Factorio Forums

Hey guys, the Lets Plays I've watched have led me astray! lol and by that I mean that you now apparently need to make an entire petrochemical industry to get laser towers and Tier3 science packs.

From looking at the recipes for various items I can see some need water to make but then I've looked at some pictures of some of you guys' oil refineries and saw the refineries themselves have water pipes to them.

My first question is why does the Refinery need water? I've tested it and it makes heavy oil, light oil and petro-gas without it. What does water do for it? I've checked what recipes I have access to and the only things I see requiring water are sulfur, sulfuric acid and explosives, all of which require the chemical factory I believe.

Another question is concerning barrels. Specifically, what are they used for? I have the storage tanks if I need to store crude oil to be pumped somewhere else for refining/making things but none of the things I can see to make with oil require a barrel of crude. Is it just another form of storage?

Anyways, thanks for all the help guys! Sorry for all the questions but this game is addicting!

My first question is why does the Refinery need water?

It needs water for advanced oil processing, you need to unlock the technology. It producess less heavy oil but more petroleum (or less light oil, I don't remember )

Another question is concerning barrels. Specifically, what are they used for?

If you need to pump oil very far from your main base, you can put it in barrels and transport them in a train.

Ahhhh, I see. Thanks for the information! Makes sense.

I guess I should just keep experimenting eh?

SilasG wrote:Ahhhh, I see. Thanks for the information! Makes sense.

I guess I should just keep experimenting eh?

Experimentation with this game is the best part, and then the rewarding feeling you get when you figure something clever out and it works as planned.

On the topic of the oil industry, I run advanced oil processing on all of my refineries once I have the tech since petroleum gas seems to really be the only useful product, whilst the heavy/ light oil can just be used for solid fuel or can be turned into even more petroleum.

Yeah, I've kind of been trying to wait on starting up a massive petrochemical industry until I get advanced oil processing just to avoid having to put up so many storage tanks of heavy/light oil. I mean yeah I could just make it all into the fuel blocks and stop using coal ..but I have plenty of coal and I would rather "crack" it all to make petro-gas.

solardarity wrote: On the topic of the oil industry, I run advanced oil processing on all of my refineries once I have the tech since petroleum gas seems to really be the only useful product, whilst the heavy/ light oil can just be used for solid fuel or can be turned into even more petroleum.

I have been having issues when it comes down to building blue belts and advanced oil refinement though. They tend to use a lot of heavy oil, so sometimes I have to fall back on basic oil refinement on some of my refineries

SilasG wrote:Yeah, I've kind of been trying to wait on starting up a massive petrochemical industry until I get advanced oil processing just to avoid having to put up so many storage tanks of heavy/light oil. I mean yeah I could just make it all into the fuel blocks and stop using coal ..but I have plenty of coal and I would rather "crack" it all to make petro-gas.

I did that once. My refineries stopped producing because the machines that were using Petrol stopped producing and clogged up the system. I lost power and ended up restarting. Now I just produce it and stick it in storage using it only as a backup and to power my trains.

You know that you can make heavy oil to light oil, and light to petroleum gas?

Most recipes are using the petrol gas that has a basic yield of 40 % with advanced oil prosessing you can bump it up to 55 % which is especialy usefull if you need large quatitys of batteries, advanced chipsets, sulfur and other high tier products.

I prefer a pump switch for heavy oil prosessing based on need of lubricant for express belts and electircal engines.

A small amout of light oil to solid can be usfull, but since you need coal for crafting anyways, without lightoil cracking it thens to clong of the oil industry.

By me, one refinery with advaced oil prosessing can support one lubricant production or heavy oil cracking and two light oilcracking with is used for plasics and sulfur as needed.

edit: yield for oil prosessing: basic | advanced
heavy / light /gas
30 % / 30 % / 40 % | 10 % / 45 % / 55 %

ParanoiaComplex wrote:

SilasG wrote:Yeah, I've kind of been trying to wait on starting up a massive petrochemical industry until I get advanced oil processing just to avoid having to put up so many storage tanks of heavy/light oil. I mean yeah I could just make it all into the fuel blocks and stop using coal ..but I have plenty of coal and I would rather "crack" it all to make petro-gas.

I did that once. My refineries stopped producing because the machines that were using Petrol stopped producing and clogged up the system. I lost power and ended up restarting. Now I just produce it and stick it in storage using it only as a backup and to power my trains.

There should always be either a solid fuel or cracking 'pressure valve' in case a line backs up for things like Lubricants or petrol products. You should be able to use pumps to prioritize where you want fluid to go. If it fills up, then the overflow route should begin cracking/processing fuel.

Obviously, it isn't efficient to crack heavy oil (or light oil) all the way down to petrol and then make solid fuel out of it, but at least you can be sure your plastics and sulfur production don't bottleneck, and should they back up, then you will at least be producing fuel to avoid a shutdown.

Zourin wrote:Obviously, it isn't efficient to crack heavy oil (or light oil) all the way down to petrol and then make solid fuel out of it, but at least you can be sure your plastics and sulfur production don't bottleneck, and should they back up, then you will at least be producing fuel to avoid a shutdown.

It should be enough to put the sugeststed solid fuel valve in light oil line so you don't need to worry when gas is nearly full, because your are constantly needing gas for various prosess steps, that there should never be so many gas that is backlogs lubricant production, if you backlog so much gas that it backlogs your refinery it is better to turn some lightoil cracking (temporarly) off and use the lightoil 1:1 for fuel instead of 2:1 when using gas or heavy oil.