What am I doing wrong to always run out of diesel?

[Jomanda]

I have just ended my fourth attempt at this game. I totally love the concept, but I am doing something very wrong every time I play because I always die due to running out of diesel. I have just under 100 hours ingame at the moment, but I still have not figured that out yet.

Things go great as long as I pump up oil on the island. But as soon as that runs out and I have to import oil from the oilrigs I slowly start losing the game. I have have tried many times and many different ways by reloading the last savegame before I had to make the switch and I just cannot get advanced diesel production to take over from my basic distillers.

From what I can tell, the math just doesn't really work and I think it is due to the time certain modules are waiting for their specific resources to travel down the belts or pipes. For example, I have 4 Distillation (Stage I) running, producing 72 units of Sour Water per minute, which should feed the two Sour Water Strippers perfectly, but the Distillers are all complaining their output is full and the Strippers claim they are missing input.

I have looked for schematics/templates/plans/blueprints (whatever your want to call them) online to help me get started and to expand on and LEARN from, but I have not been able to find anything at all yet. Are there any schematics/templates/plans/blueprints at all yet?

Here is my savegame for those interested in seeing where I go wrong.[www.dropbox.com]
Please keep in mind that I have spent about 100 years on the verge of collapse with my diesel reserve at or below 100 unit in total with 78 vehicles and 3 cargo ships. For some reason I have to operate 2 oilrigs (upgraded to level 6) and 2 medium cargoships just to bring in enough oil to keep things going. In this savegame I have rebuilt the whole chemical plant at least 3 times, trying to at least produce more diesel than I consume, but that has proven impossible. Do not judge the spaghetti builds, every basic design is based in math (as the game presents it to me) but since that doesn't seem to add up I made countless changes on the fly and survival goes over aesthetics, the result is horrible spaghetti builds...
In the samegame I am out of fuel, out of oil and out of unity, so practically bankrupt.

Tomorrow I will start my 5th (and final) attempt. Can you please give me some advise or schematics/templates/plans/blueprints that do work, to successfully make the transfer from pumped oil that is processed by Basic Distillers to imported oil that is processed by all the modules advanced chemistry have to offer.
For this attempt I am seriously considering ditching the plan to have an advanced integrated chemistry plant which is the main source of diesel production and just add Basic Distillers if I need more diesel, even if I need dozens of them, they at least work more reliable than other options.

[clarkmp91506]

Without looking into the save as i have to run, theres a few things i'm learning working on my advanced diesel setup. I too was struggling hard until the whole process was finished. Also upgrade all pipes to tier 2 as the speed of transfer was giving trouble, even though capacity was fine.

Biggest part for me was using naptha to get just a little bit more diesel and using remaining into naptha/sulfer rubber. Only once the whole chain is done do you truely become efficient.
I have about 3k diesel now and only use 3 out of the 6 processing lines with 1k pop and 100 vehicles

Edit: I also have upgraded the oil well to provide more crude and keep the cargo ship running nonstop

[bioseb31]

I dont know if it's the right answer, since people have different playstyle, but after loading up your save, comparing it to the one I'm playing at year 185, I think you scaled way too big too fast. I'm at the same point as you technology wise, and I've just started using the T2 excavator and truck, while looking at you you're fully upgraded, which is a massive fuel consumption. The way I start out is using my first oil deposit with only one distiller to make fuel and rubber. That is enough to take me to an oil rig which I'm able to get my first T2 setup for fuel with it. I never use more than 2-3 excavator for each type of ressources. I only have 2 foundry for iron, 2 for copper and 1 for steel. I alost connect belts asap to reduce the truck usuage. Using everything on a smaller scale until you have the technologies avaible to produce fuel more effieciently is important so you dont struggle with low fuel constantly. I'm sorry if this isn't much but thats all I could think of.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ujrhxa79ckrmsnq/hereyougo.save?dl=0
I added my save file if you would like to compare with yours

[Sistermatic™]

For some reason I have to operate 2 oilrigs (upgraded to level 6) and 2 medium cargoships just to bring in enough oil to keep things going.

I'm 110 vehicles, 3 cargo ships, 1200 population, running 2 rigs at level 4, pulling ahead on diesel easily with 3 large tanks at about 7k+ of fuel. Colony stable at year 0231.

2 basic distillers being phased out (they're on low priority as emergency supply in case of backlog) and a full advanced setup.

I run 4 diesel generators on very low priority with 2 x tier 1 steam turbines making up most of the 3.2Mw.

On that basis alone, me thinks rather than look at production, look at consumption.

Are you using diesel generators? Are your trucks efficient? Are your distances short? Are you using belts everywhere etc.

[ainijames]

Ok, I had a quick look, running a pipe from your coal boiler to the sour water strippers got them running again, I'd build more redundancy into that.
You're wasting the light oil by boiling it (imo), I'd turn it into Naptha/Fuel gas & use that rather than wasting diesel to make rubber.
Then you can convert the fuel gas from it into diesel as well.

Also why are you running over 20 farms on half production, that is absolute insanity, Make fertilizer with all your amonia you are producing (which i see you actually are doing), then fertilize them and stop using green manure cycles on 120% fertilization!!! why you are using 120% fert to make one cycle of potatoes then 1 green then nothing for 2 cycles is absolutely mind boggling.
One of your basic distillers wasn't exporting because your pipe rank 1s are too low output, upgrade them to pipe rank 2 & you will not be wasting that.

Anyway, literally just piping the extra boiler to get the sour water going, unpausing your 2nd oil rig & fixing that basic distiller & you have diesel again, all your tanks are full after a few minutes of play. Also pipe water into the damn coal boiler, why are you using trucks to transport water to it??? and pipe your waste water into a dumper, don't have trucks transport it unless absolutely necessary.
Again why are you wasting fuel gas on boilers from the potatoes, turn it into diesel!!! it's free fuel, use coal for boilers or import water until you can safely waste such a resource on desalinating water.
You also have growth boost edict on wasting unity when you are at full pop, why not use that unity for...... SAVING DIESEL!!! or farming boost.

Here is my diesel production, you can scale it how you want;
Dist 1 x2
Medium oil goes to Dist 2 x2 (makes diesel)
Heavy oil goes to cracking unit to make diesel
Dist 2 light oil goes to Dist 3 x2 to make fuel gas/naptha,
Naptha goes to 1x cracking unit to make fuel gas + sour water

Oil : https://i.imgur.com/3b8Urku.jpg
Farm : https://i.imgur.com/iNecED9.jpg

I have a seperate setup to do basically the same thing but make fertilizer & plastic from the naptha.


and here are your full tanks + a few fixes;
https://imgur.com/a/cQOZ9QP

[Holyvision]

Long story short you overbuilt all over the place. Try a game where you advance slow, hold yourself to only one research building as long as you can, and only build to expand what you absolutely need.

[Fury Fairy]

This may help: https://youtu.be/sd_YSV1rgwU

[Jomanda]

Originally posted by ainijames:

Ok, I had a quick look, running a pipe from your coal boiler to the sour water strippers got them running again, I'd build more redundancy into that.
You're wasting the light oil by boiling it (imo), I'd turn it into Naptha/Fuel gas & use that rather than wasting diesel to make rubber.
Then you can convert the fuel gas from it into diesel as well.

Also why are you running over 20 farms on half production, that is absolute insanity, Make fertilizer with all your amonia you are producing (which i see you actually are doing), then fertilize them and stop using green manure cycles on 120% fertilization!!! why you are using 120% fert to make one cycle of potatoes then 1 green then nothing for 2 cycles is absolutely mind boggling.
One of your basic distillers wasn't exporting because your pipe rank 1s are too low output, upgrade them to pipe rank 2 & you will not be wasting that.

Anyway, literally just piping the extra boiler to get the sour water going, unpausing your 2nd oil rig & fixing that basic distiller & you have diesel again, all your tanks are full after a few minutes of play. Also pipe water into the damn coal boiler, why are you using trucks to transport water to it??? and pipe your waste water into a dumper, don't have trucks transport it unless absolutely necessary.
Again why are you wasting fuel gas on boilers from the potatoes, turn it into diesel!!! it's free fuel, use coal for boilers or import water until you can safely waste such a resource on desalinating water.
You also have growth boost edict on wasting unity when you are at full pop, why not use that unity for...... SAVING DIESEL!!! or farming boost.

Here is my diesel production, you can scale it how you want;
Dist 1 x2
Medium oil goes to Dist 2 x2 (makes diesel)
Heavy oil goes to cracking unit to make diesel
Dist 2 light oil goes to Dist 3 x2 to make fuel gas/naptha,
Naptha goes to 1x cracking unit to make fuel gas + sour water

Oil : https://i.imgur.com/3b8Urku.jpg
Farm : https://i.imgur.com/iNecED9.jpg

I have a seperate setup to do basically the same thing but make fertilizer & plastic from the naptha.


and here are your full tanks + a few fixes;
https://imgur.com/a/cQOZ9QP

Thank you very much for reviewing my savegame!

You are absolutely right on everything. That Coal Boiler was the startup booster for the whole system, initially, thats why I never hooked it up to a proper coal and water supply.
I never noticed that one pipe to the Sour Water Strippers would fix everything.

The tons of extra farms were placed as a quick fix for having my population starve to death several times before fertilizer came available. I have been so focussed on fixing the diesel problem for hours and hours of gameplay that there never was time to review any of my other structures.

Most of the rest you mention is because of unity production (which I only used to trade coal for diesel). I have been trucking the wastewater to the water treatment to reduce, even remove the environmental penalty which caused my population to die off, causing staffing issues and killing my game that way. Reducing the environmental penalty is also why I have not made as many redundancies as I could, because they cause air pollution.

It is very frustrating to realise that I have spent so many countless hours rolling back savegames and rebuilding the same chemical plant time and time again could all be prevented by adding a single pipe and having more coal boilers. This game has such a fine balance that it feels you are always balancing on a knife's edge.

[ainijames]

You're most welcome, but now you know that you should be good to keep progressing.
Just be careful if there's systems which if not fufilled (in your case steam) the entire system will stop; if that's the case try to have backups just incase.
For example for me, I turn excess wheat/potatoes/corn into animal feed, some goes to chickens & any extra can also be used in a coal boiler, so I try to have any coal boiler for power or diesel have 2 forms of fuel it can use - just incase!

Honestly you should need maybe 5 farms total for a game, especially if using any food boost in difficulty settings or edicts. I run no green or rest period, just alternate the crop each season, say wheat->corn->vegetable->potato (I drop potato & veg later on for other crops), I usually run ~100-120 fert, 120 is usually pushing the fertilizer, it's just not worth having to build so much stuff for an extra few crops, so I often stick at 100-110, it's enough food; especially once you get bread & chickens going.

Any other questions feel free to ask, maybe watching videos wouldn't be bad, but I played the beta & just learnt on my own, I think it's the best way to learn!


btw I have finished the game on base map & crater map, so I do know what I am talking about. Don't be afraid to play on easier difficulties, as we know this game is hard enough as it is & the real enemy is time & poor decision making, don't make it harder on yourself (yet) for no reason :) I wouldn't start again, just fix that map up!

Edit; as for pollution, I've never had any issue with that, get the hospital when you can, keep them stocked, people will be fine, if some die I just turn on the pop boost edict for a minute & they're all back anyway haha.

[Magistar]

You can just dump sour water into the ocean. I went from 4x basic distellery to 2x stage 1/2/3 setup with import and now I have too much diesel production. My tier is 14.

[ainijames]

Originally posted by Magistar:

You can just dump sour water into the ocean. I went from 4x basic distellery to 2x stage 1/2/3 setup with import and now I have too much diesel production. My tier is 14.

You can, but it’s free amonia which is annoying to produce (hydrogen) otherwise.

[highlanderanno59]

ICH HOFFE GERADE BEIM DIESEL -WIRD NOCH NACHGEBESSERT-
AUF DEN UNTEREN SCHWIERIGKEITSGRADEN ;MEINE ICH NATÜRLICH

[Puls]

Like most people say : slow down !
- I build minimalistic production, some i shot down sometimes
- most time my 1k peoples have no power (candlelight works^^)
- attention on waiting excavators(for unload), they consume diesel (bug or not ?)
- build and use all others energytechs (my state is electrolysis), i have 6 farms only for ethanol, 5MW steampower, 2 coalboiler and dieselgenerators are only backup
- make the steam and naphta-cycles perfect
- and dont be afraid build some long conveyors for massproducts(coal, sand ect) this need no diesel, trucks always

I have one oilrig-ship and most time he waits for onload because the storages are full

[tripodalt]

im at tech level 8 and still dont unlocked logistic2 because i got only 57 truck those give me a stable fuel with 3 unloading terminal for oil from 2 offshore the other is sulfur and i never get petrol in store all is going in fuel at a stable level of 700 what fill only 2 of my 3 tanks
i wonder how its possible to follow the tech tree by number of truck since i explored all i can and just found the third boat to repair and got 2 remaining battle to complete

[Vengorin]

i have 95 trucks and 15 diggers.

84 tucks and the 15 diggers are 100% active doing landfill.

i have 2 x 4 cargo ships just shipping crude oil.

.... this is all supplied with only 2 basic distillers.

Oh + 1 rubber production.