my 2 cents on the oil industry

[LoSboccacc]

I have been fooling around with the oil industry in the latest update as everyone else.

it is a much welcome addition and it makes high end stuff quite less accessible, which is good

there is however a bit too much emphasis on portraying a realistic handling of the oil chain, and it feels different compared to all the other game mechanics.

take the refinery: one building, many output, many input as piping is not as flexible as the rail/belt system...

now, I had a couple of ideas while reading another post about people lost in the new content, which I'd like to share.

My first idea is that modelling barrels in game is overkill.
I'd like to see a pressure tap, which convert any fluid in a barrel of that fluid, without requiring barrels, and a valved sync that allows barrel of any fluids to be inserted and available in the pipes network.

My second idea is that making the chemical plant accept both pipes and inserter makes for kludgy setup, without really being more interesting.
I'd like for chem plants to work on barrel of fluids, as created by taps.

My third idea concerns the piping infrastructure
I don't wan't to completely get rid of pipes and make barrels do anything. barrels only bring a discrete element to fluid that handles uniformly with all the other part of the games.
I'd put piping more on the refinery sides, having the refinery requiring multiple building to produce the final products. After all a refinery tower only produce classes of products, which then needs more processing before becoming stable and useful. So I'd add a building to take over some of the transformations that now happen at the chemical plants. This chemical processing plant would perform all the liquid to liquid transformations and would only accept/output to pipes. Add hydrogenation along with cracking and reforming to the mix, and you'll make use of al the awesome piping you made without having barrel everything reducing the overall complexity

[AlexPhoenix]

1)no-no, barrels must be crafted as other things of game, this add logistic.
but may be add more using to barrels, like hude explosives, or just recycling.
2)may be yes, i thought about small building to pack to/unpack from barrels(forget how to say in english)
3)interesting, more complex, more mindbreak, fine ^^

[immibis]

If barrels are easy to make (because you don't need empty barrels, in your first idea) then why would anyone ever use pipes?

[LoSboccacc]

Because barrels would move less liquid, slower.
To get to a decent volume moved you'd need fast belts or lotsa train.

[rlerner]

I love the barrels, and wish they would add them for all fluid types. I would also like to see the assembly machines be used to create all items, and receive barrels of whatever chemical they need to make the product, or, a direct pipe optionally.

In the real world, companies don't build with large pipes attached to the local refinery for chemicals, they buy barrels or trucks of what they need, and it is shipped. I like all of the options we have with the belts, personally, smart inserters, splitters, directional control, use of two types of items on the same belt (two lanes), and the ability to filter them out. Pipes would need a lot of work to have most of this... triple basins to separate oil/water, and so on.

/rant