Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

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zOldBulldog
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Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by zOldBulldog »

v2: Updated with changes based on comments in this thread and extensive testing.
liquefaction.png
liquefaction.png (4.06 MiB) Viewed 4748 times


I wanted a compact and linear coal liquefaction design that could share the beacons with other lines. When I couldn't find something that suited my goals I designed the above one.

I *think* I got the ratios right and the design seems to work reasonably well, but I'd appreciate any comments, especially if you can spot any flaws.

The goal:

- Liquefy coal not necessarily with perfect ratios but close.
- Receives heavy oil from the pipe/tank on the bottom right (if the content of the tank is less than 1k, to allow it to start initially or after stalling). The combinator there allows turning the input on/off.
- Cracks Heavy Oil to Light if the volume on the left tank is over 1k.
- The steam tank on the left is for monitoring the steam volume, as I wasn't sure I had enough boilers. Seems like I do :)
- Petroleum Gas exits on the top right, to supplement my other source of PG for Plastics and Sulfur production.
- The hope is to be pretty close to consuming a full blue belt of coal, to produce as much Solid Fuel and Petroleum Gas as it can.

Possible concerns:

- Did I get all the ratios right?
- Is the steam supply appropriate? All of the designs that I saw used multiple boilers closer to the consuming Refinery, so even though I could not notice any issues I fear there is some inadequacy that I missed catching.

Thanks for any and all comments/suggestions/improvements.

BTW, I posted here as I am not really sure if this design is adequate and worth of reuse. If it proves to be good I'll ask later to move it to the Show your Creations section.
Last edited by zOldBulldog on Sat Oct 13, 2018 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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DaveMcW
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by DaveMcW »

That will indeed consume a blue belt of coal.

Your main problem is the inserters can't move items fast enough, so the machines sit idle most of the time.
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by zOldBulldog »

DaveMcW wrote: ↑
Fri Oct 12, 2018 4:13 am
 That will indeed consume a blue belt of coal.

Your main problem is the inserters can't move items fast enough, so the machines sit idle most of the time.
Hmmm, any solution for that?
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by Zavian »

One stack inserter might be able to keep a refinery satisfied. (The wiki says their max speed belt to chest/assembler is 12 items/sec. Their actual transfer rate depends on how full the belt they are picking up from is, so don't expect one stack inserter to keep up if the belt has gaps in it).

But even then you have way too many refineries for one belt to support. Without beacons and modules, 16 refineries will eat 32 coal/sec. (Not counting the coal used for steam). If I've done the math right, 16 refineries each with 10 speed beacons need 177.6 coal/second (4.44 blue belts worth). Supplying that much coal (with additional coal for plastic) is likely to drain all your nearby coal patches pretty fast, so personally I don't see a reason for large scale beaconed coal liquefaction setups. (That is assuming normal resource distribution, if you want a challenge and you crank coal frequency/richness up, and turn oil down, then maybe it's worth it).
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by Aeternus »

There's some scenarios I can think of - Low oil world with infinite ore settings comes to mind. How does a beaconed setup like this run efficiency wise, for the purposes of converting coal into better fuels? Worth it to "upgrade" coal to rocket fuel like this, or is it a net loss?
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by zOldBulldog »

Strange as it may sound, draining coal from the map is exactly why I setup coal liquefaction. I need to clear space for building and I wasn't consuming enough coal. Since I need solid fuel to make rocket fuel, and rocket fuel for both rockets and nuclear fuel... I figured I'd use liquefaction for it and kill two birds with one stone. There is a nice train station delivering coal just outside the screenshot to keep it supplied.

If I find myself consuming too much coal, I can just turn off the liquefaction line and use my oil based line.

Good catch on the inserters, I switched to stack inserters and if needed I might try with MiniLoaders. As to the math, bummer. I thought I had sized the 16 refineries to consume one blue belt. Once I finish the rocket fuel line I should be able to run it at full speed and confirm. Then I will shorten the line to the number of refineries one coal belt really supports.
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by Bauer »

Another ocd victim who cannot build on ressources...
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by zOldBulldog »

Bauer wrote: ↑
Fri Oct 12, 2018 1:00 pm
 Another ocd victim who cannot build on ressources...
Guilty as charged :D

@Zavian, you were so right. Once I opened up the Rocket Fuel to drain the Solid Fuel output... one belt of coal was barely keeping 6 Refineries going using stack inserters. Supplying the additional coal is no problem, but I need to redesign. I think I see where I might be able squeeze in additional coal belts to "refill" the main one, without messing up the linear design. I'll post again once I get this improved.
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by zOldBulldog »

Made several changes:

- Reduced Refineries from 16 to 12 and Light to Solid Fuel chem plants from 32 to 24.
- Increased coal supply from 1 to 3 belts. Supply trains have no trouble keeping it fed.
- While testing I noticed that the liquefaction plan could stall if the external consumption of Propane Gas stopped. To avoid it I added failover Propane Gas to Solid Fuel chem plants that only activate when the monitoring Propane Gas tank rises over 22k. If demand picks up... the tank will drain.
- While testing I noticed the need for additional boilers to generate steam. The current design probably has 1 or 2 extra boilers, but there was space and they are cheap insurance.
- Added level monitoring lights to the Steam and Propane Gas tanks. The Heavy oil tanks don't need them, as they circuitry keeps them at about 1k.
- Added monitoring lights to the pumps, so that it is easy to see if they are enabled.
- Moved the water supply to the same side as the coal input, propane gas output, solid fuel output.
- If you don't want propane gas output simply don't connect it, all propane gas will then be converted to solid fuel too.
- You can now easily shut this down with the coal constant combinator on the input/output end.

And a nice side effect:

- Solid Fuel output went up to over 1 belt. More of course if you convert the propane gas too, but that is normally not a good idea as it is best to direct it towards plastic or sulfur production.

Also, I tested (and tweaked and tweaked) it thoroughly, both with the Propane Gas being drawn out for Plastic production as well as converting it all to Solid Fuel. It now seems to keep everything busy almost constantly under all scenarios and steam pressure stays up.

Please let me know if you still see any flaws with the design.
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by dog80 »

it looks confusing
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by zOldBulldog »

dog80 wrote: ↑
Sun Oct 14, 2018 1:25 am
 it looks confusing
Does not surprise me. It is very squashed to allow keeping the beacons on the outside, and I had to get very creative to route all the belts and pipes in the available space. Most similar builds are quite a bit wider, but that was not an option giv n the objective.
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by evopwr »

I think you're going to find the PG to Solid Fuel section will be redundant and unused. You'll need all the PG for plastic and sulphuric acid.
I realise this isn't your main production, but I'd still outsource any PG back to the main oil area, to be included in that.
Having said that, seeing as you've already built it, may as leave it, but change it to prioritize feeding your main plastic/sulphuric area, and only convert to solid fuel if there is any excess (which will stop the refineries from choking). Apologies if this is what you've already done, I kind of skimmed over the thread a bit. TLDR =P

I started launching rockets yesterday, only 1 silo at the moment with 2 beacons, and was impressed with how well things went, even after 7 hrs (also with 14 heavily beaconed labs running as well). The only failure bit was my satellite creation. I didn't properly read/calculate the requirements to create one. 100 accumulators (500 batteries), and 100 solar panels. Urgh. So now busy creating districts to produce those en mass.

Then it should just be a matter of expanding outposts, and stamping down more districts - assuming the design works...
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by zOldBulldog »

@evopwr,

I did indeed prioritize returning all propane to plastic production, and the PG to solid section only activates when there is a backup and the PG has nowhere to go. That section is intended to sit idle as much as possible, mainly because it is very inefficient to convert from PG to solid fuel. Light oil to solid fuel is much more efficient.

But... the section was needed to prevent complete solid fuel production shutdown when the plastic could not consumed the PG sent its way.
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Re: Beaconed Liquefaction - is this right?

Post by vanatteveldt »

dog80 wrote: ↑
Sun Oct 14, 2018 1:25 am
 it looks confusing
not confusing enough :). you can make the design more compact (=fewer beacons) if you squeeze the refineries together without space in between and go creative on the piping
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