Friday Facts #416 - Fluids 2.0

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-416

[tjoener]

This looks really nice, but I do miss the directional flows in the pipes. This was always such a nice moment when you turn on a chemical/fluid plant and you see all the water and oil rushing in.

Any chance that might be added again?

[tolomea]

This looks really nice, but I do miss the directional flows in the pipes. This was always such a nice moment when you turn on a chemical/fluid plant and you see all the water and oil rushing in.

Any chance that might be added again?

Could do a cosmetic only thing. I think you could spanning tree the segment and then use that in combo with the sink source info to quickly work out an approximate flow at each point.

[Terrahertz]

This should make Nucular-Power way lighter on calculations, good job!

Also the new flow animation of the pipes looks pretty neat, even if it does not depict the direction of flow anymore.

[GregoriusT]

*horrified glare at sentence*

Screenshot_20240621_130548.png (21.26 KiB) Viewed 22546 times

I am glad it is only inspired by it because i know what THAT code looks like... (not like something from Minecraft could be ported to anywhere else anyways)

But still, good Idea to finally abstract away the Fluid handling to a playable degree.

Though now I dont know what to do with the huge 2x2 Ducts Mod anymore... It kinda just looked cool and stuff to have such a huge Pipeline for Oil.

[aka13]

I think that it was the right thing to do.
The old system was fun, but only as long as you kept everything fairly small. I am also really glad that it's not fluid "packets" on a pipe "conveyor".
Really looking forward to it, I hated anything with fluid and megabases because of the 2 pipes-1pump limit.

Also, this will make reactors more sustainable, which I also appreciate.
Will anything change with the heatpipe mechanics?

[tolomea]

> Longer pipelines have higher throughput, but take longer to fully empty.

Does that mean that if I put a bunch of tanks on the side of my pipeline the throughput increases?

[MiniHerc]

A very logical change, and all I can say is: Finally.

[JackTheSpades]

Now that fluids are being updated, what about the temperature gimmick?
I call it a gimmick because only steam makes use of it and is being produced and processed by completely different machines. It might as well be a different fluid altogether.

I think it would be interesting if, for example, we had tier 4 assembly machines that required cooling liquid and instead of having one input like normal recipes they have a throughput through (e.g. from left to right) it like steam engines currently do so they can still be chained together.

You pump in 20°C cooling liquid and each machine increases the temperature by 1° per craft, on the other side you pump out the too hot liquid and somehow cool it down again.

[morse]

The only "realism" trade-off is that you don't need additional pumps for "really long" pipes. Well, "really long" pipe is a cornercase which can be processed separately. For example, you could limit the size of the segment, starting from the nearest source of fluid, and when a pipe becomes "too long" just don't use it anymore, and show a warning, so that a player knew what he has to do in order to fix his setup.

[GregoriusT]

> Longer pipelines have higher throughput, but take longer to fully empty.

Does that mean that if I put a bunch of tanks on the side of my pipeline the throughput increases?

I think that one is a percentage thing not an absolute fluid amount thing, those Tanks would probably make it slower to fill up and then all they provide is consistency, even though Oil Jacks already have consistency.

[MiniHerc]

The only "realism" trade-off is that you don't need additional pumps for "really long" pipes. Well, "really long" pipe is a cornercase which can be processed separately. For example, you could limit the size of the segment, starting from the nearest source of fluid, and when a pipe becomes "too long" just don't use it anymore, and show a warning, so that a player knew what he has to do in order to fix his setup.

that sounds stupidly arbitrary and frustrating

[morse]

that sounds stupidly arbitrary and frustrating

Care to elaborate?

[Nightmare Sky]

It is also worth adding logic connections to the pipes so that you can count the amount of all the liquid in the segment, as well as the percentage of its fullness.

[orbit]

Haleluja!
I was hoping for such a change for a long time. Fluids were not interesting pain to solve as they were just impossible to solve entirely. And overbuilding as base design seemed weird but necessity.
Kudos to you

[MrGuffels]

As someone who spent many years of primary school playing Thermal Expansion, I find this new implementation extremely intuitive.

I think the biggest loss I am seeing is that it may become more efficient to run infinite length pipes than to build fluid transport trains. Not that the old system stopped me in the past so maybe nothing changes.

[GregoriusT]

As someone who spent many years of primary school playing Thermal Expansion, I find this new implementation extremely intuitive.

I think the biggest loss I am seeing is that it may become more efficient to run infinite length pipes than to build fluid transport trains. Not that the old system stopped me in the past so maybe nothing changes.

long pipes have the downside of biter attacks hitting them though, trains might still be better for this since Biters only attack Rails under certain circumstances.

[TheoMarque]

Nice change, realistic is okay but.. not usefull in very large factories.

Anyway I have some questions.

What about fluidbox in Pumpjack? Is too small and pumping oil directly to pipe is... lost. Now it solved a problem?
What about of valves preventing flowback to system, for example oi would shutdown some parts of fluid network due fluid starvation.
This ne fluid system resolving a problem with crazy pumping system around nuclear power plant?

[ledow]

That's the first FFF about the new Factorio that I have just read and thought... hold on... so... you just did that? And this wasn't a build up to a series of trial and errors that eventually came out with something that worked similarly to the old system and was still workable?

It's disappointing to be honest. I can pump oil from 10,000 miles away and it will instantly appear at the other end? It's more a teleporter than a pipe.

I'd far prefer the old system, by a LONG way. The quirks are what makes it, not a watered-down perfect, zero-maintenance solution. It's just ripe for exploits that destroy the immersion in the game.

I realise that it's hard work, but the old system needs to be kept if this is the alternative. It adds nothing and takes away a huge aspect of the game, and makes fluids become "just connect this wire and it all works" which removes huge tracts of the fun. Completely destroys barrelling as well - what's the point when you can instantaneously transport all fluids everywhere? I can even see someone make a single long pipeline to a remote station and "schedule" the pipes with circuits to transfer every fluid product into a storage tank, switching using circuits as to what the current fluid is to pump, and what tank it's put into at the end. One pipe, eliminates the entire fluid, barrelling and train transport of fluids in one hit.

I don't "pipe up" (sorry!) often, but no... let's go back to the old way.

[tolomea]

You pump in 20°C cooling liquid and each machine increases the temperature by 1° per craft, on the other side you pump out the too hot liquid and somehow cool it down again.

If you add liquid into a segment it mixes instantly, you can easily work out from the volumes and temps what the new temp in the segment would be.

Steam and water are the same thing just different rendering based on temp.

Could have segments (and rail cars) slowly revert toward the ambient temperature, the rate would determined by difference between current temp and ambient and something about volume contained vs total... surface area. This would somewhat nerf steam batteries, by adding a penalty to them.

You could add radiator pipes that have the volume of normal pipes but far higher surface area.