Factorio Forums

I've got a simple question : when you have for example an Oil refinery or a Chemical plant who needs two different "liquids" input (let's take oil and water) : the game automatically places the oil on an input tube and water on the other. Isn't there a way to sitch them ?
I put an example (with a screenshot) : here, my oil refinery asks for water on the left, and for petrol on the right, but my set-up was planing for the contrary.
I tried to rotate the building, change the production, unbuild-rebuild it... But nothing worked.

There is no way to change the inputs. It has been suggested, but currently you have to put them where the game expects them.

As sillyfly said, the relative positions can't be changed in-game (modding is outside the scope of this topic).
It's not difficult to use underground pipes to get the outputs where you want them to go, just need a little more space. It's quite possible to use only 1 tile's width per input or output, assuming you want to move the input/output perpendicularly (which is the best way to make fluid use scalable.)

With only the image provided, I can't give you a specific suggestion other than the fact that the refinery will need to be facing to the left or right in that specific spot.
However, it would almost certainly be far more useful/practical for you to pipe the crude outside the given area and then process it.

sillyfly wrote:There is no way to change the inputs. It has been suggested, but currently you have to put them where the game expects them.

Hum, that's what I was thinking. Hope something will be changed for this.

n9103 wrote:As sillyfly said, the relative positions can't be changed in-game (modding is outside the scope of this topic).
It's not difficult to use underground pipes to get the outputs where you want them to go, just need a little more space. It's quite possible to use only 1 tile's width per input or output, assuming you want to move the input/output perpendicularly (which is the best way to make fluid use scalable.)

With only the image provided, I can't give you a specific suggestion other than the fact that the refinery will need to be facing to the left or right in that specific spot.
However, it would almost certainly be far more useful/practical for you to pipe the crude outside the given area and then process it.

I learned to deal with it (even if I was wondering if nothing was/will be implemented for this), but... this time I had this specific configuration and so it was the good moment to ask on the forum
My factory isn't what I would call "optimized" so it's not a big deal for now. But It's just that I find this frustating at moments, when you begin to plan some tube and input to go one way and finally discover again that no, input liquids are the opposite you planned.

Aside note : "to make fluid use scalable" do you have some tutos/examples ?

Thanks both of you for your (very fast) answers and advices

Actually I like the challenge the game offers me with its stubborn "noooo... no, this one goes there"
Same with to the insertes, I consider 90° inserters cheating
And oil being the only liqid to be able to be put into barrels. I adapted and put every oil into barrels and then create my liquid factories where I want/need them. No desire for other barrels or containers anymore.

Well, off-hand, I would say building more than a couple refineries next to each other, without having to change the pipe pattern, would constitute scalable.
Don't have a picture at the moment for you to reference though, sorry.

For using underground pipes, the pattern for a scalable minimal space is 1, 2 or 3 plain pipe, with underground pipes on either side.
End ref would have a layout something like this: (I/O ^, Pipe +, U.P. \)

dee- wrote:Actually I like the challenge the game offers me with its stubborn "noooo... no, this one goes there"
Same with to the insertes, I consider 90° inserters cheating
And oil being the only liqid to be able to be put into barrels. I adapted and put every oil into barrels and then create my liquid factories where I want/need them. No desire for other barrels or containers anymore.

Yes, it's always interesting. It makes you think a litlle more (and that's why I wasn't really complaining about and said it was only sometimes a little frustating) I fully agree with you.
90² insterters ? What's that ? O_o A mod ? (but for what it souds like, I think I'm same thinking as you)

n9103 wrote:Well, off-hand, I would say building more than a couple refineries next to each other, without having to change the pipe pattern, would constitute scalable.

I think I've got it, thanks for the explanation