Oil Help Please!!

Ingress · Post by **Ingress** » Mon Mar 27, 2017 6:53 pm

Ok so I know oil is an overdone subjects but I can not seem to grasp how liquid flows through pipes. Should I use a pump? Ok lests say from oil crackers goes into tank(so I can monitor via circuit network) and then splits into 2 lines for plastic. One line seems to get all the petroleum and the other gets none. Does anyone have a detailed guide on how liquids act in a pip. Have a far out oil barreling base and one assembler barrels all the tanks of oil and the other has like 6 barrels. What gives????

mophydeen · Post by **mophydeen** » Mon Mar 27, 2017 8:05 pm

I only use a pump to stop a flow. Never to push it faster. It's slower than a piece of pipe.

To make an even split in fluids I use a tank and two pumps with conditions. See image or blueprint string below.

The barreling questing I don't understand.

----

blueprint string:
https://pastebin.com/LNG6b0Z0

: Screenshot from 2017-03-21 23-42-37.png (1.91 MiB) Viewed 2394 times

purdueme91 · Post by **purdueme91** » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:11 pm

I remember having the issue with the barrels overflowing at my emptying station and not moving to the filling station which I assume is what you are talking about. Trying to remember that it was the train conditions that caused the issues. I think I solved it by 1) making sure all filled barrels were gone AND 2) there were x number of empty barrels in the cargo at the emptying station. Reversed the conditions at filling station. Doing a wait time killed me because the oil filling was much slower than the emptying. Also doing an OR statement produced the same problem. I was also only running one train on each oil run. Empty barrels in one car, full ones in the other.

Sorry if that doesn't fix it; trying to remember my game from last year where I was barreling prior to using rail tanker. Took a 6 month break from Factorio and I got re-addicted yesterday

mophydeen · Post by **mophydeen** » Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:15 pm

note: also in the blueprint book

unbarreling station has:
- train wagon split in half (200 full barrels, 200 empty barrels)
UNLOAD
- filtered stack inserter to unload full barrels
- steel chest
- inserter
- belts connecting multiple wagons...
- active provider to store excess in following points
- requester chest for 100 full barrels that were stored previously
- belts to connect multiple unbarreling plants
- unbarreling plant

LOAD
- unbarreling plant
- belts to connect multiple unbarreling plants
- active provider to store excess in empty barrels
- requester chest for 100 empty barrels that should be made somewhere else if there aren't enough in the system.
- belts connecting multiple wagons...
- inserter (condition to evenly load the chests)
- steel chest
- stack inserter to load empty barrels

My next version will have a condition to not unbarrel unless the base has < +-75% of crude oil AND if > 95% crude oil it should start barreling (only when there are pumpjacks directly connected to base)

tldr: look at above post for blueprintbook string.

2 older images (current version has smaller train-track footprint)

: Screenshot from 2017-03-21 23-54-36.png (1.58 MiB) Viewed 2356 times

: Screenshot from 2017-03-21 23-40-31.png (608.02 KiB) Viewed 2356 times

Frightning · Post by **Frightning** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 1:08 am

Ingress wrote:Ok so I know oil is an overdone subjects but I can not seem to grasp how liquid flows through pipes. Should I use a pump? Ok lests say from oil crackers goes into tank(so I can monitor via circuit network) and then splits into 2 lines for plastic. One line seems to get all the petroleum and the other gets none. Does anyone have a detailed guide on how liquids act in a pip. Have a far out oil barreling base and one assembler barrels all the tanks of oil and the other has like 6 barrels. What gives????

Liquid physics in this game are actually quite complex, and have some unfortunate quirks to them too (it may be getting overhauled at some point, but now, it is what it is). That said, I've found that machines that produce fluid make plenty of pressure, and hence, Small electric pumps are not needed. They can be useful if you need to run a very long pipe, but then, most people use underground pipes for that (Pipe to ground) which, because can cover 11 tiles, but is treated as just 2 as far as the fluid physics are concerned, so pressure losses are greatly reduced over distance compared to an above ground pipe. The main use for Small electric pumps, imo, is for controlling whether fluids are allowed past them or not. Which I mainly use to regulate the cracking of heavier oil products into lighter ones. I do this by connecting them to the circuit network, and using a few combinators to control the logic of when the pumps are permitted to run (and thus allow fluid into the relevant cracking plants). Each plant has a pump attached to the input side where the relevant input oil product goes, which is connected to the network and set to operate only when the relevant condition is met.

Generally speaking, I've noticed that in shortage conditions, the last machine along a pipe that supplies fluid tends to get priority over the others, and the first machine that is fed by that pipe will be the last to get it's due. I'm honestly not 100% of why the fluid physics work out that way, but it's what seems to happen. (To give you an idea how weird fluid physics in Factorio can get, the order you lay your pipe in actually matters, there are some threads on these boards relating mainly to Steam power where the topic has come up, with some explanations of the underlying fluid mechanics). Realistically, I would simply try and fix the shortage (because if you have more than enough fluid, everything will work just fine).

Hannu · Post by **Hannu** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 6:36 am

Ingress wrote:Ok so I know oil is an overdone subjects but I can not seem to grasp how liquid flows through pipes. Should I use a pump? Ok lests say from oil crackers goes into tank(so I can monitor via circuit network) and then splits into 2 lines for plastic. One line seems to get all the petroleum and the other gets none. Does anyone have a detailed guide on how liquids act in a pip. Have a far out oil barreling base and one assembler barrels all the tanks of oil and the other has like 6 barrels. What gives????

There has been detailed articles, but I can not find it now. Liquid physics is quite complicated and unrealistic. It seems that devs have made some model and tweaked it to work enough for a game using trial and error. (Semi-)Realistic fluid dynamics would need some education in hydrodynamics and skills in scientific programming, which is not very common background for game developers.

Small systems (low flow rate and short distances) work usually without pumps. Pipes can handle about 60 units per sec with moderate flow resistance, but resistance increases steeply at larger flows. In such situations pumps help, but limited capacity of pumps must be taken into account. One pump can pump 30 units/s, but pumps can be used parallel. Typically it is not good idea to put more than 100 unit/s in one pipe.

If you want to split fluid, you can lead it into a tank. You take it out by using 2 (or more) pumps and circuit conditions fluid>50 in both pumps. Then both pumps can work at same tick. I personally think that such tricks are not necessary because plastic and acid productions will balance themselves finally.

brunzenstein · Post by **brunzenstein** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:28 am

Re: Oil Help Please!!
Postby mophydeen » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:05 pm

I like the setting of the blue circuit production on your picture a lot and have copied it to my setting - excellent.
Thank you.
Anyhow - I fail to see where the heavy oil processing unit in the lower left on your picture unloads its product.

mophydeen · Post by **mophydeen** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:27 am

brunzenstein wrote:Re: Oil Help Please!!
Postby mophydeen » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:05 pm

I like the setting of the blue circuit production on your picture a lot and have copied it to my setting - excellent.
Thank you.
Anyhow - I fail to see where the heavy oil processing unit in the lower left on your picture unloads its product.

See blueprint BOOK string or

***>|
***U-
***

cracking *
pump >
pipe |
pipe -
underground pipe U