Barrels post-tanker?

[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.

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.

Well I like the network flow managing part but it never actually comes into play in vanilla. And of course I won't argue that setting up pipes can be pretty tedous with the auto-connect and exceptional amounts of clicks required to make a simple turn for underground pipes. Being unable to squeeze past pipes is another unique drawback.
And of course, bringing various fluids to wherever in your base is more of an annoyance than a challenge.

However, I like the aesthetic. It's that plain and simple. Fluids, glowing pipe windows, a network of dirty veins pumping throughout your base. I'd rather have you guys give pipes a challenge and usability makeover than remove them. Something that encourages us to use regular and underground pipes at the same ratio we use belts and underground belts because frankly underground pipes are the opposite of any aesthetic - they're just invisible. I wanna run 3 adjacent surface pipes for petroleum, light oil and heavy oil alongside my mainbus, with low footprint pumpingstations every now and then and I don't want to feel bad about it's efficiency.
Hopefully i'm not alone with this wish...

If I may make some "simple" suggestions:

• Count unground pipes per distance instead of flat 2
• Let us squeeze under or over surface pipes
• Remove auto-connect and give us manual control over junctions.
• Make fluid throughput drop-off linearly instead of exponentially with distance
• Do something to reduce the footprint of parallel pumpstations

Not a solution but a step in the right direction.

[Xenomorph]

[*] Remove auto-connect and give us manual control over junctions.

Use the "flow control" mod and you can build pipes that doesn't change their type. The straight stay straight, curves stay curves and T-junctions stay T-junctions when you build pipes beside them. If you deconstruct the pipes they will become a normal straight pipe which can be made to a fix pipe type again.

[stm]

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.

I disagree about that.
Not because Pipes are complex in their own way, but because you have to incorporate them into your Belt/Robot Network. If make them completely unnecessary you remove that challenge. It's not a hard one, mind you and some of that challenge is artificial due to neighboring pipes always connecting, but if you can supply everything by belt it actually makes things easier in many ways. Even when you have to put another assembler behind to unload the barrels this at least cost you something. Not because you have to pay the energy costs, but because you can not route other items in or out that way.
So in my opinion please don't get rid of pipes completely. Also beacause as already Escadin mentioned:

However, I like the aesthetic. It's that plain and simple. Fluids, glowing pipe windows, a network of dirty veins pumping throughout your base. I'd rather have you guys give pipes a challenge and usability makeover than remove them. Something that encourages us to use regular and underground pipes at the same ratio we use belts and underground belts because frankly underground pipes are the opposite of any aesthetic - they're just invisible. I wanna run 3 adjacent surface pipes for petroleum, light oil and heavy oil alongside my mainbus, with low footprint pumpingstations every now and then and I don't want to feel bad about it's efficiency.
Hopefully i'm not alone with this wish

I too think it definetly adds a lot to the aesthetics of the game, so please don't make them completely redundant!
Stm

[OdinYggd]

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.

I still will. Barrels stored in the logistics cloud makes it really easy to store huge amounts of oil. Even if the tanker makes it so that the logistics of sending empty barrels to remote outposts and retrieving full barrels is simplified, I will continue to store crude in barrels on the logi net serving my refinery. Even if barrels got nerfed, as long as their storage density was still comparable to what tanks could hold the convenience alone is a guaranteed victory.

Hopefully they do allow other fluids to be barreled. It would be really nice to be able to ship lubricant to a different part of the factory to be used instead of forcing my bluebelt and robot guts productions to sit on top of the refinery for pipe length reasons.

[OkariDraconis]

I've thoroughly have been enjoying using OmniBarrel

In my current game I wanted to see the Viability of using compartmentalize factories connected by trains. Which meant all my Oil and Oil based products have to be processed outside of my main, then shipped in by barrel. This mod allowed me to do so. I recommend it. I personally wouldn't mind seeing OmniBarrel get integrated into the main game, but I doubt the devs would consider it.

Anyways, the Flexibility of Barrels in the logistic network over Pipes great, but Barrels have a Higher cost than Tanks.
Tanks = 45 iron @ 2500 liquid = 55.55 liquid stored per Iron
Barrels = 5 iron @ 25 Liquid = 5 Liquid per Iron Stored

However VS Space
Tanks = 277.77 of Liquid per Tile
Barrel = 12,000 of Liquid per Tile (Assuming a Full Steel Chest 48 spaces* 10 stack * 25 liquid per barrel)

However the space savings is offset by the fact you need a barreling and un-barreling operations to happen.

Overall both have their challenges, and its just a player choice. I've just found barreling to be more convenient, since I can run chemicals around manually pretty easily until I get bots & Trains up and running.

[aober93]

Space is no issue in this game. But barrels are easy to handle. Just put requester chests near a fab that needs fluids. Better than piping

[OkariDraconis]

Space is no issue in this game. But barrels are easy to handle. Just put requester chests near a fab that needs fluids. Better than piping

Space can be an issue, especially if you play with medium water, low stone, and/or you want smaller paths for drones or belts.

But now that I think about, the nice thing with barrels is you can transport them to a new storage area a hell of a lot easier than pumping from one storage tank to another..

[ssilk]

Side-note: Barrel logistic is quite equal to packaging/boxing.

See for the advantages (and disadvantages) viewtopic.php?f=80&t=19343

From game-play: Does it make sense to have two ways to transport items? I cannot rate that...