Barrels post-tanker?

[deepdriller]

So, long question short: With the introduction of the tank wagon, do you think you'll still have any use for the barrels at all?
Even if we consider that the devs want to introduce universal barreling.

[Rockstar04]

I use the universal barreling mod now for lubricant.

[stm]

I suppose yes I will.
Not in the ammount one has to use them now to transport crude oil, but for transportation inside the factory barrels will tie into the logistic network in a way no pipe can. Over long distances a train with a tank wagon hopefully will win and over short ranges a pipe is the way to go, but for intermediate distances barreling might be worth the effort, e.g. for lubricant but also for sulfuric acid (or maybe even Petroleum gas for plastic).
It depends. I definately don't think barrels will be a thing of the past as long as they can be used for everything we can move through a pipe (It also might create some interesting features, since you can sort pipe content that way and multiplex a pipe (Though I do not know what it might be good for atm.))
Stm

[Miravlix]

You do realize that barreling is the superior method?

Basically it's the advanced way to do fluid. MIght end up being something only people playing at a higher level, like megabases builds, uses, but it should actually be what everyone does.

[Klonan]

You do realize that barreling is the superior method?

Basically it's the advanced way to do fluid. MIght end up being something only people playing at a higher level, like megabases builds, uses, but it should actually be what everyone does.

Why is it the superior method?

[Mooncat]

You do realize that barreling is the superior method?

Basically it's the advanced way to do fluid. MIght end up being something only people playing at a higher level, like megabases builds, uses, but it should actually be what everyone does.

Why is it the superior method?

Because the extra production chains are fun?

[keyboardhack]

You do realize that barreling is the superior method?

Basically it's the advanced way to do fluid. MIght end up being something only people playing at a higher level, like megabases builds, uses, but it should actually be what everyone does.

Why is it the superior method?

He probably assumes you can transport less with the fluid wagon than with barrels in a wagon. You can transport 400 barrels which is 10.000 oil in a wagon.

[urza99814]

What if you want to move fluids with logistics bots? Or a car? Or the player? Or belts? I've used all of those in the past...

Feels like it should be rebalanced though. A train car full of barrels is an insane amount of oil, and I expect any tanker car to hold significantly less. Which doesn't make much sense logically. Although there's plenty of other things in Factorio that drop logic for playability, and the increased capacity could be the payoff for spending the resources to build barrels... but you've also got the payoff of being usable with logistics bots and such, and barrels aren't THAT expensive.

I wouldn't want to nerf the cargo wagon in the process though.. So my theory would be to keep the barrels but with a reduced capacity or stack size. The tanker is for long distance transport, while barrels still have some use for moving smaller quantities over shorter distances.

You also could make use of barrels for mixed trains, which a tanker car couldn't do. So you could stop at a coal mine and load up a cargo wagon, then stop at the oil field and load up on full barrels. Then unload the coal straight to boilers and the barrels you filter and process into solid fuel for when the coal runs out. That way it only consumes oil when you are low on coal, without needing to stockpile solid fuel or configure a long distance circuit network. There's probably better examples and better solutions to that particular problem, but you get the idea...

[Escadin]

I'm still gonna need barrels in order to transport fluids via logistic network. The most important part of it though is that you can basically use barrels as a replacement for magazines for flamethrower turrets. Otherwise, there would be no elegant way to supply remote FT turrets or properly dose their ammo supply. 4 Barrels is 100 oil which lasts one FT turret for like 200 attack waves. Even better if we can barrel up the most potent fluid in future.

I would hate having to connect each and every one of them with a fluid tank or tankwagon station. Logistic network, dedicated cargo slot for mines and occasional manual refueling of outposts is the way to go.

[aober93]

You do realize that barreling is the superior method?

Basically it's the advanced way to do fluid. MIght end up being something only people playing at a higher level, like megabases builds, uses, but it should actually be what everyone does.

Why is it the superior method?

The logistics of handling normal items (full barrels too) is very versatile and easy, whereby the fluid handling is another infrastructure. I dont know if that is superior. As it gives you the opportunity to setup a different logistic system. But as it is, the easiest approach is often prefered.

Imo, rail tankers should be given an artificial advantage to barreling. Like lower energy, lower resource, faster speed. And like enough so that it matters.

[impetus maximus]

how about a sulfuric acid catapult to launch barrels at nests?

barrels are good for storage. 3x3 block of 9 storage chests can store 4320 [edit] barrels of oil which hold 25 oil each =for a grand total of 10,8000 units of oil[/edit], vs 2500 of a storage tank.

do we know the storage capacity of the tanker wagons yet?

[*edit for not taking units per barrel into account]

[Yoyobuae]

He probably assumes you can transport less with the fluid wagon than with barrels in a wagon. You can transport 400 barrels which is 10.000 oil in a wagon.

Let's suppose a rail tanker can hold 10000 fluid. How to unload 10000 fluid off a train in a timely manner? Think of all the pipe mess.

They do make sense in low throughput operation. Like letting train park at pumpjacks slowly loading oil until full, then slowly unload near refineries.

[evildogbot100]

Let's assume that one rail tanker can be unloaded by at most 3 pumps from the graphic. Let's also assume that each train pump will have throughput of 90-150 fluid/s because more than 150 is wasted throughput and less than 90 is lower than regular pump in 0.15. For rail tanker to be worth it, it must be able to hold at least more than 10000 fluid so that they are not outclassed by barrel. I will just consider they can hold 20000 fluid. So to fully load/unload a rail tanker, it requires between 44.44s-74.07s so we round up to 45s-75s due to train waiting time can only be configured in 5s. Meanwhile, you can unload barrel in 5s or less. So it only worth if your train requires more than 70-130s with 70 if one pump have 150 fluid/s speed, 130 if one pump have 90 fluid/s speed. Meanwhile if you use almost full train network, with each station is almost always working, it is clear that barrel outclass tanker by huge margin since only pump vs inserter is calculated.

[stm]

Most of the throughput comparisons rest on the fact, that the stacksize for (filled) barrels is 10 if i recall correctly and they contain 25 units of liquid.
When we finally have alternative ways to transport liquids by train they should just reduce their capacity from 250 (25x10 since they are going to increase liquid volume by a factor of 10) to something like 50 and set the stacksize to 1 (which in my opinion should also effect stack inserters and robots by the way!) That way not only all those storage ballances come into perspective again, but you still would retain a reasonable throughput over belts (where the stacksize doesn't come into play!) and supplying factories via barrels would still be quite viable: e.g. for express belts you would still only need 2 Barrels for 5 Belts which would need 25 Gears in the last production step allone. The throughput of barrels would still be quite low compared to other items (And when you need it higher just build a pipe or train!).
Even going to 10 would still be ballanced in my opinion.
Or you could go to 1 Unit with a higher stacksize, though at that moment your throughput over belts would need to be higher for barrels (which in addition have to go both ways) than for other items you consume in the recipies. So it propably would not really make much sense for supplying anything outside your refinery area.
Stm

[impetus maximus]

yes barrels stack is 10, and each can hold 25 units of oil. thanks for bringing that up.

[Nich]

Wouldn't it be cool if you could use barrels of sulfuric acid to make blue chips directly? Not sure how hard it would be to implement as you would probably need 2 recipes (1 pipe based and 1 barrel based with empty barrel output)

[Escadin]

Wouldn't it be cool if you could use barrels of sulfuric acid to make blue chips directly? Not sure how hard it would be to implement as you would probably need 2 recipes (1 pipe based and 1 barrel based with empty barrel output)

Going down this road would render pipes utterly redundant.

[Rseding91]

Wouldn't it be cool if you could use barrels of sulfuric acid to make blue chips directly? Not sure how hard it would be to implement as you would probably need 2 recipes (1 pipe based and 1 barrel based with empty barrel output)

Going down this road would render pipes utterly redundant.

I'd be ok with that There's nothing complex about pipes anyway. You just snake the pipe from source -> destination and you're done. There's no splitting, balancing, compression or any of that - just a->b.

[Xenomorph]

Just a to b?

Did you build belts from every mine to your base, too?

[Nich]

When you are working with just fluids i prefer pipes. It is once you have to combine solids and fluids I would just rather switch over to barrels. You are always going to need pipes to connect pump jacks to barreling machines and unbarreling to refining ect. ect.