Factorio Forums

I have a nuclear reactor that stops working properly as soon as I load my save on the 1.1.57 version.
The orange line, which was stable for dozens of hours, dropping only when there was no energy use, becomes irregular in the exact moment the game loads into the 1.1.57 version.

This is the same save, loaded in a 1.1.56 game:
It keeps working as intended.

Now, if you look at the reactor, all the heat and steam are for some reason going to only one side, leaving the other completely dry. In the images below you can see that a heat exchanger is producing steam at full speed, and yet a turbine that's no more than 10 pipes away is not getting fulfilled (it's consumption was actually dropping). The turbine bellow that is getting 0 steam.
I have included the save (JP1.zip) that was created in the 1.1.56 version, so it should be easy to observe the graph changes. I've also included a sandbox game with only the nuclear plant, which can generate around 2.2 GW just fine in any version that's not the last.

I hope that's enough information, but if you need anything else just let me know.

Would a mod kindly move this to the Bug Report section, I have no idea how it went in Gameplay Help, since I clicked the add post from there (maybe the fact that I had to login in between).

I'll move it once someone else can confirm that there is an issue.

I dont have time for deep analys, but can you post a screen at night ? So it is visible where the heat is ?
Also check the water supply.

gGeorg wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 31, 2022 9:39 pm

I dont have time for deep analys, but can you post a screen at night ? So it is visible where the heat is ?
Also check the water supply.

This was taken on 1.1.57. In this screenshot, the heat pipe on the bottom right side is 80º hotter than the left one (and climbing). Since the last patch, the plant is distributing heat and steam unevenly, if though it's symmetrical. The water is not a problem, as you can see it's built on top of it.

I've used this design for hundreds of hours, in different games, without any issues. It's just behaving differently in 1.1.57. If you want to test it, you would need to load in both 1.1.56 and 1.1.57 and see how the simulation behaves differently.

This post is not intended as a gameplay help, but as a bug report, since I'm 100% sure the reason is technical. If the heat/fluid simulation was changed purposely, I'm fine with it, but if not, I believe it's worth a look.

Interesting. I made a lot of testing power plants, there is such trick.
Make sure your steam flows like this : Heater > Turbine > Storage
or
Storage > Heater > Turbine

When you place storage in the midle (Heater > Storage > Turbine) of the flow, it could work as a plug. Due to flow preassure mechanics.
Could you remove/reposition your steam storage in center ? (those four blocks right next to heaters) For example move them behind turbines.
then let it go for a while, then check if temperatures stabilize.

it is possible that those latest optimizations, changed fluid operations, so some effect could be stronger now.

gGeorg wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 01, 2022 1:42 am

Interesting. I made a lot of testing power plants, there is such trick.
Make sure your steam flows like this : Heater > Turbine > Storage
or
Storage > Heater > Turbine

When you place storage in the midle (Heater > Storage > Turbine) of the flow, it could work as a plug. Due to flow preassure mechanics.
Could you remove/reposition your steam storage in center ? (those four blocks right next to heaters) For example move them behind turbines.
then let it go for a while, then check if temperatures stabilize.

it is possible that those latest optimizations, changed fluid operations, so some effect could be stronger now.

Thanks for the feedback. I might eventually remake this to accommodate the changes in the game, and your suggestion seems a good way to make it less susceptible to them. For now I'm playing on the previous version, since we are on a testing branch and all, so it's possible this will change again (or not) until the stable release.

I was sad then the fluid system overhaul that was supposed to improve this was abandoned. Maybe in the new expansion would be a good opportunity?

Something did change with fluids. My nuclear plant is also misbehaving, and my flamers/border defence which has been working great for about 100 hours started misbehaving as well.
I am not sure, what is causing this yet.

What operating system(s) are you all using and what version of the game are you running?

This nuclear setup collapses on .57 but runs fine on .56 with windows 7.

Rseding91 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 01, 2022 3:38 pm

What operating system(s) are you all using and what version of the game are you running?

Windows 10, the power plant works in 1.1.56 and breaks on 1.1.57.

Thanks for the report however I looked into this more and can confirm nothing was changed around fluids or heat in 1.1.57 compared to 1.1.56.

What you are seeing is built-order related issues with fluid flow. When prototype data changes the fluid system order is re-built and as such it acts like you re-placed the pipes in a different order.

You can confirm this behavior by loading 1.1.56 and holding "control" while loading the map: it will force the prototype-data-changed flag to true. Or, add or remove any mod from the save will also trigger it.

Your setup(s) were built with a specific update order in mind and when it changed they started performing differently. We don't currently have any solution for this. If you search around you'll find several posts talking about it.

Rseding91 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 01, 2022 4:03 pm

Thanks for the report however I looked into this more and can confirm nothing was changed around fluids or heat in 1.1.57 compared to 1.1.56.

What you are seeing is built-order related issues with fluid flow. When prototype data changes the fluid system order is re-built and as such it acts like you re-placed the pipes in a different order.

You can confirm this behavior by loading 1.1.56 and holding "control" while loading the map: it will force the prototype-data-changed flag to true. Or, add or remove any mod from the save will also trigger it.

Your setup(s) were built with a specific update order in mind and when it changed they started performing differently. We don't currently have any solution for this. If you search around you'll find several posts talking about it.

This is very interesting, thank you for the feedback.