, the more I think this could work as an alternative way of bringing attention to the fact that the refinery outputs needs attention. My thinking is that the player would see that two oils have solid products other than solid fuel, rather than just one, which will set off a lightbulb for some people, but it's difficult to know how far that will penetrate through the population. It sounds like this is moving away from the original idea in FFF305, however, and back toward players being required to handle multiple outputs at the BOP level. I want to be very clear on where those boundaries are before I say much else about it. But one off-the-wall idea would be that, like solid fuel, each oil would have an efficiency by which it can produce sulfur: heavy being the most efficient. This has the potential of further aiding that light bulb.

[Adamo]

There is no dichotomy here; this is a conditional statement, and the only implied claim in context is that adding another blocking factor to the multiple outputs problem constitutes a direct conflict, satisfying that condition. I am basing that implied claim upon the devs' reluctance to change BOP from the initial 1 to 2, and the increased complexity that entails, i.e. that (one of) the devs' game design goal(s) in this case is a reduction in the problem's complexity. By extension, adding another blocking factor would, by increasing the problem's complexity, constitute said direct conflict. If you believe you have a proposal that avoids this conflict, I'm all ears.

Quite literally, every conditional statement represents a dichotomy. Also, every conditional statement is an approximation, meaning they are all false dichotomies. But many better than others. But I'm not making any new proposals relative to FFF305 at this time. I have made my positions abundantly clear in FFF304 and earlier in this thread. I am interested in maximizing the goodness of the change, now.

[Theikkru]

Quite literally, every conditional statement represents a dichotomy. Also, every conditional statement is an approximation, meaning they are all false dichotomies.

I'm puzzled by these statements, but I'd rather not press for answers here to avoid derailing the topic. More relevantly:

I know very little about real life oil processing, but could we not explain away the extra fluid because we add water?
[...]

Yes, the 50 water counts for nothing. It doesn't have any oil in it, or even carbon.

The water can nonetheless be a reagent, however. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to hand-wave the number discrepancy away as some sort of partial hydrolysis of the oil products.

[Adamo]

Quite literally, every conditional statement represents a dichotomy. Also, every conditional statement is an approximation, meaning they are all false dichotomies.

I'm puzzled by these statements, but I'd rather not press for answers here to avoid derailing the topic. More relevantly:

Send me a private message if you would like to understand the argument for those statements. I am happy to explain.

I know very little about real life oil processing, but could we not explain away the extra fluid because we add water?
[...]

Yes, the 50 water counts for nothing. It doesn't have any oil in it, or even carbon.

The water can nonetheless be a reagent, however. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to hand-wave the number discrepancy away as some sort of partial hydrolysis of the oil products.

It isn't a reagent that contains hydrocarbons or even carbon, so it wouldn't be able to add oil.

[V453000]

To what degree the multiple outputs are to be present or not could be a variable depending on the specifics of the solution IMO. The FFF changes are removing the multiple outputs completely, and only reintroduces them when a good long-term solution exists (with AOP and cracking), but as you have seen thus far, it's not an unchangeable thing.

There is some merit in the general idea that multiple outputs = the theme of oil processing, and of course the Heavy+Gas solution is compatible with that, while being very conservative in regards to the original BOP.
Considering option 1 (solid fuel in science), it does help a bunch as solid fuel requirements in the science pack could be increased quite easily since Light oil is not available, without getting into ridiculous numbers, without nerfing rocket fuel.
Option 2 is a lot more complex change, with the interesting part that only science production could be made in the same ratio as BOP outputs - and only the things built for non-science (indluding items on belts and fluids in pipes) would cause "multiple outputs problems", which could go either way. However the only solution for the player would be to either store more of one of the things, or convert it to solid fuel and burn it without incentive from a science pack to do so.

[Theikkru]

It isn't a reagent that contains hydrocarbons or even carbon, so it wouldn't be able to add oil.

It wouldn't be able to add carbon content to the oils, no, but it could add total volume to the oil products by breaking apart longer carbon chains into multiple shorter ones that occupy more volume, and tack on some hydrogens and oxygens in the process. Since AOP in the latest proposals would introduce light oil, a lighter oil fraction, this would be consistent.

[ThorsDragon]

I love the new changes, per usual!!

[Adamo]

It isn't a reagent that contains hydrocarbons or even carbon, so it wouldn't be able to add oil.

It wouldn't be able to add carbon content to the oils, no, but it could add total volume to the oil products by breaking apart longer carbon chains into multiple shorter ones that occupy more volume, and tack on some hydrogens and oxygens in the process. Since AOP in the latest proposals would introduce light oil, a lighter oil fraction, this would be consistent.

An oil refinery operates by fractional distillation of products. It does not break apart carbon chains: that's cracking. The average density of the products from a refinery, minus changes for the removal of contaminants (which you argued against modeling, anyway), should be the same as the average density in the crude, unless the temperature is changed.

[Serenity]

However the only solution for the player would be to either store more of one of the things, or convert it to solid fuel and burn it without incentive from a science pack to do so.

The best solution to the whole oil balance puzzle has always been some form of circuit controlled cracking/consumption. The circuit network is quite complicated, but at this stage it's very simple (something > X, activate pump) and oil is a great introduction to it. However it's not something many people will come up with all on their own

[Theikkru]

I'm not sure you know what an oil refinery does.[...] that's cracking. The average density of the products from a refinery, minus changes for the removal of contaminants (which you argued against modeling, anyway), should be the same as the average density in the crude, unless the temperature is changed.

Oh, I'm not trying to claim that the Factorio refinery would be true to its real world counterpart. In fact, I'm basically offering up precisely the possibility that whatever mumbo-jumbo goes on inside those AOP tanks and pipes involves some partial cracking. Since the exiting fluids are measured by what I assume is some rudimentary volumetric unit, any change in density would go unnoticed.