Factorio Forums

Question for fluid gurus.

All discussions I've seen over time about fluids revolve about pumps, pressure and consumption. For example, an offshore pump outputs 1200 units per second, and as pressure drops with distance, the level in the pipe drops and with it the optimal number of turbines or boilers that can be supported is defined (so long as they are "not too far" or additional pumps are used every so often to repressurize the pipe).

But I never saw anything mentioning a maximum capacity of the pipes themselves. So, for example, 1 offshore pump can feed 20 steam turbines and 2 can feed 40... but here comes the question... how can I calculate the impact (if any) between using a separate line of pipe between each offshore pump and its 20 turbines, or joining the outputs of the two offshore pumps into one pipe and then splitting it right before reaching the 40 turbines? In real life there is clearly a difference due to fluid dynamics, but in-game?

More importantly... if the behavior is different... how do I calculate the needed number of pipes (not pumps) for a build?



Why do I even worry about this?

I am about to build a large outpost dedicated to coal liquefaction and oil processing.

One way to build it would be to use a standard "perfect ratio" build for each product, then duplicate each time. For a large facility this could end up being a bit clumsy.

A more flexible way to build it might be:
- All the crude oil (from pipelines and trains) goes to a small central storage.
- Similarly, coal arrives by train (in my case I would probably output 8 blue belts).
- Send each belt to a liquefaction line that fully consumes it and sends Heavy/Light/PetroleumGas to another small central storage.
- Pipe crude from its storage to each of the oil refinery lines, sending Heavy/Light/PetroleumGas to their central storage.
- All of the cracking and product producing would start from the Heavy/Light/PetroleumGas and go on from there.

Of course... this plan will only work if I have sufficient pipe capacity for each fluid. So, just from the above piece come some obvious questions:
1) How many refineries can a single pipe (not just the pump pushing the fluid) of crude oil support? Same for water? More importantly... how do I calculate it?
2) When that exact set of refineries above pushes out Heavy/Light/PetroleumGas towards their storage tanks, how many pipes each do I need (again... pipes, not pumps)? This is particularly important if I were to want to merge the output of several sets of refineries (whether they were from liquefaction or refining oil) into one. Of course, the more important bit is "how do I calculate it"?

Thanks.

The throughput table per #pipes is on the Wiki
Steam production i/s is on the Wiki
Likewise for consumption of steam for steam turbines and steam engines.

Example: 14 Heat exchangers, 24 steam turbines

Boilers:
14 * 103.0927835 steam produced/water consumed -> 1443,298969 i/sec steam/water

Steam Turbines:
Divided by boiler consumption 60 i/sec -> 24.0549828167 steam turbines needed

Pipes:
1500 i/s steam or water -> a pump every 7 segments. Undergrouds count as 2 segments)

I made a double once for fun. (28/48). the bottleneck was getting enough heat to the boilers

disentius wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:14 pm The throughput table per #pipes is on the Wiki

Thanks, but I had seen that. Not very useful.

Let me ask the question in simpler terms: Assuming "max pressure" is achieved, how do you calculate how many parallel pipes are needed to carry X units/sec?

Here is a cut/paste of what it says.

Pipes are the most basic way to channel fluids from A to B. They automatically connect to any adjacent pipe and can do so to all four cardinal directions simultaneously. Underground pipes only work in two opposite directions, linking to another underground pipe on one side, and to another entity on the other. If a pipe section becomes too long without using pumps, all fluid inside it will be "spread thin", resulting in very slow flow and preventing machines to use its contents effectively. Tanks behave the same as pipes, except their volume is much greater, which can cause this inconvenience over a much smaller distance if multiple tanks are used. Underground pipes can help alleviate this issue; although they can connect a distance of up to 10 tiles, their volume is always equivalent to two pipes.

You missed the troughput table, obviously.
(And added a sample to my previous post)
[edit]

disentius wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:36 pm You missed the troughput table, obviously.
[edit]

The collapsed one... yes. That I think does the trick.

Did we verify that the table is still correct given the latest fluid movement changes?

Did the changes actually go live already? I thought they were delayed

I thought that some of thd fluid dynamics was released, but i could be horribly wrong.

Dumb question related to the above:

- Most of the beaconed oil processing builds use 10 refineries.
- The length of the oil supply pipe for that is aprox 60 pipes. At that length the table indicates it can carry about 1000 units/sec.
- Unmoduled the 10 refineries consume 200 units/sec of oil (and unfortunately in my current map I don't have the needed modules to test)... so, how many units/sec of oil do those refineries consume fully moduled?

Or, in other words... how many of those 10 refinery setups can I support with that single pipe if I put a pump between each set of 10?

Define "fully moduled".
Probably like this:
Standard speed refinery = 1
2 row 5 beacons -> speed + 500%, speed -> 6
3 prod modules -> speed - 45% , speed -> 5.55
20 * 10 * 5.55 -> 1110 oil/sec

disentius wrote: ↑Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:31 pm Define "fully moduled".
Probably like this:
Standard speed refinery = 1
2 row 5 beacons -> speed + 500%, speed -> 6
3 prod modules -> speed - 45% , speed -> 5.55
20 * 10 * 5.55 -> 1110 oil/sec

Exactly! And it explains why we never see a design with more than 10 refineries... as it matches the pipe throughput of a pipe that length.

So, new pipe for each 10 refineries.
Thanks!!!

whats not in that table is pipe to pump. this is the part i have the most issues with. do inline pumps help? whats the math for it?