Factorio Forums

Hi there

I was thinking of a simple solution to the problem with the pipes sticking to each other, making it impossible to have two parallel pipes without using tunnels all the time. I don't like the idea of having lots of different pipe elements, like curves and T-crossings, because that makes the building process complicated and fills up your inventory. I, however had an idea that only needs one type of pipe element, just like now.

The new pipe element has a fixed direction, so it can be rotated. however, it doesn't have a fixed direction like the belts, so it has just two possible orientations, horizontal or vertical. Every element has two ends and two sides.

when placed, the pipe element follows these rules for connecting to other pipe elements:

1. the ends will connect to other ends directly next to them

2. if one of the ends doesn't get connected with rule 1, it will look for neigbouring ends pointed at the sides of the current element. If it finds one it will connect and thus build a curve. If it finds an end on both sides, it connects to both, forming a T-intersection

3. If it's still not connected to anything, it will also connect to a side directly in front of the end of the current element. It will, however, never connect side to side.

If I thought it through correctly, this should allow for parallel pipes in mostly any layout you wish. For a complicated layout you just might have to play around a little with the orientation of the pipe elements.

Not sure. Mostly it is space issue. I just want to post picture of my parallel pipes

Unfortunately, what this would do is create an asymmetry in the way pipes are built. Let me demonstrate:

I have two parallel pipes, one long and one shorter. If I run an orthogonal pipe to the place, where the short one ends and find out that I am 1 tile away: (the _'s stand for empty tiles).

Case 1:
I build the horizontal segment first, the vertical second, I wind up with a curve.
Case 2:
I build the vertical segment first, the horizontal second. I have a T-intersection, and if I place a missing piece of pipe, I would have a jumble a bit like this: # , but I would never get a curve.

IMO, such asymmetry is bad practice, because it will be very much confusing to new players.

rk84 wrote:Not sure. Mostly it is space issue. I just want to post picture of my parallel pipes

Man, you've A LOT of oil for sure!

Parallel pipes could be done if pipe will have construct direction like belt.



Of course transportation in both ways.

Just let the rotation key to be used to cycle through all possible pipe connections in the current tile. Before or/and after placing.

Woo, that could be many: the ugliest case is 15 types of connections.

1) Make it autoconnect by default, like it does now.
2) Make it remember the selected orientation until you finish placing pipes (until you put the pipes back in your inventory/hotbar/some container)

I'd be happy if every T made a T or L connection, and parallel pipes did not connect. That seems very simple, and it would resolve the vast majority of use cases for parallel pipes.

sparr wrote:I'd be happy if every T made a T or L connection, and parallel pipes did not connect. That seems very simple, and it would resolve the vast majority of use cases for parallel pipes.

The problem with that is that you might have T and L connections temporarily while you're building the parallel pipes.

immibis wrote:The problem with that is that you might have T and L connections temporarily while you're building the parallel pipes.

I don't really see that as a problem. A recent version included the ability for small amounts of fluid to be pushed out of a pipe, so if you make an accidental/temporary connection then you can just fix it.