0.17.60 : Reduce Heavy Oil output of Advanced Oil Processing

[DanGio]

In Factorio 17.60, AOP may be a bit too generous on Heavy oil (it was 10/45/55, it's now 25/45/55)

IIRC, Advanced processing Heavy oil output was raised to make up for Basic oil processing providing no more Heavy Oil, so the player had enough lubricant to build bots.

But see the (awkward) situation where the player, after researching Construction Robotics, would only craft bots and stop every all other Petroleum Gas consuming assembly :
The Flying Robot Frame recipe consumes, after intermediate crafts, 60 Petroleum Gas and 15 Heavy Oil. So, as 15/60 < 25/55, Heavy Oil will back up and need cracking. If the player crafts anything that requires PG - , , , - Heavy oil will backup even faster. And, lol, even if the player cuts every PG consuming recipe and cracks all his LO into PG to reduce Refineries cycles, there will still be a small HO surplus.

Why it's bad IMO :
- HO cracking setups need to be like twice bigger, without an alternative, smart solution (LO has SF)
- Coal liquefaction recipe loses one of its great interest (HO production)

(no word about blue belts, as they belong to Production science which offers the Coal Liquefaction recipe)

[Adamo]

In Factorio 17.60, AOP may be a bit too generous on Heavy oil (it was 10/45/55, it's now 25/45/55)

IIRC, Advanced processing Heavy oil output was raised to make up for Basic oil processing providing no more Heavy Oil, so the player had enough lubricant to build bots.

But see the (awkward) situation where the player, after researching Construction Robotics, would only craft bots and stop every all other Petroleum Gas consuming assembly :
The Flying Robot Frame recipe consumes, after intermediate crafts, 60 Petroleum Gas and 15 Heavy Oil. So, as 15/60 < 25/55, Heavy Oil will back up and need cracking. If the player crafts anything that requires PG - , , , - Heavy oil will backup even faster. And, lol, even if the player cuts every PG consuming recipe and cracks all his LO into PG to reduce Refineries cycles, there will still be a small HO surplus.

Why it's bad IMO :
- HO cracking setups need to be like twice bigger, without an alternative, smart solution (LO has SF)
- Coal liquefaction recipe loses one of its great interest (HO production)

(no word about blue belts, as they belong to Production science which offers the Coal Liquefaction recipe)

I second this. The claim for this was that it balanced the lack of heavy oil in the early game. But balancing against a finite situation makes no sense. The original ratio is the best choice, because it balances well with coal liquefaction.

[V453000]

I'll keep this in mind but lets see how it works first.

Thanks.

[Ranger_Aurelien]

I'm thinking the "extra" heavy oil will go to make the solid fuel cubes (via light oil for better efficiency?) now that rocket fuel requires liquid light oil directly.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Solid_fuel

[Adamo]

I'm thinking the "extra" heavy oil will go to make the solid fuel cubes (via light oil for better efficiency?) now that rocket fuel requires liquid light oil directly.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Solid_fuel

So you're saying it makes sense to add more heavy oil to the recipe just to crack it back to light oil for fuel?

[JimBarracus]

I'm thinking the "extra" heavy oil will go to make the solid fuel cubes (via light oil for better efficiency?) now that rocket fuel requires liquid light oil directly.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Solid_fuel

So you're saying it makes sense to add more heavy oil to the recipe just to crack it back to light oil for fuel?

you get 50% more solid fuel just from cracking HO to LO and turning it into SF
instead of using HO to produce SF directly.
40HO -> 30 LO -> 3 SF
40 HO -> 2 SF

anyway I like the possibility to use different ways the get the desired result
Liquefication has the main point to use coal to produce oil products
basic oil production used to be a good source for HO.

What I dislike; trying to find the perfect numbers to create brainless setups.
I know, tHeR€ iS A mOd f0R tH@t but having to deal with odd numbers is part of the fun when you're creating a new factory line.

[Adamo]

I'm thinking the "extra" heavy oil will go to make the solid fuel cubes (via light oil for better efficiency?) now that rocket fuel requires liquid light oil directly.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Solid_fuel

So you're saying it makes sense to add more heavy oil to the recipe just to crack it back to light oil for fuel?

you get 50% more solid fuel just from cracking HO to LO and turning it into SF
instead of using HO to produce SF directly.
40HO -> 30 LO -> 3 SF
40 HO -> 2 SF

anyway I like the possibility to use different ways the get the desired result
Liquefication has the main point to use coal to produce oil products
basic oil production used to be a good source for HO.

What I dislike; trying to find the perfect numbers to create brainless setups.
I know, tHeR€ iS A mOd f0R tH@t but having to deal with odd numbers is part of the fun when you're creating a new factory line.

I don't understand your point. You seem to be explaining to us that it's more efficient to crack HO into LO to make SF, but we already knew that. What happened is that in 17.60 they changed advanced oil processing from the prep-17.60 version -- 100CO --> 10 HO, 45 LO, 55 PG -- to the 17.60 version -- 100CO --> 25 HO, 45 LO, 55 PG. What I am saying in support of this original post is that there is already plenty of HO from both AOP and coal liquefaction, so adding magical extra HO to the output numbers is not only non-sense, it's unnecessary. This has nothing to do with mods: we're talking about the vanilla recipe. Therefore, the advanced oil processing recipe should be changed back to the 17.59 output numbers.

[JimBarracus]

I don't understand your point. You seem to be explaining to us that it's more efficient to crack HO into LO to make SF, but we already knew that. What happened is that in 17.60 they changed advanced oil processing from the prep-17.60 version -- 100CO --> 10 HO, 45 LO, 55 PG -- to the 17.60 version -- 100CO --> 25 HO, 45 LO, 55 PG. What I am saying in support of this original post is that there is already plenty of HO from both AOP and coal liquefaction, so adding magical extra HO to the output numbers is not only non-sense, it's unnecessary. This has nothing to do with mods: we're talking about the vanilla recipe. Therefore, the advanced oil processing recipe should be changed back to the 17.59 output numbers.

I guess they wanted to buff AOP to make it more worth to deal with the hassle of cracking oil.
You dont need that much HO, but you can crack it in whatever you want. Like I stated before, I'm not a friend of magically matching numbers. Part of the challenge is to find a good ratio but when for example 5 iron plates have the same crafting time like one steal beam thats a big coincidence.

They gave the new player the possibility to start PG production and then play around with advanced oil and figure it out while BOP is running and doing a mediocre job with a bad efficiency.

About the mod thing; they are still tweaking the numbers, feel free to use mods to change it into a more appropriate ratio.
Sure we are discussing vanilla and it feels like no one likes the changes.
These changes did not even adress the problem about the spike in difficulty; the jump from green to blue science is huge and most tech is walled behind blue science.

Why should it be changed back? I cant find any argument except that you turn 100 units of crude oil into 100 units of HO, LO and PG combined, which made sense because crude oil is just a mix of different oils/gasses and you simply seperate them.

[Optera]

Better to have too much heavy oil than too little.
You can always crack it to light and petroleum but not the other way around.

[BlueTemplar]

Because if you *really* want lots of heavy oil - rush coal liquefaction ?

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[...]
You dont need that much HO, but you can crack it in whatever you want. Like I stated before, I'm not a friend of magically matching numbers. Part of the challenge is to find a good ratio but when for example 5 iron plates have the same crafting time like one steal beam thats a big coincidence.
[...]

I thought that it was designed like this on purpose, for new players, being an early-game tech ?