If you could walk on pipes in Factorio, would you build less underground pipes?

[mrvn]

Even if you could jump/climb over pipes that still leaves the problem of pipes connecting all around and cars and tanks. Pipes often go for long ways through total wilderness and when you drive around in your car it is awfully inconvenient to drive around 1000 m of pipe just to get to the other side. Plus underground pipes flow better (per distance). Actually the constant entry/exit pipes all over the place are a pain. When I drive around I'm sure to hit exactly that part where there is some pipe instead of the far larger gap between.

So let me suggest a (major) redesign of pipes:

• There are 4 kinds of pipes: Straight pipe, access pipe and junction, bridge.
• Access pipes look kind of like a fire hydrant. They connect the surface with the underground pipe network. Access pipes connect all around. Put 2 access pipes next to each other and they connect. Put a pump next to it and it connects. (Basically how straight pipes are now.)
• Bridges are 1x3 tiles large and are kind of the reverse of under ground belts. They act like access pipes at the end that don't connect to the middle. They connect 2 under ground pipes north-south or west-east while ignoring any under ground pipe in the middle. This allows crossing 2 pipes but creates an obstacle above ground.
• All other pipes are underground.
• Straight pipes connect to the first two unconnected pipes placed next to it. The game has to remember how it connects since in parallel pipes it depends on the order of placement. Junctions connect all around.
• Straight pipes are eliminated from the fluid simulation, only access pipes and junctions are relevant tick to tick. The number of straight pipes between junctions or access points is only counted once and is simulated as flowing at uniform speed with a linear pressure gradient from end to end.

So you can build underground pipes as long as you like but the flow will decrease with distance just like straight pipes now. You can walk, drive and build over them as much as you like. But to access the contents of the pipe you need an access pipe, which needs a tile to be placed on. One part I don't like is that you need a junction to turn a corner. But that would be the price of parallel pipes not connecting.

One difficulty would be visuals and destruction. How do you show the fluid type, flow direction and speed if the pipe is under ground? How do you select it to show the pipes details or to destroy the pipe if there is something build on top? I would say that if something is on top of a pipe then the pipe is inaccessible. Destroy the thing on top before you can destroy the pipe. The destruction planer would destroy both for an area effect or just the building on top for single clicks, both for double click. Reverse for undoing a construction plan.

Taking a pipe into the hand could make buildings transparent to show the under ground pipes below. Easier to place a junction in the right place under a building that way.

Extra features:

• Access pipes could support circuits. Read pipe content (pressure) and flow direction (N, S, W, E signals).
• Straight pipes could go under water. And hey, we could have offshore oil platforms. They would have to be near land or within construction robot reach to build but would be neat.
• Straight pipes and junctions could be the same item with some other mechanism to pick how pipes connect.

[AxeSlash]

I like the idea, but a) that sounds like a lot of new assets so unlikely to make it into the game unless someone does it as a mod, and b) I think this would be better with a new research for 'Underground Pipe System' so that new players aren't overwhelmed, and so that you need to work for it.

[netmand]

[*]Regular pipes autoconnect to everything so it's impossible to run them in parallel without connecting.

I kinda wish underground ends would auto-connect just like the above-ground pieces...

[HurkWurk]

First mod I ever got was squeak through. Pipes are why

[mophydeen]

I'd never build less underground pipes.
An underground pipe behaves as a single pipe instead of all the separate sections a straight pipe would use.

[featherwinglove]

Nope, I would still use lots of underground pipes because most of the time I use UGPs it's for the sake of getting stuff out of the way of construction, and also for flow speed. A UGP is like one pipe length per piece no matter how long it is. It makes a big difference if you have Bob's on the installation. It probably reduces CPU load as well, which is important on weak rigs, especially in multiplayer. This is a way to be nice if you have a power PC in multiplayer with retro geeks and broke ppl.

[OkariDraconis]

Generally speaking I avoid pipes in general. I just barrel stuff, and manually move things around until I get logistics usually.

[Foreros]

I'd never build less underground pipes.
An underground pipe behaves as a single pipe instead of all the separate sections a straight pipe would use.

Sure, but they have the same amount of storage thaht 2 single sections of pipes give, instead of the 10x storage you get from 10 different units of single pipes.
This give you less storage capacity, that I usially put for store excess of fluids when needed.

[Zeblote]

Nope, I would still use lots of underground pipes because most of the time I use UGPs it's for the sake of getting stuff out of the way of construction, and also for flow speed. A UGP is like one pipe length per piece no matter how long it is. It makes a big difference if you have Bob's on the installation. It probably reduces CPU load as well, which is important on weak rigs, especially in multiplayer. This is a way to be nice if you have a power PC in multiplayer with retro geeks and broke ppl.

That also needs to be fixed at some point, so it shouldn't be relevant here.

[Aeternus]

Or do you think underground pipes look prettier?

I would not - for flow capacity reasons and the ability to place them beside eachother. An underground pipe of length 10 counts as 1 pipe section for calculating flow, so for longer pipes using underground pipes makes more sense.

[Zeblote]

Or do you think underground pipes look prettier?

I would not - for flow capacity reasons and the ability to place them beside eachother. An underground pipe of length 10 counts as 1 pipe section for calculating flow, so for longer pipes using underground pipes makes more sense.

That also needs to be fixed at some point, so it shouldn't be relevant here.

[featherwinglove]

Sure, but they have the same amount of storage thaht 2 single sections of pipes give, instead of the 10x storage you get from 10 different units of single pipes.
This give you less storage capacity, that I usially put for store excess of fluids when needed.

I do this too, but under extremely limited circumstances: I have Bob's Electronics and require a little bit of water storage for components in the batch era of basic electronics, and I haven't developed fluid tanks yet. The practice soon becomes uncompetitive with other solutions.

That also needs to be fixed at some point, so it shouldn't be relevant here.

What do you mean fixed? (Not specific enough) An interesting mod would be one which adds a subsurface surface ( ) to which pipes-to-ground lead, such that you have to go and connect the UGP ends together with pipes on the subsurface. It would be somewhat similar to the pipe and subway layers in SimCity 3000 (yunno, the last version of SimCity that ppl liked.) I don't think it's worth it, but maybe it's been done and I don't know it yet.

[Zeblote]

It seems pretty broken to me that an underground pipe of the same length moves fluid more efficiently, so I'm just assuming they will fix that at some point. Not sure what the fix is though... making the underground one less efficient just to match the overground ones also seems pretty stupid doesn't it? It's not easy

I also saw a post by rseding recently how he wants to get rid of unintuitive pipe physics entirely and just merge them all together like electric poles, only counting inputs/outputs.

[featherwinglove]

I don't see what the problem is with fluids moving through UGPs more efficiently. Realistic UGPs are straighter than those which follow the contours of the surface, are less prone to damage and shifting, and therefore leaks. I don't see any need to change it.

...but I do have an idea for the power grid: A percentage-based production/efficiency loss based on the number of power poles and substations in the grid. It can be researched away by increase voltage upgrades, and more advanced power poles you don't need as many of. This would also provide a motivation to do something I currently never do: upgrade and burn the old small wooden poles so they're not around when I'm launching my 324th rocket between 11 and 12 o'clock on the day of the California presidential primary.

[Steambirds]

Why not have a pipe segment with a walkable surface, like a catwalk?

[Ranakastrasz]

Well, you could always play with squeakthrough and look at the difference between your map after you finish.

[featherwinglove]

Why not have a pipe segment with a walkable surface, like a catwalk?

Seriously need this modded in. But do it for rails first!

[Ranakastrasz]

Why not have a pipe segment with a walkable surface, like a catwalk?

Seriously need this modded in. But do it for rails first!

That would actually be difficult.
Pipes, you could make them walkable.
Rails, they are walkable, and I don't know how to make a player suddenly allow a train to phase through it.

[featherwinglove]

I recall an underground rails mod used to be on factoriomods.com but haven't seen it since 0.12. Also a bridge mod i.e. actual over the water rail that doesn't look like landfill.

[Factorie]

I'd still go underground cause I'm more a fan of minimalist visuals