Factorio Forums

Hi, I'm pretty new but while playing through I noticed that plastic seem to have no other use than Adv. Circuits. I tried to think what else it could be used for - Plastics Pipes. Why have plastic pipes?

1: It would relieve the strain on iron a little
2: Plastic doesn't rust, so they could have more liquid or higher H.P than iron pipes
3: It doesn't conduct, this leaves open the idea of making underground electric pipes with plastic pipes and copper cable.

So, I came up with those uses to try and make them useful, rather than just simply a way to use up all the plastic I have

This makes a lot of sense to me as well, especially with the planned changes to oil production.

By the way, as far as realism is concerned, some fluids should not be able to use iron pipes (example: sulfuric acid) because they're just so corrosive that the pipe would disintegrate quite fast. To go one step further, perhaps the "low-tech" metallic pipes should slowly lose HP due to corrosion (depending on the type of fluid and the actual flowrate), and then the "hi-tech" plastic pipes would remove this problem.

And what new gameplay would that implement?
Very skeptical. It’s the same category as moar colors for wires, moar types of belts. Etc.

ssilk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 5:53 pm And what new gameplay would that implement?
Very skeptical. It’s the same category as moar colors for wires, moar types of belts. Etc.

I'm torn. You are definitely not wrong, but on the other hand, it is true that this would make more uses for plastic, and less for iron.

On the gripping hand, I'd probably like to have a pipe or two before I got as far as plastic. Not least because trying to do oil without pipes seems... challenging, and plastic is still behind unlocking oil.

Bob's mods has a ton of different pipe types. For what it's worth, it makes it much easier to keep track of your pipe spaghetti in order.

On the other hand, it doesn't really add that much that I think it contributes to the vanilla experience.

I was a bit disappointed with Bob's pipes that you can join pipes of different materials. I was hoping to run parallel pipes without them joining up. As far as I can tell, the only benefit is with some of the more "advanced" pipes, the undergrounds have a longer reach and more hit points.

wobbycarly wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2019 1:58 am I was a bit disappointed with Bob's pipes that you can join pipes of different materials. I was hoping to run parallel pipes without them joining up. As far as I can tell, the only benefit is with some of the more "advanced" pipes, the undergrounds have a longer reach and more hit points.

It's hardcoded in vanilla, but you can use mod, that's explode all wrong pipe connections.

slippycheeze wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 9:26 pm On the gripping hand, I'd probably like to have a pipe or two before I got as far as plastic.

Of course the idea wasn't to force plastic-only pipes, but to allow a different type of pipes for "hi-tech" fluids.

ssilk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 5:53 pm And what new gameplay would that implement?

Most of all, I would categorize this suggestion as realism-related. Practically, as already mentioned, more use for plastic in favor of iron, and it would force the user to get plastic if they want serious sulfur production.

bobthescv wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 10:08 pm On the other hand, it doesn't really add that much that I think it contributes to the vanilla experience.

The different Bob pipes where originally meant to have different properties like flow speed, throughput and such. But he either didn't fully understand the fluid system or the system just doesn't work as he needed for this.

If the new fluid system is ever implemented something could probably be done to differentiate pipes