Anyone use barrels?

[Amarula]

This game is barrels of fun, not pipelines of fun.

This post is great in fact it is barrels of fun

[nr2117]

I did think about it, barrels are fun, but IRL for long distances pipelines require less logistics. Just have a pipe, pumps every certain distance, and monitor for pressure drops.

But in game? pipelines are still a bit confusing. I do put pumps in them at random, never really got a good feel of "I've done x undergrounds and y pipe segments, therefore I need a pump here."

I'm just always wondering why I have far more barrels then what I need. To the point I've had active provider chests fullof the damn things.

[Kahnugo]

If barrels or barreled product ever build up anywhere you need extra barrels to keep the flow going. If this build up ever releases it will flood the system and if you don't have enough buffer to handle the overflow then it will jam.

[causa-sui]

EDIT: Nevermind, I've just found a more optimized fluid wagon unloading setup which empties it in 0.7 seconds.

Uhhh, care to share?

[Yoyobuae]

EDIT: Nevermind, I've just found a more optimized fluid wagon unloading setup which empties it in 0.7 seconds.

Uhhh, care to share?

False result. I failed to account for the time it takes the pump arm to be extended and connect into the fluid wagon.

[4xel]

I did think about it, barrels are fun, but IRL for long distances pipelines require less logistics. Just have a pipe, pumps every certain distance, and monitor for pressure drops.

But in game? pipelines are still a bit confusing. I do put pumps in them at random, never really got a good feel of "I've done x undergrounds and y pipe segments, therefore I need a pump here."

I'm just always wondering why I have far more barrels then what I need. To the point I've had active provider chests fullof the damn things.

Uderground count the same as pipe (so 2 for a pair of undies).

You can find most of the answers here:
https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines

If you need such a throughput over such a distance that it warrants pumps though, the reaonable alternative is fluid wagon, not barrel.

[ptx0]

do a barrel roll.

[ttp]

Actually did use barrels on my first mega-(kilo-!?!)base

I was using LTN, and it seemed that i would frequently have small leftovers in the fluid trains, so ended up using barrels instead.
Empty barrels, production of new barrels when needed - ended up as a fine spaghetti solution, but it did work after all.

[blazespinnaker]

DW marathon with patch frequency cranked to zero (or 1/6, which is the min), has a couple of uses for barrels:

- when the only oil patch is sitting on the edge of a biter megabase, you can't afford to pipe it away as the pumpjacks will generate too much pollution filling the pipes. sipping the oil barrel by barrel until you tech up works rather well.

- may have already been mentioned, but it allows you to precisely control your flame turrets resource usage (include backup) via draining barrels. also, if your oil supply goes for some reason, your turrets still fire.

[Yoyobuae]

- when the only oil patch is sitting on the edge of a biter megabase, you can't afford to pipe it away as the pumpjacks will generate too much pollution filling the pipes. sipping the oil barrel by barrel until you tech up works rather well.

What I did on my pacifist deathworld run was to use deconstruction planner to "disable" the pumpjacks once I had enough oil. Placing a radar next to the pumpjacks allows doing this remotely as well.

[blazespinnaker]

Hmm, for some reason I always thought radar attracted biters, but reading the wiki it says something about "be attacked by enemies that come within very close range, like turrets". Not exactly sure what close range is tho. Same chunk?

Here's my oil field. I'm using fluid wagon now

Screenshot 2021-01-13 144844.png (26.4 KiB) Viewed 7704 times

I suppose I could have gone for trains earlier on, but I wanted to get green modules first.

The problem I think with your solution is the size of the pollution cloud created by filling the pipe between the field and your base. I guess it's a function of how far away it is. Maybe you can do something with pumps. It creates a rather large and unnerving cloud just filling the barrels and fluid wagon.

I'm not playing pacifist at all, but I really have zero idea on how to deal with a base like that unless I've got at least a tank / CSP tech. Not to mention how many big biters are already present in the game at this stage. Fortunately, the green modules help a lot.

[Yoyobuae]

The problem I think with your solution is the size of the pollution cloud created by filling the pipe between the field and your base. I guess it's a function of how far away it is. Maybe you can do something with pumps. It creates a rather large and unnerving cloud just filling the barrels and fluid wagon.

You just put a pump back at base to help drain the pipeline. There really should be that much crude oil per pipe. On my case the pipeline consisted of ~150 underground pipe tiles and contained ~3k crude oil in total.

[jodokus31]

- when the only oil patch is sitting on the edge of a biter megabase, you can't afford to pipe it away as the pumpjacks will generate too much pollution filling the pipes. sipping the oil barrel by barrel until you tech up works rather well.

What I did on my pacifist deathworld run was to use deconstruction planner to "disable" the pumpjacks once I had enough oil. Placing a radar next to the pumpjacks allows doing this remotely as well.

Or cut the powerline

[JimBarracus]

I'm not playing pacifist at all, but I really have zero idea on how to deal with a base like that unless I've got at least a tank / CSP tech. Not to mention how many big biters are already present in the game at this stage. Fortunately, the green modules help a lot.

Kill it with fire. Build some flame thrower turrets.
Yes they are super expensive in the beginning, but they do a lot of damage.
You also have oil there and you can defend it quite easily.

Destroying such a big biter base will skyrocket evolution but you need oil sooner or later and its better in the long run than fighting the biters constantly.

[blazespinnaker]

Kill it with fire. Build some flame thrower turrets.
Yes they are super expensive in the beginning, but they do a lot of damage.
You also have oil there and you can defend it quite easily.

Destroying such a big biter base will skyrocket evolution but you need oil sooner or later and its better in the long run than fighting the biters constantly.

Yeah, I'll start a DW marathon thread to discuss this further. The mods here are very diligent about staying on topic.
I'm actually surprised actually it isn't talked about more and considered the default factorio mode around here. I could never go back to default.

edit: actually I'll post here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=88833&start=80 in an edit on my last post.

[blazespinnaker]

- when the only oil patch is sitting on the edge of a biter megabase, you can't afford to pipe it away as the pumpjacks will generate too much pollution filling the pipes. sipping the oil barrel by barrel until you tech up works rather well.

What I did on my pacifist deathworld run was to use deconstruction planner to "disable" the pumpjacks once I had enough oil. Placing a radar next to the pumpjacks allows doing this remotely as well.

Or cut the powerline

Yeah, cutting the powerline was my ideas well when I was originally thinking about alternatives to the barrel.

I admit I didnt think about radar, but that's probably because I avoid radar due to my assumption (wrong?) that it attracts biters. Also, radar is a horrible horrible power draw. I have just 3 radar down and it's drawing more power than anything in my base. I'm all about solar energy to keep the boiler pollution to a minimum.

I settled on fluid wagon. Partly because I wanted a way to get transported up there, but mostly because trains are fun.

I'm going to try a quick experiment on on filling a long pipe. This is railworld resource frequency and the oil patch is about 4-500 tiles away, but maybe with the right number of pumps it won't create that much pollution. I do have two green modules in all the pumpjacks tho. I'll take them out first as I'm curious.

I'll post here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=88833&start=80 in an edit on my last post about my results.

[jodokus31]

I admit I didnt think about radar, but that's probably because I avoid radar due to my assumption (wrong?) that it attracts biters. Also, radar is a horrible horrible power draw. I have just 3 radar down and it's drawing more power than anything in my base. I'm all about solar energy to keep the boiler pollution to a minimum. There is uranium weirdly very nearby, but on marathon, nuclear is a tad expensive and I'm trying to rush for artillery.

Solar on marathon to reduce pollution? I think, the initial cost (and pollution) is insane in marathon. I would go for solid fuel and then nuclear.

But this gets seriously off topic.

[blazespinnaker]

I admit I didnt think about radar, but that's probably because I avoid radar due to my assumption (wrong?) that it attracts biters. Also, radar is a horrible horrible power draw. I have just 3 radar down and it's drawing more power than anything in my base. I'm all about solar energy to keep the boiler pollution to a minimum. There is uranium weirdly very nearby, but on marathon, nuclear is a tad expensive and I'm trying to rush for artillery.

Solar on marathon to reduce pollution? I think, the initial cost (and pollution) is insane in marathon. I would go for solid fuel and then nuclear.

But this gets seriously off topic.

It's not that really that off topic, though discussing what is off or on topic gets a little off topic, if you ask me. Isn't anything factorio related around here, on topic? As long as it's about factorio (and especially not about personalities) - I think it's all fair game, tbh.

It is a bit of a digression, I agree, but only a little - barrels are a great pollution saver and so are solar panels.

I'll post more about this here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=88833&start=80 in an edit on my last post.

[Yoyobuae]

I admit I didnt think about radar, but that's probably because I avoid radar due to my assumption (wrong?) that it attracts biters. Also, radar is a horrible horrible power draw. I have just 3 radar down and it's drawing more power than anything in my base. I'm all about solar energy to keep the boiler pollution to a minimum.

I don't quite consider having a few radars active as a bad thing because I get early warning about biter expansions.

Additionally, the scanning feature of radars is useful in another way. Biter expansions are on a global cooldown. But biter expansions can only happen on explored map areas. If you explore a 4x larger area of the map then you would also dilute the probabilities of biter expansions happening near your factory by ~4x

[T-A-R]

Also, radar is a horrible horrible power draw.

Speaking about power draw,
Moduled barrel/unbarrel machines cycling barrels have been used as a power sink to burn off coal or produce extra pollution. On speed modules you can increase the power draw beyond that of radars. Agreed they are edge cases, mostly used on custom scenario's.