One way Pipes/Smart valves/Pressure regulation/Fluid Control

[LDShadowLord]

As the title says, my suggestion is one way pipes. I constantly have a problem where my boilers send water the wrong way round my piping network and as such it doesn't reach where it needs to be. Simple enough, right? The graphical bit can simply be an arrow pointing the direction it flows.

[Telarin]

The small pumps should accomplish this for you.

[Tyrope]

I believe the word you're looking for is valve. I'd love to see those. (Perhaps even configurable 'this way'/'that way'/'block all'?)

[Neotix]

One way pipes are ridiculous, there is no such thing in reality. Flow direction is determined by pressure and you can actually make it by using pumps.

But if we're speaking about pipes, I would like to have high pressure ones and better pumps. Right now to transport high amount of liquid to many objects i have to use several parallel pipes because one pipe is not enough.

[BurnHard]

Ever thought about how the air stays in the tire of your car? Yes, thats a one-way valve

[Neotix]

One-way valve could be added but it should work like real one. Allow liquid to flow in one direction but only from high pressure to low pressure.

liquid is flowing
hight pressure | one-way valve -> | low pressure

liquid is not flowing
low pressure | one-way valve -> | high pressure

[ssilk]

Please make an example where this can be used, cause I have currently no idea.

[Neotix]

Basic example:



Refinery is producing petrol gas and pumping it into the network. Unused gas is going to tank and it's pumping back to network. So the gas from refinery and tank have the highest priority. Chemical plant have only valve so it have the lowest priority, and produce gas only when Refinery and Tank can't provide enough amount.

[ssilk]

Good point. That's a valid request and should be sometimes very useful. But what we need then is not a one-way-valve, but something which opens/closes when some level is going over/below some limit.

I don't make any suggestion about the type, mechanic or electric, the devs should think for that.

[DrNoid]

That's called a "reduction valve" or "pressure regulator". It can regulate from the high pressure at the refinery side to a lower pressure at the tank side. In- game it would also need a GUI where you can set the target pressure.
It's a valve that can have a high pressure at the refinery side (say, 10) but that only opens when the pressure at the tank side drops below, say, 2. So as long as the refinery produces enough gas to keep the pressure above 2, the valve won't open and chemical plant will be inactive because its output pipes are full. But if the refinery stops (either because the light/heavy oil tanks are full or because the crude oil has run out) and the gas pressure drops below 2, the valve will open and the chemical plant will start working again.

[JackGruff]

I find myself needing to be able to control what liquid is being cracked. For instance you don't what to use up all your liquid oil when cracking it to petroleum gas.

If we had a controllable valve, I could connect it to a circuit network and set it to only open per a condition. We should also be able to connect tanks to the circuit network, so that conditions based on their collective storage can be set.

[Garm]

technically you can: make toggleable steam engine and power pump with it.

[ssilk]

Moved. See previous posts!

[Khyron]

The small pumps should accomplish this for you.

This.

Small pumps double as a one-way valve even when unpowered.

[ssilk]

Small pumps don't pump anything when unpowered!

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=3724

This thread is about more intelligent handling of that example!

[Khyron]

Small pumps don't pump anything when unpowered!

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=3724

This thread is about more intelligent handling of that example!

Oops, I did some testing and you're right. They do have to be powered in order for fluid to flow through them. I thought I read somewhere that they act as a valve while unpowered. But when they are powered they act as a valve, so doesn't that fulfill the requirements?

[ssilk]

Restart reading all articles of this thread.

[Khyron]

Restart reading all articles of this thread.

Ok...

Basic example:



Refinery is producing petrol gas and pumping it into the network. Unused gas is going to tank and it's pumping back to network. So the gas from refinery and tank have the highest priority. Chemical plant have only valve so it have the lowest priority, and produce gas only when Refinery and Tank can't provide enough amount.

The hard part was convincing myself that someone would want to design a liquid network that way I kept thinking that you could use a one way valve on the light oil tank if you wanted to ensure there was some light oil around. But I see that's not the issue.

I can see that it's not possible to do this with the current game assets, so a new object is needed if that functionality is desired. It's certainly possible to play the game and manage your oil without this object, but it could be useful.

That's called a "reduction valve" or "pressure regulator".

Right, this is the missing object. It should be easy to add.

Might be a good idea to rename this thread.

[The Phoenixian]

Basic example:



Refinery is producing petrol gas and pumping it into the network. Unused gas is going to tank and it's pumping back to network. So the gas from refinery and tank have the highest priority. Chemical plant have only valve so it have the lowest priority, and produce gas only when Refinery and Tank can't provide enough amount.

Hmm...

Restating to make sure I understand: If I'm reading you right, you want you want to set the cracking to be a low priority operation. It should already be possible to do so passably well with the game as it stands.

The attached image is variation on a setup I use to crack certain fluids only when I have too much. (Via drawing from the empty end which, naturally only works when it has too much in it.) However I can confirm it works in reverse: when filling it an offshore pumps I, reached the point where the pumps slowed dramatically I can't give the exact numbers on the flow rate but at the end, it took about eight seconds for the pipes "flowing fluid" animation to cycle once and I when I only had the lower pressure storage tank attached to the setup I was getting maybe three tenths of a unit of fluid in the storage tank per second.

Note that the same setup can be used with pipes and pumps or with just storage tanks without the need for storage tanks but it flows a little different in each case and in pipes it's not quite as intuitive. Note how last pipe in the section will have a significantly higher pressure than those right before it as will any tanks leading off from it. In fact when I added that lower storage tank it actually drained the one above.