Factorio Forums

With all those Oil recipes you can know for sure how much water is consumed while your factory works.

However with the steam engines and offshore pumps you can't tell.

You can say - let people do some forum research or find it out themselves. But I am totally sure it is not a factorio way. I am sure that you need to state directly that (for example, I am not aware of real numbers) Offshore pump can yield 100/s and steam engine can use up to 10/s. From the forum I learned that you need 1 pump-14 boilers-10 steam engines for the optimal configuration to work. Is there a way in the game that I could learn it myself?

And during fuctioning you could display the current usage of the water for you to consider expansion.

I know that the theory of pipeworks in Factorio is pretty complex one. But I am sure you can also display a current flow of liquid through the pipe per second. Reading forums I know that this value also has a limit so displaying that would be awesome as well.

PacifyerGrey wrote:Is there a way in the game that I could learn it myself?

Frankly: There is no good (!) way to calculate that theoretically, cause that depends - like with the belts - on the throughput of the pipes. But - other than with the belts - the throughput depends on length of the pipe.

You need also to know, that the pipe-system is planned to be reworked completely.

You can learn to get a "feeling", yes. Some kind of training/tutorial.

Which is planned.

So: Maybe, but this suggestion is too early to be useful.

PacifyerGrey wrote: From the forum I learned that you need 1 pump-14 boilers-10 steam engines for the optimal configuration to work. Is there a way in the game that I could learn it myself?

I know that the theory of pipeworks in Factorio is pretty complex one. But I am sure you can also display a current flow of liquid through the pipe per second. Reading forums I know that this value also has a limit so displaying that would be awesome as well.

Regarding the first point, the 1:14:10 setup is derived through knowledge accessible to all users.
You could have learned it yourself, and the posts explain why the setup is so good also explain how they've figured it out.

As for your second point, you can measure the flow of liquid through a pipe segment - within certain limitations.
The flow of liquid between two pipes depends on the fill gradient - same goes for storage tanks, the contents of which can be read by circuit network.
By measuring the fill level of two adjacent storage tanks, you can calculate the gradient and by extension the flow rate - which should be doable with combinators.
Admittedly, my data is incomplete (only have for flow=1.5,3,6,30 units/s), but I get R^2=0.9994 for flow=0.361*1.21112^gradient

Regarding the first point, the 1:14:10 setup is derived through knowledge accessible to all users.
You could have learned it yourself, and the posts explain why the setup is so good also explain how they've figured it out.

Right now, this is not particularly easy to figure out from in-game sources. Pumps don't indicate their maximum output, nor do steam engines directly indicate how much water they consume per second. (You can work backwards from the engine's maximum output, but you have to know or derive both the formula for how much energy it produces and the specific heat of water.) And it's not easy at all to tell when a piece of pipe is being the bottleneck in a system.

It would help a lot IMO if it at least indicated the flow rate of a pipe segment or the current consumption/second of machines with fluid connections when you highlighted them. I'm pretty sure this is being computed internally, since they modify the liquid graphics on the pipes depending on the flow rate.

One point: I never use the 1:14:10 setup, I make it more like 3:28:25 plus some tanks to store the hot water; to achieve, that the boilers are always 100% under load.

What I want to say is: There are useful numbers, but nobody has proven, that it is the optimal way to do it always like so.

ssilk wrote:One point: I never use the 1:14:10 setup, I make it more like 3:28:25 plus some tanks to store the hot water; to achieve, that the boilers are always 100% under load.

What I want to say is: There are useful numbers, but nobody has proven, that it is the optimal way to do it always like so.

The 1:14:10 setup is optimal in the sense that it's the smallest number of boilers and engines that can give 100% utilization of the water from a single offshore pump. But it isn't the densest possible layout, and it wastes some boiler capacity even at full load - you need something like 13.1 boilers for 10 engines to run at 100%.

It's harder to run >20 engines per group because you start running into pipe throughout issues if you're not careful.

I am pretty experienced and dedicated gamer. I know how to use forums and other sources and I have done a ton of research before I even started my first big base.
That does not make the game itself more user friendly especially for the newcomers. While you can plan production based on in-game provided data like recipes, assembler stats etc, info on water production/consumption can not be found by any in-game means other from just experimenting.

Off-topic

TheSkiGeek wrote:It's harder to run >20 engines per group because you start running into pipe throughout issues if you're not careful.

The layout is quite easy and organic:

PUMPS ----> BOILERS -----> STEAM ENGINES <<< --- >>> TANKS

Oh, and what I forgot to say is: It makes only sense, when you got your first solar panels. At day the tanks are filled, at night emptied. The boilers run always at 100%. If your tanks are empty it is an obvious sign for you, that you are producing too less energy.
That design is quite forgiving, cause you have in most cases one or two days to repair/increase your power.
So again: This design is useful for the transition from early to late game. Not more.

ssilk wrote:Off-topic

TheSkiGeek wrote:It's harder to run >20 engines per group because you start running into pipe throughout issues if you're not careful.

The layout is quite easy and organic:

PUMPS ----> BOILERS -----> STEAM ENGINES <<< --- >>> TANKS

Oh, and what I forgot to say is: It makes only sense, when you got your first solar panels. At day the tanks are filled, at night emptied. The boilers run always at 100%. If your tanks are empty it is an obvious sign for you, that you are producing too less energy.
That design is quite forgiving, cause you have in most cases one or two days to repair/increase your power.
So again: This design is useful for the transition from early to late game. Not more.

The problem is that with >2 pumps you can't just do that in a straight line, you'll bottleneck on the pipe. Pumps put out 60 water/sec, but a single pipe can only handle 150/sec. (And over longer stretches it's more like 100-120, you have to use pumps to maintain 150/sec.)

So if you try to do something like 3:40:30 and make a single long line of boilers, the throughput won't be enough to run all the engines at 100%. For the use case you're talking about it doesn't matter as much, but if you're not careful with the layout you may find you can't actually use 100% of the boiler capacity.

I'll link this once again
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26802&p=169537