Swap input on chemical factory

[Nemoricus]

I'm afraid that I don't see the problem you have. Sure, you can hook up two pipes with the same fluid in them to both inputs. If the plant needs two different fluids, of course it's going to stop working, because it's starved of one. But you can identify this problem by using the Alt view, since both input pipes will have the same fluid in them. Having smart inputs saves you the trouble of needing to manually swap the inputs.

Also, theory time. What happens when a hypothetical chemical plant is introduced that has three or more inputs? Let's say that it has three and a recipe uses water and oil as inputs. Would I need to toggle through all of the input arrangements to get to the one I want?

What about a recipe that requires three different inputs? Water, oil, and steam. That's six different input arrangements, and this would get worse with more inputs. Smart inputs like what I described would scale better, since the player doesn't have to worry about which pipe accepts what.

Sure, you can see what resource the plant needs that it's not getting with fixed/swappable inputs, but I think that's a problem with a solution that needs to be more general. In other words, every single building in the game should tell you why it's not working, not just chemical plants. I'm going to start a new topic for this since it goes further than just chemical plants.

[ssilk]

But you can identify this problem by using the Alt view, since both input pipes will have the same fluid in them.

Exactly. I cannot see, what's wrong.

Having smart inputs saves you the trouble of needing to manually swap the inputs.

I don't see any trouble with that. How many times would you need that in a game? 2 times? 5 times? The rest can be copied via blueprint, or via shift-click-copy.

Also, theory time. What happens when a hypothetical chemical plant is introduced that has three or more inputs? Let's say that it has three and a recipe uses water and oil as inputs. Would I need to toggle through all of the input arrangements to get to the one I want?

Come on... that are 5 rotations in the worst case. How much rotations do you need to build rails?

Sure, you can see what resource the plant needs that it's not getting with fixed/swappable inputs, but I think that's a problem with a solution that needs to be more general. In other words, every single building in the game should tell you why it's not working, not just chemical plants. I'm going to start a new topic for this since it goes further than just chemical plants.

Well, good idea, please look about for this:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=3674
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=3984

[tux_mark_5]

Come on... that are 5 rotations in the worst case. How much rotations do you need to build rails?

Curved rail placement is the worst and I really hope the devs do something to make it easier to place these rails or at least to more quickly select an appropriate one.
Therefore the rail placement shouldn't be used as an excuse to add rotating inputs, because rotating configurations when there are more than 4 options is just not a good idea.

[ssilk]

Make a better suggestion for that (not very important) detail, but don't just say "uh, no, that's not good".

[freyr_666]

A way to change the liquid inputs of refineries and Chemical plant



If i can change thats inputs of chemical plants, or refinery or the outputs of refinery on the recipe window or otherwise will be much easy to put that factory

[DaveMcW]

will be much easy to put that factory

I think the devs picked the most annoying liquid configuration on purpose.

[MeduSalem]

I think the devs picked the most annoying liquid configuration on purpose.

They really did... I swear I have this feeling everytime I try to come up with a better solution for the refineries.

Swapping them would be enough for chemical plants. For refinieres I also think swapping around the middle axis would suffice. Light Oil can stay where it is, but at least Heavy Oil and Petroleum Gas should be exchangeable with each other.

[Factoruser]

The output could stay unalterable. It should be from left to right ("watching direction") in the order of materials i.e. water/steam, crude oil, heavy oil, light oil, petroleum gas, lubricant, sulphuric acid.

Annotation: the sulphuric acid should come at the last place in the GUI because it's the last obtainable fluid in the game. - Every item should be in the place of how it is planned to be researched...

The input should be smart, resp. indifferent, accepting any fluid that is required. If you are connecting two times a water pipe, you may not get light oil cracking of course then...

[ssilk]

I joined that now to this thread, cause it is also already mentioned in FREQUENTLY SUGGESTED IDEAS.

The input should be smart, resp. indifferent, accepting any fluid that is required. If you are connecting two times a water pipe, you may not get light oil cracking of course then...

I'm not sure, if that is a good idea. There are flaws. See discussion on previous page: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 4&start=20

But in general I'm for this, cause I had lately the problem to build a refinery, without refinery researched yet. I cannot remember the right order of input and output (ok, it's in the wiki, but didn't want to search for it) and in the end I need to wait, until it was researched, before I could continue.

[ssilk]

Userstory: Enable that the input/output order of fluid-device (refinery, chemical plant) can be changed.
Prerequisites: Unclear, if there are not completely different plans. See copy-paste-rotion for blueprints.
Game-value: Enables to build more dense, nicer, more clear. This is also a prerequisite for https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=7262 Copy-Paste orientation for liquid entrance
Developer-costs: Seems to be simple, if no automated swapping is implemented.
User-opinions: Clear, about the swapping. Unclear, how this swapping should happen. Automation would be useful, but could produce nice flaws in gameplay.

[Peter34]

To be honest, I'd like it to remain as is. A huge part of Factorio's gameplay is figuring out small puzzles; little cookie-cutter patterns that are efficient. The fixed inputs serves to set the conditions of the puzzle. What does removing that add to the game?

The problem is that when I'm starting a new game, and setting up Basic Oil, I can't remember whether Advanced Oil wants the Water to come in from bottom left or bottom right. That's mildly annoying. I can remember that Advanced Oil wants both Crude Oil and Water, so I can set the Refineries up with a multi-Pipe maze in preparation for that. But it'd be slightly more efficient, and a bit more convenient, if I could somehow get advance information - in-game - about whether Water will eventually want the left or the right inlet.

[Shadowcaster]

So I've noticed frequently that the oil lines in the game are very complex to setup with all the pipes running in different angles and adjacent pipes auto connecting and sharing various fluids prior to the electric pump and circuit phase. So I have decided to ask the community and potentially the devs if a way to switch around the input slots on chemical plants and refineries could be implemented. I am aware of mods that do this, but similar to landfill and mine-able rocks, I believe this should be another vanilla change.

[OdinYggd]

It'd make sense to me if I could mirror the input and output layout. Right now it is very difficult to get any kind of compactness around the oil refineries due to the piping layout necessary and the tendency of the pipes to stick together. In fact the only layout I know of to be even remotely effective for it is a triple bus layout: crude and water, a row of refineries, gas light and heavy oils, another row of refineries, and then another row of crude and water.

Which needless to say takes up a lot of space, and only expands practically in one direction. Its even harder to maintain any kind of sensibility in the chemical processing section when you try to do more than 2 refineries worth of flow, and it is perpetually unbalanced in production quantities until you can make pumps to use as flow regulators turning on and off cracking units for a stable regulated output.

[Rockstar04]

I make heavy use of GDIW for this exact reason.

[ChurchOrganist]

One of the reasons I use the Fluid Barrel mod....

IMO Fluid handling is due for a major overhaul.

I'm hoping the devs will do something in 0.14

[Zeblote]

Any fluid input should accept any of the required fluid resources, just like inserters can place any resource from any side.

[dragontamer5788]

By the time Oil Processing comes around, I generally start my major military push and capture huge swaths of land. Compactness isn't a major issue IMO at this point of the game.

Oil Refining isn't significantly more difficult, it just takes some time and thought to plan it out, plus some space for the underground pipes to work their way around.

[taiiat]

being able to reverse the orders (so still can't mix but which order doesn't matter - Light Oil would be fixed though since it's the middle) is practical, yes.

the random nature of the ground can definitely make for some very strange looking pipe minefields if you must put your Refinery and Et Cetera 'opposite' to the most practical orientation.

[ssilk]

1. We have a suggestions board, where such ideas are suggested and discussed. There is no reason to have suggestions in the General board.

2. There is no reason for a poll about this. That's not, how suggestions can work ever: Good Ideas don't need democracy.

3. I added this thread to an already existing list of suggestions around this topic: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=15472 Swap input for fluids / Automatic input selection for fluids

4. This thread will be moved to Suggestions Board with a link left to General.


After re-reading the poll I must say, that it reflects quite well the current discussion (either good informed or just luck?) and will give it a try.

[MeduSalem]

I actually think about taking it a step further by asking what to do about the refinery outputs... because sometimes it would be nice to swap them too.