how do YOU manage barrels of oil?

[impetus maximus]

i'd like to start a discussion (please keep it civil) about how users deal with barrels [CRUDE], trains, empties etc.
i see a lot of users struggling with empties piling up stopping the emptying of full barrels.

so what is your method? please try to describe in detail what, and why you do things the way you do.
describe your outpost loading station(s), and base/refinery unloading station(s). bonus points for illustrations screenshots.

and yes, we all know fluid wagons are coming for 0.15 yes yes....

cheers

[Pirion]

I filter trains to store the amount of barrels I believe can be turned around and filter the accept chest down to 50 barrels stored at the filling stations. Trains are not allowed to leave until they get their fill of barrels at the drop off base.

Because I will constantly have the maximum amount of barrels out either on a train or in a station, I have very little need to remove barrels from the network, so all I have really is a network to fill barrels based on how many barrels are in my outgoing chest.



I do it like this because I can set it up one, and forget it exists...no micromanagement at all.

[Frightning]

Thanks to the train wait conditions in 0.14, this is now an easily solved problem, here is my take on it:

-Trains all come to the same unloading station which feeds into my oil refineries.
-All trains are 1-2-0 (that's 1 loco, 2 wagons, no locos facing opposite direction) 1-way trains.
-One wagon is for filled barrels, other is for empties (you choose which is which, just be sure to be consistent about it across the entire network...or else problems will occur).
-At unloading station, filled barrels are fed into an assembly machine than handles unbarreling (1 assem2 without modules can unbarrel oil at a rate of 18.75 crude/sec, which is plenty fast, 1 assem3 can do 31.25 crude/sec without modules), the resulting empties are fed back into the train's empty barrel wagon (you don't need very high loading/unloading speed from the train, since 1 barrel=25 crude, so you unless you need a LOT of crude for some reason, even a single fast inserter per step is enough).
-At outposts the process is reversed, empties are unloaded and fed into an assem2 that fills them, the filled barrels are put back onto the train (filled barrel wagon).
-The trains wait conditions are wait for 0 filled and 400 empties at unload station, and wait for 400 filled at (assigned) outpost.
-Each outpost is served by its own train, when I go to add an outpost, including the first one, I make a total of 800 new barrels, 400 of which I give to the outpost right away, the other 400 go as empties into the train's empty barrel wagon. When it arrives, the 400 additional empties are unloaded into buffer chest(s) (if only 1 chest, then that only completes with there are 80 of the original 400 empties I put there remain, since steel chest stores 480 max), once the train has 400 filled barrels it leaves, meanwhile the extra 400 empties are beginning to get filled, as the train returns to unload station and unloads it's filled barrels, it will then wait there for a total of 400 empty barrels to be produced (from precisely the 400 filled barrels it brought with it). Once it has them, it returns, ideally before the outpost has filled all 400 empties that were left there. At the main base I have at least one crude storage tank, so that I can buffer some of crude offloaded from my train, and this also allows the refineries to continue running while the is away getting more filled barrels. The system is auto-regulated by backpressure, and the oil products can be handled by the usual circuit-controlled cracking once that tech is available.

Edit: Pictures

Unload station

20170315232920_1.jpg (379.44 KiB) Viewed 16111 times

Outpost

20170315232958_1.jpg (399.03 KiB) Viewed 16111 times

[Engimage]

I prefer sharing wagon slots to oil/barrels 50/50 by setting slot filters.
Then at the outpost I do make 3 chests for empty barrels and 3 chests for oil per wagon + an assembler. You will need to use filter inserters to make this work.
This design is universal and does not depend on train configuration and orientation.

On unloading station you may opt to make barrel loading from one side and oil unloading from another.
For making the whole system filled with empty barrels you just have to load empty barrels from its production assembler to the same belt as your unbarrelers do but later on so that it will unload only if the belt has free space and is not backed up.

[Gnorok]

Due to the new train-conditions in 0.14 I don´t work any longer with filtered slots and dedicated cars but with filter inserters and wait conditions.

With 1-2 trains:

Oilfield:
Filter inserter on the output side set to Empty Barrel. Wait condition itemcount Full Oil Barrel = 800
Oilfields get a "starter pack" of 1600 empty barrels. So a train can be on it´s way and the next package can be filled.
With these conditions there can never be more than 1600 barrels at an oil field.

Refinery:
Filter inserter on the output side set to Full Oil Barrel. Wait condition itemcount Empty Barrel = 800
Refineries get a "starter pack" depending on its size, around 3200 empty barrels. Additionaly chests to store at least "number of oilfields" x 800 empty barrels, so that in the case something goes really wrong the empty barrels won´t clog my belts.

[Deadly-Bagel]

I used to have wagons 50/50 full and empty barrels, but I had some problems with logistics bots preferring the closer chest so one wagon always ended up full and the other empty and I'd have empty barrels sat uselessly at outposts, I since switched to dedicated wagons.

However without proper management you still run the risk of filling up the train and thus an outpost with empty barrels, which prevent full barrels from emptying. Probably the simplest way of managing this is just to put a check somewhere at your oil loading where if there aren't any barrels, or below some threshold, start making more.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

I specifically set the train wagon to hold 50% full and 50% empty barrels.

I use chest-caps at each oil outpost and drop a fixed number of barrels at the outpost for the assembler to fill while the train is away.

The train always arrives with 20 barrels, and can only drop off so many. That way if the outpost oil levels start to drop, the barrels stay on the train and don't accumulate somewhere where I need to go look for them.

[torne]

I just have two or four assemblers loading/unloading directly into each train wagon from one or more storage tanks. This means you only ever need enough barrels to fill your trains, and it's extremely simple to set up. It's slower, but the recipe runs pretty fast so it's not *that* slow, and it takes the same amount of time no matter how many wagons you use so you can scale it to transport as much oil as you're willing to extend the stations for

Another option I've experimented with is direct assembler loading at outposts, but having a buffer of barrels at the refinery end. This still makes it easier to control the number of barrels you are using since there's just one central point where they're managed, but it means trains can unload at the refinery faster, which can be handy if you have multiple trains visiting different sets of oil outposts.

[ledow]

I have a setup close to the pictured one, where the barrels are built for as long as there's an empty space on a short run of belt that heads towards the train.

But once the oil dies down, that gives you a glut of barrels.

So I have a series of chests - the first is just a buffer. It fills and then is emptied immediately onto a belt towards the train (the inserters on both sides have to be the same speed).

Then a circuit inserter is instructed - if there are more than 10 barrels in that chest, to remove them. The removed barrels are then put into a provider chest (the one that pushes all its contents immediately to the logistic network).

A requester chest near the barrel-making factory holds these excess barrels and supplies them in preference to creating any more.

This means that at the start of your oil run, it will keep making barrels until it's holding no more than 10 spare. That will stock your trains and remote stations and whatever else you need.

But when oil dies down and you start collecting empty barrels, it starts pushing them off to general storage without them backing up on the belt. Obviously it won't last forever, but if you have just a massive stash of storage chests anyway, you'll barely notice even a few thousand barrels.

[Phleem]

AcolyteOfRocket is right. Oil barrels do not need a complicated solution with circuits or thousands of barrels lying around. Use rail wagon filters so your train cars are limited to half full and half empty barrels. Use one chest to receive empties at the loading outpost and slot limit to a small number. Drop in 50 or so empty barrels, and you should be good.

The only way you can have a problem is if too many empties end up at on outpost, but the slot limit plus belt length sets a max for each of them.

Any other place barrels are is fine:

Full or empty on the train - okay, they will be dropped where needed
Full and backed up at unload - okay, if crude capacity is full, they just queue up
Empty waiting to go back on the train - okay, train can take lots

Only potential problem is if you don't feed in enough empties for number of loading stations, but the number needed per outpost is in the tens, not the hundreds or thousands.

Hmmm. Okay, this works for one train, but what if you need multiple trains. If all trains are doing the same loop, it's probably still okay. But if you have two separate loading loops sharing an unload station, you could have a problem with one train ending up with all the empties. For that you might want to limit the number of empties allowed on a train. You just need to add up the filtered train slots, allowed chest slots, and belt space, plus some allowance for incoming full ones and make sure you have at least that many total barrels.

One single wagon train can easily handle the oil flow with normal resource settings with several outposts with 5 to 30 oil wells each. If you have 500 wells, you might have to do something fancier.

[Hannu]

I filter always as many slots for empty and filled barrels in my cargo wagons. I use circuit condition at oil stations to leave only little more empty barrels than I can fill before next train visit. If I use only oil barrels, the problems are very rare. If I have also other fluids, I try to keep separate circulations and use circuit and/or logistic conditions to prevent problems.

My current game is trainworld with Angel's petrochemistry. I have not yet invented a perfect solution. I have not had jams yet, but I know that there can be theoretical situations which can lead to problems. It there were a way to read train contents, everything would be easy.

[mrvn]

In each train I ensure that it always has some space dedicated to full barrels and some space dedicated to empty barrels. You can do that by using multiple cars or by setting filters. I use filters and have a single car trains for oil. I also set my oil trains to remain for a fixed time at the pumping station and wait for 0 full barrels at the refinery. I tried waiting for a full car but that takes forever. I wanted smaller but more frequent bursts of oil.

Each pumping station gets a storage tank so it can produce oil while no train is there. Buffer chests for loading/unloading of barrels are optional. The amount of oil a single pumping station produces is so small that the filling station is basically always waiting for crude oil. Filling a barrel is far faster than pumping the oil so it will always catch up and empty the storage tank when a train is at the station.

For the refinery I have a buffer chest for loading and one for unloading and a storage tank for crude oil. The chest for loading also gets filled from an assembler producing barrels but only when it has < 10 barrels in it. That way, when I add a new pumping station new barrels will be added to the system over time to fill the new train car and whatever fits on the belts or buffer chests. But never so much that empty barrels will pile up at the refinery and prevent emptying full ones. I never destroy a pumping station as it will always produce some oil. So I don't need to ever take barrels out of the system.


One danger there though. You need at least one barrel in the new train or pumping station to get things started. Otherwise the train has always 0 full barrels at the refinery and doesn't wait to get filled with empty barrels. Alternatively, as I've done, you can add a "AND 5 seconds passed" to the train stop condition.

[Frightning]

AcolyteOfRocket is right. Oil barrels do not need a complicated solution with circuits or thousands of barrels lying around. Use rail wagon filters so your train cars are limited to half full and half empty barrels. Use one chest to receive empties at the loading outpost and slot limit to a small number. Drop in 50 or so empty barrels, and you should be good.

The only way you can have a problem is if too many empties end up at on outpost, but the slot limit plus belt length sets a max for each of them.

Any other place barrels are is fine:

Full or empty on the train - okay, they will be dropped where needed
Full and backed up at unload - okay, if crude capacity is full, they just queue up
Empty waiting to go back on the train - okay, train can take lots

Only potential problem is if you don't feed in enough empties for number of loading stations, but the number needed per outpost is in the tens, not the hundreds or thousands.

Hmmm. Okay, this works for one train, but what if you need multiple trains. If all trains are doing the same loop, it's probably still okay. But if you have two separate loading loops sharing an unload station, you could have a problem with one train ending up with all the empties. For that you might want to limit the number of empties allowed on a train. You just need to add up the filtered train slots, allowed chest slots, and belt space, plus some allowance for incoming full ones and make sure you have at least that many total barrels.

One single wagon train can easily handle the oil flow with normal resource settings with several outposts with 5 to 30 oil wells each. If you have 500 wells, you might have to do something fancier.

Easy to handle a shared unload station with many trains, just make sure that the train stays until the empties are returned (easily done with wait condition for proper number of empties to have in it). Oil can be unloaded very quickly compared to how fast it is used (a single Assem2 unbarreling machine can keep 18 un-moduled refineries fed even with slight downtime), and unloading/loading the train can theoretically be FAR faster than that (full wagon of barrels can be unloaded in well under 2 seconds by 12xstack inserters w/ full research).

[Killcreek2]

I use a very simple but 100% effective method to prevent the system ever getting clogged up:
Oil trains never leave a station without a full complement of barrels, either all empties OR all filled.

Filling Station picture

Filler station.png (245.58 KiB) Viewed 15632 times

Train arrives with 200 empties, then remains in the station until it has zero empties AND 200 filled. Each wagon is 50/50 pre-set slots of filled / empty barrels. Loading filled and unloading empties happens in parallel.

Filling stations are preloaded with 200 extra empty barrels, so they can start filling the next batch while the previous batch is en-route.

Oil Depot picture

Oil depot.png (490.71 KiB) Viewed 15632 times

Train arrives with 200 filled, then remains in the station until it has zero filled AND 200 empties. Again, parallel unloading / loading via separate chests.

Depot carousel has 400 extra empty barrels: This allows 400 filled barrels to stockpile when demand < supply, provides a nice buffer for production spikes, and allows oil trains to clear the station quickly when demand > supply. 400 barrels = 4 storage tanks worth, plenty for my needs but ymmv.

Adding extra trains for distant / busy filler stations is easy ~ copy paste the cargo wagon & train wait conditions, preload with 200 empty barrels, then send it on its way.
It can be scaled up for a double-wagon setup easily too: Use one wagon for filled and the other for empties, change wait conditions to 400+0 and 0+400, and give the filling stations 400 extra instead of 200.

[EDIT] Why: It is simple, easy to setup, scaleable, requires no combinator majicks, & it just works. Also the carousel looks very cool when in action imho.

[Frightning]

I use a very simple but 100% effective method to prevent the system ever getting clogged up:
Oil trains never leave a station without a full complement of barrels, either all empties OR all filled.

Filling Station picture

Filler station.png

Train arrives with 200 empties, then remains in the station until it has zero empties AND 200 filled. Each wagon is 50/50 pre-set slots of filled / empty barrels. Loading filled and unloading empties happens in parallel.

Filling stations are preloaded with 200 extra empty barrels, so they can start filling the next batch while the previous batch is en-route.

Oil Depot picture

Oil depot.png

Train arrives with 200 filled, then remains in the station until it has zero filled AND 200 empties. Again, parallel unloading / loading via separate chests.

Depot carousel has 400 extra empty barrels: This allows 400 filled barrels to stockpile when demand < supply, provides a nice buffer for production spikes, and allows oil trains to clear the station quickly when demand > supply. 400 barrels = 4 storage tanks worth, plenty for my needs but ymmv.

Adding extra trains for distant / busy filler stations is easy ~ copy paste the cargo wagon & train wait conditions, preload with 200 empty barrels, then send it on its way.
It can be scaled up for a double-wagon setup easily too: Use one wagon for filled and the other for empties, change wait conditions to 400+0 and 0+400, and give the filling stations 400 extra instead of 200.

[EDIT] Why: It is simple, easy to setup, scaleable, requires no combinator majicks, & it just works. Also the carousel looks very cool when in action imho.

Filtering slots is redundant if you use the 2-wagon design I posted, otherwise your method is very similar to mine. I even pre-load the oil outposts with a trainload of barrels so that they will be busy filling barrels even when the train is away, delivering its goods to my unload station.

[Killcreek2]

Filtering slots is redundant if you use the 2-wagon design I posted, otherwise your method is very similar to mine. I even pre-load the oil outposts with a trainload of barrels so that they will be busy filling barrels even when the train is away, delivering its goods to my unload station.

Indeed so, the train & station layouts are different but the core design mechanics are the same. I'm using filtered single wagons as there was limited room to fit in a stacker loop at the refinery & shorter trains occupy less rail [water map].
Yours seems to be designed to handle a higher throughput than mine is built for, I only have a few oil trains as half of my oil fields are close enough for a direct pipe. Good to see that a scaled-up version runs just as smoothly.

[Frightning]

Filtering slots is redundant if you use the 2-wagon design I posted, otherwise your method is very similar to mine. I even pre-load the oil outposts with a trainload of barrels so that they will be busy filling barrels even when the train is away, delivering its goods to my unload station.

Indeed so, the train & station layouts are different but the core design mechanics are the same. I'm using filtered single wagons as there was limited room to fit in a stacker loop at the refinery & shorter trains occupy less rail [water map].
Yours seems to be designed to handle a higher throughput than mine is built for, I only have a few oil trains as half of my oil fields are close enough for a direct pipe. Good to see that a scaled-up version runs just as smoothly.

It can scale up far beyond anything I've done, in fact. And what I have uploaded pics of in this thread is by no means the highest throughput version of the 2-wagon design either. You can use Stack Inserters to unload the entire train in less than 2 seconds (and if you add some extra empties at the unload station, the train will also be filled with empties at same time). Practical upper bound for oil throughput is in the several thousands of Crude oil/sec if you can keep the trains coming in smoothly, one after another (in order to get the unbarreling up to speed, you also need multiple machines and hence using logistics robots is ideal for max throughput).

[mrvn]

This makes me wonder: How many assembler do you need to fill a yellow/red/blue belt completely?

[ChurchOrganist]

I enable the RailTanker mod and use tankers - nice and easy to set up, and you're not having to worry about managing barrels

[Ranakastrasz]

In my main base, I use Robots to move the barrels, because they are highly valuable and dense, where robots are best.

Also, I make the empty barrels go into an active provider chest so they never get in the way, and have a machine making new barrels into a passive provider chest.



Without robots, I would put the un-barreler right at the station, unload all the barrels into tanks. If it runs out of space, great, we have enough oil. Otherwise, there is no problem.
I also would have an assembler making barrels that only loads via a circuit limit for less than 10 barrels, while not being limited in capacity, so that barrels are only made if they run out or after I expand.

At outposts, I use circuit limited insertions, again. Load barrels always, but only unload the empty barrels so long as there is room. Given that each barrel stack added gives room for another empty barrel, it tends to be fine. If not, I would just lock half of each car for empty barrel use. Oil is high density, even with small stack counts, so it has never been a throughput issue. Its always the oil mining that takes forever.


That said, I also reciently started using Fluid Train cars, so this isn't something I have to do anymore. After all, it is rather a pain.