Question on Gas flow…

[TheSAguy]

I’m not sure if I should post this here or on the Gastroenterology forum…


I have two refineries. I’ve set them up, so that the output goes into one pipe and then that pipe into a tank. Then from the tank, in one pipe to the chemical plant. Doing this, I was getting very low amounts of gas going to the chemical plant. (See attached screenshot of this setup: Bad)

I then proceeded to have each refinery go into its own tank, link the tanks, and also have a pipe from each tank to the chemical plant. This resulted in much higher levels of gas reaching the chemical plants. (See screenshot of this setup: Better)
Note: I am getting rid of the other fluids, they are going to tanks and then being converted into solid fuel. My screenshot is just an illustration of the layout. this is just a quick mock setup.


So my questions in, why is the second setup better than the first?
Can each pipe only hold a certain amount of gas/fluid and was my first setup overloaded?
What is the optimal setup to transport fluids/gas around?
What layout do you guys finds works best for a big oil process section?

Thanks.

[BurnHard]

Both or your pipe design work if you solve following problem:

You need to get rid of the other components the refinery produces. Refinery stops production if the internal storage of one of the products is full. Build at least a few storage tanks for heavy and light oil, so that the refinery can produce new petroleum gas.

[TheSAguy]

I am getting rid of the other fluids, they are going to tanks and then being converted into solid fuel. My screenshot is just an illustration of the layout.

[BurnHard]

well can you provide the savegame with the problem design in your actual factory? I can't see any flaw in both of your designs, I think it has to be another error or design error outside your posted pics.

[syneris]

In the first screenshot, the gas is fighting each other to reach both tanks and equalize them.

[TheSAguy]

In the first screenshot, the gas is fighting each other to reach both tanks and equalize them.

Syneris, I thought that something like that might be the issue, but according to BurnHard, they both should be the same.
So I still wonder if there are "Do's" and "Dont's" when creating a liquid grid.

[Hogweed]

Good thought, I had a petroleum set up going produing plastics, and suddenly it just stopped producing, even with full oil pipes. I had deconstructed and rebuilt the whole setup, but could never get it to work at a decent rate again. I will keep trying to see if there is a configuration that works best.

I am inclined to think there are still some issues, maybe with the pipes and how the flow reacts with them. Its just a matter of time to wait and see.

[BurnHard]

As is said, the best would be if you provide us here with the savegames that cause the problems, so someone of the other players or the devs could have a look into it. Everything else ist just guessing.

[TheSAguy]

Here is my save, it has the "Better" setup, where I have multiple pipes, from and to tanks, vs. the single pipe.
Using multiple pipes when ever possible seems to work better than one pipe.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qr655ppphrdon2s/Oil.zip

Oil input is a little low, but again, I got double the plastic production when I changed the piping from 1 to multi to the same chem plant.

[Chrotesque]

Hey all,

didn't want to open up a new topic regarding that, I've been having issues with figuring out how to empty crude oil barrels.
That's my current test setup:


My thought is since a steel barrel went into making a crude oil barrel, a steel barrel comes out including the oil inside. Now I've tested this by putting in a single empty barrel into the chem plant which got removed instantly (see to the left of the chem plant), however being full with filled crude oil barrels does not work, it just won't start emptying those barrels. Any tips? (current version: 0.9.1)

[syneris]

Chrotesque, get the hotfix https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=3&t=2479

[BurnHard]

@TheSAguy

I had a look at your save, and as I thought the one and only problem in your setup, is that you are absolutely too low on the oil and gas materials, that is the only limiting factor, the chem plants are batteling for material

Your plastic chem plants are waiting 80% of the time for getting material, just because the pipes connected to them are only at 0.0 or 0.1 liters filled, the storage tanks are at 10-20.

In such "egdy" conditions it could happen that the second pipe system you placed just helps to get more fluid to the specific plant, but it takes if from the whole system, one other chem plants then gets less. Stop your solid fuel production and other chem plants until the storage tanks and pipes are filled up a little bit (it would work great if the pipes have 0.5 ore more stored. Just open the chem plant window and look how long it takes to fill in the gas and how fast it happens if you just have more gas/oil stored (look at refinery window, crude oil, crude oil tanks a filled more).

You'll have to ((build 1 more refinery, get more crude oil,)) crack heavy to light and light to gas, stop solid fuel production and stop lubricants production.

[Chrotesque]

@syneris <3 Tried searching for this, however it didn't come up with anything. In any case, many thanks.

[BurnHard]

If you want, you can use my savegame here, where all oiltanks are well filled and balanced and experiment with all pipe design, you'll notice no differences between your two design concepts.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aj173wrg7nf0i ... iments.zip

[TheSAguy]

Thanks BurnHard!
I'll give it a try.

[Hogweed]

Hi,

I always seem to have flow problems with my liquids as well, can you take a look at my setup and tell me if this is normal or do I have a problem with the setup as well?

I have 2 fluid systems, one on the left side of the base, and one on the right. My concern is with the flow rates, they always seem to start filling, then drop to a crawl. The oil tanks filled quickly, but the pipes coming from the refinery always seem to be so slow. I looked at other peoples saved games and they seem to run much faster. Just want to be sure I am not doing something wrong.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rk4v1lp4p5zes ... 3_12th.zip


If you look at the setup on the left, the light oil is filling very fast into 3 tanks on the left, but the petroleum is barely moving. I want to push into Sci Pack 3 asap so I can get the upgrade to produce petroleum from light oil via the cracking, that should give me plenty of petrol for plastics as well.

Thank you for having such great help and support!!!!!!!!!!

[Finndibaenn]

it doesn't seem unreasonable to me Hogweed.

Each refinery will produce a cycle every 5 s, considering you don't have advanced oil processing, that's 4 petroleum/5s, which you're seem to be using up for your sulfur production.

If you want to improve it, reearch advanced oil processing, use the other recipe (with water), which produces more petroleum, and add in cracking and it should get better.

Before 0.9.1 I was regularly mining/rebuilding my light/heavy fuel tanks or they would will up quite fast and stop the refinery

[Zourin]

Yeah, one refinery is insufficient to meet the demand of even one chem lab, even with advanced processing.

Even two isn't enough, to be honest. I have two refineries, with two light oil fuel plants, a light oil cracking (to gas), and a plastic and sulfur plant, and it's barely enough throughput.

If you want to prefer one chem lab over another, I suggest attaching a pump to the intake to force the fluid flow. No idea how much it helps, but in a system filled with voodoo, anything that makes me feel better is worth it, imo.

[CherryKiss]

I don't really see the value in tanks at all yet...I've made my first 9.1 factory with no tanks at all, just pipes and let the oil flow as it may

[Zourin]

Tanks are good for a few things.

1. Better flow. Have at least one tank at every stage where liquid is handled, except for water. Crude, Heavy, Light, Gas, and Lubricant. If there are stops or gaps in material flow elsewhere, your refineries don't sieze up immediately.

2. Stockpiles. The best tanks for 'stockpiling' are Crude Oil (One tank at the derricks, several at the refineries), Sulfuric Acid (one tank), and Lubricant (one tank). One train wagon full of barrels is comparable to a full storage tank, so having a tank on-hand is good at train-stop derrick sites. you only need one train with two cars (one for empty barrels, one for light barrels) running around, as tanks can fill very slowly. With Lubricant and Sulfuric acid, it's helpful to have a stockpile laying around for when you need it, as you are likely to use these irregularly.

3. Destruction of Excess. If a particular product, such as Light Oil, is being overproduced even for cracking, you can simply mine and replace the storage tank to destroy its contents and temporarily fix refinery gridlock.