Friday Facts #430 - Drowning in Fluids

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-430

[Superlogik]

The pipelines being visible on the map is maybe my new favorite QOL feature.

[husnikadam]

The 250x250 pipeline limit is just few tiles off the chunks multiple. Please make it 256x256

I wonder if you could somewhat easily cheat on the pipeline size limitation just by placing bidirectional pumps everywhere with logic to pump only when target fullness is smaller (by some margin) than source one. A bit cumbersome, but functional imho

[evilbrain]

256*256

[husnikadam]

The visualisations are awesome, great work!

[Akontio]

Long distance fluid pipelines were already really good, so when I saw the changes a few weeks back I was curious how fluid wagons would be left off. Seems like the play testers answered that question lol. It's nice to see this get treated delicately, instead of just increasing/changing costs/recipes or adding something like pipe tiers to gauge the distances. It limits the system reasonably, the QoL and fluid wagon buff also helps with that.

One thing I was thinking about the other day though was why can't pipes be similar to belts? Meaning why can't we just place them next to each other without having to worry about pipelines overlaping? Is it just a decision to mix up the gameplay a bit or is it technical?

[deef0000dragon1]

I am in agreement that setting pipe limit to 256x256 makes a lot of sense.

at the end you showed the fullness debug view for pipes. is there any chance that can be merged into the pipe connection view that was shown today in some form? so that fullness is not just a debug view? it would be a great way to make that view even more important and interesting imo, while also providing important feedback to the player.

[FunMaker]

Yeap, liked it! At first i thought of the limit being not really obvious in the world, because it is a limit, that is a little bit of the normal view-dimensions of the player, but i am okay with it.

But please: 256x256!

[Terrahertz]

Agree with the rest that, 256x256 should be the limit.

The other changes are great as usual, making the new algorithm not too overpowered

The visualisation is awesome

So the boiler will now turn 6 Water/s into 60 Steam/s?

[CyberCider]

So, nulcear power is ~10 times more viable in space and on Fulgora? Neat. Fulgora steam power will also be considerably less bottlenecked by valuable ice, letting people use up all that scrap solid fuel more effectively.

However, I’m a very curious about the implications for Vulcanus, because steam condensation is obviously also adjusted to the new ratio. So unless the acid steam recipe is changed, that means the planet will have 10x less water on it. Alternatively, if acid neutralisation outputs 10x more steam to offset the change, that would make geothermal energy 10x more powerful. One of these options will unavoidably make it into the game, and I really wonder which it will be.

[Eseila]

One thing I was thinking about the other day though was why can't pipes be similar to belts? Meaning why can't we just place them next to each other without having to worry about pipelines overlaping? Is it just a decision to mix up the gameplay a bit or is it technical?

To add to this, there is the great mod advanced fluid handling. Would be interesting to know what prevents the devs to use a mod like this.

[Hovel]

Wait, I don't get the splitting of pipelines. In the example video there is only a pump placed on one of the two lines going out of the T-split. Why doesn't the line going down need a pump?

[Upserter]

The sheer amount of new items and gameplay mechanics makes me think you’ve got a heckuva balancing challenge on your hands. All the private LAN parties will have helped spot issues, but I bet when 2.0 is released to the masses, and you suddenly have millions of players exploring the design space, somebody will find some way to cheese it. The comment about continuing to tweak after the release of 2.0 makes me think that 2.1 will be the long term stable version.

[gGeorg]

1 Water expands to 10 Steam in boilers and heat exchangers
============

Introduce new a Turbine of same size but double consumption of steam (double production), which shrinks 12 Steam into one water. Add a new water output on the long side of the turbine and Lubrican input.
This would somewhat simulate the fact, that power plants use water/steam as energy transformation process, but dont consume all the water as a fuel. Also Lubricant consumption is 1 lub for 5000 steam consumed. It means, player receives dilema : Use water hungry basic turbines (locations with free water) , or water recycling turbines which need a bit of lube ? ( water have to be delivered, then volume of water can be reduced by lubricant)

This would allow create power islands more often, contrary to current common one base one power grid. Also Nuclear power becomes more interesting because of volume of water AND fuel is minimised.

It would also bring new designs. Many chalenges of efficient Nuclear plant has been removed, so perhaps you might want add something interesting for new gameplay.

[dogpound]

Pipe sections should just be able to be manipulated like belts, with the ability to rotate individual pipe pieces to be straight, curved left, or curved right.

Also, 256x256.

[Mithaldu]

Honestly the extents thing sounds like it will be really annoying for bigger bases.

It may be a change aimed at long distance pipes and trains, but when building a base in a mod with a lot of different fluids and big bases, it means that low-throughput utility fluids suddenly need double-pump arrangements all over the place to keep stuff moving because instead of just being slowed down they'll get stopped entirely.

[Xeridanus]

There's a visual bug in the last video on the right. Part of the pump is drawn above the power pole. Literally unplayable.

Am I the only one who thinks Wube should not change the size limit to 256? They should change it to 64 to make the long distance pump station blueprint easier.

[egu]

Awesome,

Some visual improvement to consider; You said that the pumps and I assume the machines will push out fluid slower when its more full. That's fine! But can we get a visual aid on that, like the animation on the pumps moves slower? (due to bigger pressure ).

Also a new item flowed meter, showing current fullness. Like in your debug screenshot but an in-game item to connect to the pipes or on the pipes

[aka13]

Great changes, as said before. Just merge the visualizer on the minimap already

[layus]

So, nulcear power is ~10 times more viable in space and on Fulgora? Neat. Fulgora steam power will also be considerably less bottlenecked by valuable ice, letting people use up all that scrap solid fuel more effectively.

However, I’m a very curious about the implications for Vulcanus, because steam condensation is obviously also adjusted to the new ratio. So unless the acid steam recipe is changed, that means the planet will have 10x less water on it. Alternatively, if acid neutralisation outputs 10x more steam to offset the change, that would make geothermal energy 10x more powerful. One of these options will unavoidably make it into the game, and I really wonder which it will be.

Steam condensation? acid steam? acid neutralisation? geothermal energy? valuable ice?
Seems like someone had an early access to the game (a LAN party probably)