Turn wood into crude oil

[Yandersen]

A small request for a small mod, that will add a recipe to process the wood into the crude oil via the chemical plant. A single straight recipe like
2x Wood -> 1x Crude Oil
Just that.

The aim is just to get rid of that wood trash accumulating in the inventory after the big constructions in the woods.

Please-please? Anyone?

[FuryoftheStars]

If you search the mod portal, there are a few different mods that handle the excess wood. This is one that I use: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Wood_Gasification

There is also one that handles it by turning the wood into (char)coal.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/CharcoalBurner

[Oktokolo]

The aim is just to get rid of that wood trash accumulating in the inventory after the big constructions in the woods.

You don't need a mod for that:
Build a small prioritized steam plant and fuel it with your excess wood.

[Yandersen]

Hello again, thanks for the reply.
Thing is, I am a fan of solar power as it is pollution-free and consumes no resources which are limited - I use nothing else for power generation except for solars. But getting some extra crude oil would be kinda helpful, especially in an early game stage when full-scale oil setup is not ready yet but blue science packs are needed already.
Also, turning wood into the crude oil is an actual real thing if u google it: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cell ... SL20111018

So if anyone would be so kind to do a small mod to add a "2sec + 2x Wood -> 1x Crude oil" recipe for a chemical plant, please drop a link in this topic, I would be extremely happy to see such small and helpful mod!

[FuryoftheStars]

Interesting read, though it sounds like it's still a very new process.

While making such a mod would be fairly easy, I know if I were to make it, I'd make sulfuric acid a required ingredient (as mentioned in the article that was one of the things used and is already available in game). As such, it'd also have to locked after sulfur processing, but from a balance perspective I'm not quite sure whether or not it should require blue science packs, too. I'm almost thinking it should (but am open to discussion), so not sure if this would defeat the purpose of your request.

EDIT: I just also happened to find this: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/htl Don't know if it's based on anything realistic, but it's wood + steam = crude.

EDIT2: Oh, should also mention, that the wood gasification mod I linked earlier also does not lock you into producing something that requires burning. The wood becomes petroleum, coal, and tar, and then you have the choice of turning the tar into solid fuel or into heavy oil (and of course the coal can be turned into crude).

[Yandersen]

Well, yeah, any requirements like sulfuric acid, blue science and such will defeat the value of such mod. Or at least make the tech obsolete by the game time point at which it could be researched. However, thinking in that direction, I would suggest to do a 2 tiers of such tech - the basic direct wood->oil recipe and tech may be an inefficient startup option coming from red&green science stage, while the r&g&b option with addition of sulfuric acid may actually serve a role of an advanced version of the recipe. How about this?

As for the steam as an ingredient - bs. The water vapor is actually a waste released as a byproduct during the process, so from realistic point of view, it could be a second output product, not input. Actually, the idea of such mod came to me not from the article I linked, but from one russian video I've seen. The guy tightly stuffed the barrel with freshly cut wood, made a fire around it, and after some time, from the long output pipe going through the cold ground mass he started collecting drips of a water-oil mixture which separated into viscous flammable dark-brown layer on top and dirty water in the bottom. So for a mod, a direct conversion of wood into oil recipe does smell quite realistic considering it is a game. As for the article I linked before, the advanced recipe including sulfuric acid has the industrial flavor.

So yeah, there is a way to get both ideas implemented: two recipes - one basic (direct but slow, good as a startup) and one advanced (with sulfuric acid and blue science).

Likey-likey, yes? ^.^

By the way, from a realistic point of view, getting sulfur from oil has as much realism as getting vitamins from water. I guess the balance has bigger priority than realism in Factorio.

P.S.: the thing I don't like about wood gasification mod is that it adds new materials like charcoal. The idea I propose perfectly fits into the vanilla without complicating anything more than it should. It is a nice goal modders often look down at, IMHO.

[BlueTemplar]

Uh, what ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrodesulfurization

In fact, the vast majority of the 64,000,000 metric tons of sulfur produced worldwide in 2005 was byproduct sulfur from refineries and other hydrocarbon processing plants.

As for using steam in turning wood into petrochemicals,
not directly, but :
Wood-derived olefins by steam cracking of hydrodeoxygenated tall oils.

P.S.: Great idea BTW, we need more simple, early game mods like that.
(I'm actually surprised that nobody seems to have made one yet...)

[FuryoftheStars]

Well, yeah, any requirements like sulfuric acid, blue science and such will defeat the value of such mod. Or at least make the tech obsolete by the game time point at which it could be researched. However, thinking in that direction, I would suggest to do a 2 tiers of such tech - the basic direct wood->oil recipe and tech may be an inefficient startup option coming from red&green science stage, while the r&g&b option with addition of sulfuric acid may actually serve a role of an advanced version of the recipe. How about this?

{...} Actually, the idea of such mod came to me not from the article I linked, but from one russian video I've seen. The guy tightly stuffed the barrel with freshly cut wood, made a fire around it, and after some time, from the long output pipe going through the cold ground mass he started collecting drips of a water-oil mixture which separated into viscous flammable dark-brown layer on top and dirty water in the bottom. So for a mod, a direct conversion of wood into oil recipe does smell quite realistic considering it is a game. As for the article I linked before, the advanced recipe including sulfuric acid has the industrial flavor.

So yeah, there is a way to get both ideas implemented: two recipes - one basic (direct but slow, good as a startup) and one advanced (with sulfuric acid and blue science).

Likey-likey, yes? ^.^

Yeah, ok, that sounds good. Didn't realize that someone was getting something out of it without the sulfuric acid. That said, I don't know about 2 -> 1... maybe 5 -> 1? Then the advanced sulfuric acid one can do something like 5 wood + 5 sulfuric acid -> 2 crude + 3 sulfuric acid (the article on this one said about how some of the sulfuric acid was recoverable). Also, with what you said about the Russian one being a dark brown, I wonder if that basic recipe should be more like wood -> heavy oil instead of crude?

I'll start working on this and may be able to get something up later today or tomorrow. I'll make a basic recipe that does the direct wood to oil, requiring r&g science and oil processing researched, then do an advanced recipe that's wood & sulfuric acid to oil & some recycled sulfuric acid, requiring r&g&b science and sulfur researched. Still open to suggestions on balance.

Current thinking: (EDIT: Changed balance figures after some play testing)(EDIT2: Made another change)

• Basic Wood to Oil Processing
  • Ingredients:
    • 5x Wood
  • Results:
    • 1 2x Heavy Oil
  • Crafting time: 5 4s
• Advanced Wood to Oil Processing
  • Ingredients:
    • 5x Wood
    • 5x Sulfuric Acid
  • Results:
    • 2 3x Crude Oil
    • 3x Sulfuric Acid
  • Crafting time: 5 4s

Let me know thoughts.

By the way, from a realistic point of view, getting sulfur from oil has as much realism as getting vitamins from water. I guess the balance has bigger priority than realism in Factorio.

Yeah, as BlueTemplar said, this is actually realistic. As one example: the production of low-sulfur diesel fuel.

P.S.: the thing I don't like about wood gasification mod is that it adds new materials like charcoal. The idea I propose perfectly fits into the vanilla without complicating anything more than it should. It is a nice goal modders often look down at, IMHO.

I wouldn't say that modders necessarily look down on that, but more so that's often the reason we're modding in the first place, to make things a little more complex.

Me personally, I often like trying to add some flavors of realism (within reason, and so yes, complexity), and dislike making things cheaty or making MKII/MKIII/etc variants of everything.

[BlueTemplar]

Hey, heavy oil rather than crude oil is interesting from a gameplay perspective !
You will be able to make solid fuel and use it in flame turrets, though that's pretty much it...
This could give you a good enough boost to be able to claim the oil that you're missing !

[FuryoftheStars]

Hey, heavy oil rather than crude oil is interesting from a gameplay perspective !
You will be able to make solid fuel and use it in flame turrets, though that's pretty much it...
This could give you a good enough boost to be able to claim the oil that you're missing !

You can also use it to make lubricant (express belts) and crack it to light oil. I think using light oil to make solid fuel might be more efficient? Only need 10 units of light vs 20 of heavy per solid fuel (something which I completely forgot about until today). For 40 heavy oil, you can make 2 solid fuels, or crack it into 30 units of light oil and make 3 solid fuels.

Balance update: I'm increasing the units of oil produced by each method by 1 (so basic yields 2 units of heavy oil and advanced yields 3 units of crude). This makes it more of a 2.5 to 1 ratio for basic, closer to the original suggestion. Crafting time is also at 5 secs as of right now.

Oh, sorry... mod made. Not released, yet. Been testing to make sure everything goes as expected.

[Oktokolo]

Uh, what ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrodesulfurization

In fact, the vast majority of the 64,000,000 metric tons of sulfur produced worldwide in 2005 was byproduct sulfur from refineries and other hydrocarbon processing plants.

I remember that "acid rain" was a real thing in the 80's. Whole forests just died because the earth got too acidic. There where images of dead trees reaching to the horizon in the mainstream news. A lot of historic sandstone buildings had to be restored, because stone that was there for centuries had been literally washed away by the rain in years.
They dropped limestone from planes above forests to fix the problem locally and we got massive regulations to reduce the emission of sulfur into the atmosphere. Since then power plants have to "wash" the sulfur from their exhausts and gas is almost sulfur free.
It worked. That human-made geoengineering project has actually been stopped.
Climate change by carbonization of the atmosphere is way harder to deal with (stopping isn't actually possible anymore as "perma"frost peat bogs and underwater methanehydrate deposits already start melting)...

[FuryoftheStars]

So I've been testing this for a bit and I think I've got some "final" balance numbers. Not sure what others think.

• Basic Wood to Oil Processing
  • Ingredients:
    • 5x Wood
  • Results:
    • 1 2x Heavy Oil
  • Crafting time: 5 4s
• Advanced Wood to Oil Processing
  • Ingredients:
    • 5x Wood
    • 5x Sulfuric Acid
  • Results:
    • 2 3x Crude Oil
    • 3x Sulfuric Acid
  • Crafting time: 5 4s

I did a self-sustaining test setup in which I had both processes being used. It literally produced everything it needed itself, including solid fuel for power, except for the wood, iron plates (for making the sulfuric acid), and of course water came from an offshore pump. Without modules, it spends a lot of time without enough sulfuric acid to run the advanced processing, but ultimately will never fully stall/run out of power. With 2x EM3 and 1x SM3 modules loaded into everything that can take modules, it's actually able to keep the advanced processing portion up full time and very, very, very, very slowly starts building up excess sulfuric acid.

I feel good about these results. If anyone feels otherwise, please let me know. I'll be uploading the mod in a little bit.

[FuryoftheStars]

Mod uploaded.
Forum thread: viewtopic.php?f=190&t=73212&p=441901#p441901
Mod page: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Wood2OilProcessing

[Yandersen]

Wow-wow, the thread goes viral!
I like everything mr FuryoftheStars came to, even the wood-> heavy oil idea, but only from the gameplay point of view. Because the direct wood cracking produces the whole mix of chemicals, not only the heavy hydrocarbons. The heavy (plus light, I suspect), collected as a single output product, was a result of a crude device setup described. I suspect the gaseous products were just escaping the chamber along with water vapor through the pipe since the gaseous fraction was not collected and could leave freely. Pretty sure, with adequate heating, chamber pressurizing, output water-cooling and gas-product collection we can output the whole range of factorio-oil products. Therefore, I am dare to suggest to expand the mod with another tech, allowing for one more recipe for the refinery this time:
Input:

Wood,
Water (for cooling),
Sulfuric acid (input only - assume the product recycled back reducing the required input);

Output:
Heavy oil,
Light oil,
Petroleum gas.

[BlueTemplar]

Hey, heavy oil rather than crude oil is interesting from a gameplay perspective !
You will be able to make solid fuel and use it in flame turrets, though that's pretty much it...
This could give you a good enough boost to be able to claim the oil that you're missing !

You can also use it to make lubricant (express belts) and crack it to light oil.

Except all the uses of heavy oil require other petrochemicals :
- Cracking into light oil <= Needs Blue science
- Flamethrower ammo <= Needs light oil
- Lubricant => all uses require other petrochemicals :
-- Blue Logistics <= Needs Blue science
-- Electric engine unit :
--- Exoskeleton, Power Armor mk1&2 <= Needs Blue Science
--- Flying Robot Frame <= Needs Batteries <= Sulfur <= Gas
(Blue Science : needs Advanced Circuits <= Plastics <= Gas)

So you've got the recipe implications already balanced for you !

[FuryoftheStars]

Wow-wow, the thread goes viral!
I like everything mr FuryoftheStars came to, even the wood-> heavy oil idea, but only from the gameplay point of view. Because the direct wood cracking produces the whole mix of chemicals, not only the heavy hydrocarbons. The heavy (plus light, I suspect), collected as a single output product, was a result of a crude device setup described. I suspect the gaseous products were just escaping the chamber along with water vapor through the pipe since the gaseous fraction was not collected and could leave freely. Pretty sure, with adequate heating, chamber pressurizing, output water-cooling and gas-product collection we can output the whole range of factorio-oil products. Therefore, I am dare to suggest to expand the mod with another tech, allowing for one more recipe for the refinery this time:
Input:

Wood,
Water (for cooling),
Sulfuric acid (input only - assume the product recycled back reducing the required input);

Output:
Heavy oil,
Light oil,
Petroleum gas.

Been mulling this around in my head. Based on your feedback, I'm thinking of the following things. Let me know your thoughts.

First, taking the Basic recipe and rebalancing it to output 1 heavy & 1 light oil instead of 2 heavy.

As for your new recipe/tech suggestion, I had wondered at some point about whether or not to introduce a "bulk" recipe. The problem I see with bulk recipes is in balancing the output... while you do want to make it better in some way (maybe less time or even different/less expensive input ingredients), if you make it better in the wrong way (like giving it more on the output), using anything other than the new recipe can be seen as a waste of the resources (wood), and you feel compelled to hold onto a few leftover units for really long periods of time until/in case you get more rather than wasting them.

I think you might be right about gases where that Russian video you saw is concerned, though I'm unsure about the one using the sulfuric acid. And anyway, the Russian one is being used as a basic version, so let's not get carried away with that one, while the sulfuric acid one is giving you crude that will refine to give petrol as well.

All of that said, if we did the sulfuric acid one as a bulk recipe and did it in the refinery, it seems reasonable to also say that the outputted crude from that process is also then put through the normal oil processing at the same time, saving you a step and some logistical setup. The problem would be that you'd lose the flexibility of how to process the crude: using the regular oil processing (30/30/40) or advanced (10/45/55) (heavy/light/petrol, respectively).

Although... (can you tell I'm thinking of things as I type, yet? )... we could use this to our advantage to make the output of the bulk recipe better while still making the non-bulk version viable. If we give the bulk recipe slightly better output than standard oil processing, but not as good as the advanced? Hmm, not sure. Thoughts???

Either way, if I did a bulk one, I'd have it take maybe about 75-90% of the same amount of time as if you put all the wood through the non-bulk recipes.

Ok, yeah, give me some feedback on all of this and then we can go from there.

[Yandersen]

Deep thinking, right thoughts, mr FuryoftheStars - I am impressed with your cautious approach!
I like the idea of changing to light&heavy mix you propose. But still, this way we are following the path of realism forgetting the gameplay aspect of the idea. And from that perspective, either heavy or heavy&light - their applications have no much of use without plastic made from petroleum, and to get petroleum you must crack heavy (or light oil) via Advanced oil processing tech which comes after the blue science pack. The only way to get petroleum at r&g stage is to process crude. Without petroleum gas you get no plastic, without plastic you get no blue science. Without blue science - you can't get cracking tech. So I see the only way out of this closed loop - to convert wood into crude oil, not anything else by the basic wood processing recipe.

So basically the purpose of basic wood processing is to just help the player with getting some oil-based products before the fully developed blue science stage, since oil resources are usually far from the starting point and require trains to get delivered to the base. As an OCD player, I can't just place a rail from A to B and go on - I feel compelled to plan the whole base layout and train network ahead, and during that process few bots, accumulators and laser turrets will help a lot. And in case of not-OCD player, setting up a first distant oil outpost involves building a long railroad, where bots would help a lot, and the accumulators&solars' energy setup would save from running a long power lines from the base. So yeah, a bit of oil in the early stage will save a lot of headache - that is the main purpose to get wood processed directly to crude from gameplay perspective - to get personal roboport sooner. This will not brake the balance or anything - it just a QoL feature saving some time and nerves for the player.

As for the advanced wood processing, I agree, the bulk recipe in a refinery will mess up things. Better to stick to the chemical plant only and focus solely on crude oil processing. So basically the player sets the "wood dumpster" initially which produces a bit of oil - right at the base' doorstep, and once refineries are set and sulfuric acid flows, he just loops a branched acid pipe back to the "dumpster" to increase it's efficiency (more oil per wood, faster process).

[BlueTemplar]

So basically the purpose of basic wood processing is to just help the player with getting some oil-based products before the fully developed blue science stage

More like "the fully developed green science stage" : like half of green science techs (like non-personal roboports) need oil to be useful :
viewtopic.php?p=399752#p399752


If what you really want is to skip the whole early-mid game to get straight to personal roboports,
then you might be better served by mods that start you with a modular armor, bots, and a personal roboport,
or mods that allow you to make full use of blueprints without waiting for bots, like :
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Nanobots
or
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Bluebuild

(Also, my first oil outpost tends to be by car...)

[Yandersen]

(Also, my first oil outpost tends to be by car...)

Yeah, my last playthrough I did the same. The empty barrels now lost somewhere in the logistic network. Would be wonderful to have a car with tank attachment or smg... XD

[FuryoftheStars]

(Also, my first oil outpost tends to be by car...)

Yeah, my last playthrough I did the same. The empty barrels now lost somewhere in the logistic network. Would be wonderful to have a car with tank attachment or smg... XD

Wanna hear something funny? Steam has me logged at 952 hours play time...
...and I have not once legitimately played a map to the point of having oil setup.

Something usually happens that makes me want to start over, usually with the addition or removal of mods or wanting to tweak settings to get a better game play feel, or I spend my time using something like Creative Mode to design and explore, make mods for personal use, etc, etc

The one time I actually established an oil outpost... it was so far away from the starting area that biters were thick. Of course, not being able to get oil, my combat options were limited, though I did have the Long Range Turret mod, but also had the mod that adds a startup delay of 8 secs to newly placed turrets. I also play with Alien Biomes, so in this map generation, the terrain from my nearest outpost to the oil was speed reducing terrain and really thick with trees all around the biter nests and oil, pretty much taking the car out of the picture, and my power generation couldn't support lasers. So I ended up basically turret creeping, expanding out a narrow lane from my outposts defense wall, belting in ammo the 20 some odd chunks to get me a good defensive position closer to the oil that I then would run out of, shoot up a couple nests, run back, rinse-repeat.

I had a blast.

All of that said... have you checked out RSO (Resource Spawn Overhaul)? It actually makes it so that you will have a couple things of oil spawn in the starting area now, provided your map gen seed doesn't have it spawn in your starting pond....

I think, though, I understand what you're trying to get at.

Hmm... ok, so part of my fear with some of this has basically been accidentally making it so converting wood to oil would cause an increase in available energy. IMO, it should cause a decrease (there should be some loss). So, I ended up going through everything and doing some math, on in game wood to crude oil energy ratios (for the record, using advanced oil processing and heavy to light cracking to maximize solid fuel production, 1 unit of wood has an equivalent energy value of 2.08333 units of crude oil), the energy loss of the sulfuric acid process you linked earlier (roughly 58% loss), and how all of this converted to in game values: 1 unit of wood should be able to produce 0.872 units of crude (better than the 5 to 3 (0.6) I'm currently giving it).

So what does this mean? It means, for balance purposes, we can actually make the sulfuric acid (advanced) process do a 7 wood + 7 sulfuric acid -> 6 crude oil conversion (increasing the wood requirement from 5 to 7 minimizes rounding loss on the crude oil). I still want to have some sulfuric acid output on the results to make you have to deal with it, though.

It also means I feel comfortable in changing the basic process to a 4 wood -> 2 crude + 8 petroleum (I used the wood gasification mod ratios for this, converting their "tar" into crude and dropping the fraction left over).

With those figures, do you still want the processes in their own separate researches and should the advanced one maybe be made later (ie, after advanced oil)?

EDIT: Oh, I also had a request on the mod portal to add intermediaries like tree sap or what ever, which I did tell them no on based on my understanding of your not wanting non-vanilla items that require additional processing to take care of. But they also mentioned coal... and I wanted to get your input on having a piece or two of coal also coming out of the basic process (the one from the Russian video). I have no idea if the full amount of wood put in will be converted or if there would be some leftover bits that may make sense as being coal and if this would be an acceptable logistics complication.

EDIT2: And actually, if you're good with the idea of coal coming out of the basic process, I found a post within the wood gasification mod portal that suggested for better balance the ratio should have been 4 wood -> 2 tar, 4 petrol, and 1 coal, where the tar had a 2:1 conversion ratio to heavy oil. As such, I'd adapt the basic recipe here to be 4 wood -> 1 crude, 4 petrol, 1 coal. While I realize you wouldn't use the coal for energy, you could still use it for other things (does military research still require grenades?) and later could divert it to coal liquefaction.

EDIT3: With the increased output/utility of these recipes, too, I'm thinking of increasing the time needed for them to complete, but am unsure on a good value. Wood Gasification has its set for 10, but I almost feel this may be too long?

EDIT4: I think I need to do a little bit more math on the basic process. Thought about it while I slept and realized that with the current ratios, I think it’s almost as good as the advanced one (energy wise) and more so if coal is included.