Factorio Forums

So forgive me if I'm just wrong about this, but I thought the recent changes to fluids were supposed to mean this shouldn't happen.

What did you do?

Put 40k steam/sec into two chemical plants with consumption of 21k steam/sec each (one output of neutralisation plant into one input of each condensation plant).

What happened?

The steam condensation plants show fluid ingredient shortage while the acid neutralisation plant shows output full.

What did you expect to happen instead?

For the steam condensation plants to run (almost) full speed.

Does it happen always, once, or sometimes?

Always.

Screenshot is with mods but uploaded save has mods removed (uses editor items). Blueprint doesn't have editor items.

I don't think this is a throughput issue per-se. Or at least, not in the way you mean.

The steam pipe segments consists of 4 pipes, so it can hold 400 steam. One tick of neutralisation generates 10k steam, 400 of which leaves the machine. So the maximum rate of transfer between the machines is 400 steam per tick.

If you want to move steam faster, you need more space in the pipe segments. Your neutralisation chemical plants output 37k steam/s, so you need to have at least 616 units of fluid buffer between the producer and consumer. The attached blueprint uses your layout, just with more pipes. And it works.

You're absolutely right, and what a beautiful fix (realized they weren't legendary yet so I needed even more buffer):


It's definitely not logical, but given the explanation of why it happens, I'm not sure it's likely to be fixed. It's just a consequence of the current fluid handling system. But either way, thanks for the info and the fix!

I think this is the same issue as 134759

Good catch. Seems like they're looking at it.