Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Don't know how to use a machine? Looking for efficient setups? Stuck in a mission?
Post Reply
ming.yuan
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2020 7:54 am
Contact:

Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by ming.yuan »

1.png
1.png (1.03 MiB) Viewed 2555 times
Am I getting a bug or a new feature that I am not aware of?
How come this system shows two contents?
All the machines are actually working.
Something I can think of is that when I change the recipe of the machines earlier the input connections changed, so that I have to rearrange the pipes.
I drained with the pump before I connect them again. Obviously if i do not do that the game wont allow me to connect.
But now I get this? How come?
I check the entire pipe system and they are definitely not mixed. The game wont allow me to build it in the first place if they are connected.

mergele
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Aug 20, 2016 5:45 am
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by mergele »

You can have multiple fluids in the same system. IT'S A BAD IDEA AND YOU SHOULD FIX IT BECAUSE IT WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS!
The "you can't mix fluids" is not a hard and iron rule actually, they tried that and found out there are just to many edge cases to catch to make it work. So now it catched *most* cases, and if you happened upon one of the exceptions and contaminated your setup you'll have to flush and correct by hand.

Squelch
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:31 pm
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by Squelch »

ming.yuan wrote:
Mon Sep 07, 2020 9:41 am
Am I getting a bug or a new feature that I am not aware of?
I would say it's a mis feature.

I see you are running Pyanodon's mods, and I encountered the exact same problem. It stems from how many inputs there are on some machines, and they actually leak fluids out. Vanilla Factorio seems to avoid this entirely by not having multiple inputs for the same fluid that might change with the recipe.

My particular problem came after the recent hot air changes in Py. I had pipes that passed by, and were originally connected to what were hot air inputs, but after the changes, the recipes for those machines needed to be changed. The result was that an input for a different fluid was then adjacent to another fluid. It was once impossible to change recipes that would connect mixed fluids before the recent fluid changes in vanilla. Now it does it silently, and due to Py multiple inputs, some machines can connect to incorrect fluids. They do not accept the incorrect fluid, but do leak an incorrect fluid back into the pipe - which is rather unintuitive, and hard to spot. You will find that even if you flush the wrong fluid out, it will return again, so you'll need to debug the whole run of the contaminated pipe.

See related bug report discussion

Check your hot air pipe along its run to find that it probably passes by a creamy latex input on one or more machines. While your machines appear to be running now, they will stop at some point in future.

I realise that this sounds rather complicated, and it is complicated to explain.

The TLDR is - Make sure you do not have machine fluid inputs connected to pipes carrying another fluid after a recipe change. This affects machines that can have multiple fluid inputs that may change role after a recipe change.

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by mrvn »

So far I noticed it only on the glass works. The different recipes have the pipe connections at the same places but inputs and outputs switched around. So if you build glass plates with heat and switch that to glass flasks then for example molten glass and heat trade places (iirc).

Which would explain why you have heat and molten glass mixed.

From the amount I assume you have a storage tank with molten glass somewhere (23k is nearly a full tank). And 683 hot air should be 7 pipe segments or you have some hot air inputs connected to the molten glass with hot air left in the entity.

Note that some glass works have 2 molten glass inputs. If one of them is connected to the storage tank and the other to a pipe with hot air then the GUI will show bot "liquids". But I'm pretty sure no molten glass will flow out of the glass furnace and into the hot air pipe. It's shows as connects but I'm pretty sure the input is unidirectional unless you destroy the furnace.

Squelch
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:31 pm
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by Squelch »

Ah ha! Molten glass, not creamy latex. Thanks @mrvn. My glassworks did suffer the same.

There is another scenario in Py where this happens, and that's Iron and Copper furnaces that use[d] hot air.

ming.yuan
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2020 7:54 am
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by ming.yuan »

Yeah the problem is exactly like that. So the leaking is real!
Anyway I will deconstruct the whole line to eliminate it.
The problem is that every time you want to change recipe, it may instantly contaminate the system again.
It can be very fussy to disconnet all pipes before changing recipes, and then connect again.
I think this one should be treated as a bug and corrected.

Squelch
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:31 pm
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by Squelch »

ming.yuan wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:46 am
Yeah the problem is exactly like that. So the leaking is real!
Anyway I will deconstruct the whole line to eliminate it.
The problem is that every time you want to change recipe, it may instantly contaminate the system again.
It can be very fussy to disconnet all pipes before changing recipes, and then connect again.
Yes, when it happens and you're not aware of how it happens, it is very troublesome. My base is very crowded due to the map generation, and it took me a long time to debug. I hope you find the problem quickly, and you don't have to deconstruct too much of your factory.
I think this one should be treated as a bug and corrected.
It is a grey area, and certainly an edge case. In the vanilla game, this cannot happen, but with modded entities that repurpose inputs, and have multiple inputs of the same type, it does cause problems. I have been contemplating raising a bug report due to no warnings, or other mechanism preventing mixed fluids when recipes are changed, and also because the input does leak constantly. I do fear that such a report will be rejected because it is working as intended (in vanilla), and is caused by a mod. It would be interesting to see if any other mods are affected in the same way.

User avatar
5thHorseman
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1193
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:21 pm
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by 5thHorseman »

ming.yuan wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:46 am
Anyway I will deconstruct the whole line to eliminate it.
Why would you do that? Use the "flush" button for the ingredient you don't want and bam, it's fixed.
ming.yuan wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:46 am
The problem is that every time you want to change recipe, it may instantly contaminate the system again.
It can be very fussy to disconnet all pipes before changing recipes, and then connect again.
Which is why you should flush them afterward instead.

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by mrvn »

Squelch wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:40 pm
ming.yuan wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:46 am
Yeah the problem is exactly like that. So the leaking is real!
Anyway I will deconstruct the whole line to eliminate it.
The problem is that every time you want to change recipe, it may instantly contaminate the system again.
It can be very fussy to disconnet all pipes before changing recipes, and then connect again.
Yes, when it happens and you're not aware of how it happens, it is very troublesome. My base is very crowded due to the map generation, and it took me a long time to debug. I hope you find the problem quickly, and you don't have to deconstruct too much of your factory.
I think this one should be treated as a bug and corrected.
It is a grey area, and certainly an edge case. In the vanilla game, this cannot happen, but with modded entities that repurpose inputs, and have multiple inputs of the same type, it does cause problems. I have been contemplating raising a bug report due to no warnings, or other mechanism preventing mixed fluids when recipes are changed, and also because the input does leak constantly. I do fear that such a report will be rejected because it is working as intended (in vanilla), and is caused by a mod. It would be interesting to see if any other mods are affected in the same way.
It would be simplest to change the recipes so all glass related recipes have the molten glass, fuel and hot air in the same order.

I don't think having the hot air input repurposed as a second molten glass input for the basic recipe is a problem. Sure it leads to some mixing when you switch from basic to hot air glass but then you learn which input to use. It's a one time problem. Unlike the difference between glass, flask and petri dishes. You might switch between those recipes multiple times depending on what you need and each time you have to rebuild the pipes because the inputs switch places.

Squelch
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 346
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:31 pm
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by Squelch »

I've been doing some testing, and have found that inputs do not leak as I first thought. The new user interface for pipes is a little misleading and shows "all" fluids for any given fluid segment. This naturally includes machine inputs that are of the same fluid designation, tanks, and anything else in that segment. Tests have shown that an independent input with the same fluid type as another input may indicate that they have a mix, but this is purely an artefact of the interface. Furthermore, nothing is leaked out of the input.

I don't mind admitting that I was wrong in this instance, and was simply fooled by the UI.
mrvn wrote:
Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:22 am
I don't think having the hot air input repurposed as a second molten glass input for the basic recipe is a problem.
I'm not sure how the "mix" came about for the OP, but in my case it happened when Pyanodon changed how hot air was used, and that rendered some existing recipes invalid, so therefore reset to none. The problems appeared when the new recipes were reinstated. That is, of course a rare occurrence (I hope :lol:)

This does not mean that it is not possible to mix fluids when changing recipes, so @mrvn's advice above is sound.

Another pitfall that I see players encountering, is at train stops. Fluid wagons connect and disconnect from the fluid segment, so if that segment happens to be empty (ie not reserved) when the train arrives, then it is possible to pump a different fluid into what was supposed to be a system for a different fluid. As long as there is some fluid amount in that segment, then it remains reserved, and pumps will only remove that particular fluid from the wagon.

I have found a neat exploitation using the above pitfall to discreetly handle multiple fluids at train stations with just a loading and offloading pump connecting to the wagon. That's a little off topic right now, so I'll post my findings elsewhere.

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: Multiple fluid in one pipe system?

Post by mrvn »

Squelch wrote:
Sat Sep 19, 2020 4:30 pm
I've been doing some testing, and have found that inputs do not leak as I first thought. The new user interface for pipes is a little misleading and shows "all" fluids for any given fluid segment. This naturally includes machine inputs that are of the same fluid designation, tanks, and anything else in that segment. Tests have shown that an independent input with the same fluid type as another input may indicate that they have a mix, but this is purely an artefact of the interface. Furthermore, nothing is leaked out of the input.
In the alt view each fluid input/ouput has arrows shwoing the direction of flow. Some are both inputs and outputs. For the glassworks it's input only so normaly nothing flows out and mixes fluids.

But afaik when you deconstruct the building or change the recipe to one that doesn't have the fluid anymore then any remaining fluid flows back out of the inputs. So you can get real fluid mixing and not just flase displays. But it's rare and I think can be ignored.

For me it's more a matter of making the glass, flask, petri dish hot air recipes work all with the same setup. It's anoying that one has to remove and rebuild pipes when switching from one to the other and that one can't use the same blueprint for each of the three.

Post Reply

Return to “Gameplay Help”