Trouble With Light, Medium, and Heavy Oil

[Darkaiser]

I've started the game several times and stopped due to some grievous error I made like running all out of something before I had an outside source. Now I'm 50 years in and doing pretty well and I just hit the bane of my existence: Oil Distilling. I'm sitting here in Planning Mode, trying to make sense of it all and my brain is melting.

I get that the Medium Oil from Distilling 1 goes into Distilling 2. They both need a small amount of steam and then I get Diesel at a good return rate. I also have Heavy Oil (that can be burned to MAKE the steam I guess?), Sour Water (which I have tech to handle), and Light Oil (which can also be burned to make steam?). But the layout is making me nuts!

Does anyone have a screenshot of a good setup for this before I drown myself in dirt beneath my Stacker?

Thanks in advance.

[Peter34]

JD Plays on YouTube has a video showing a good Refining layout.

If you're a patron of Nilaus on Patreon, then he also has detailed screenshots, or something. I'm pretty sure I've heard him say that. I'm not one of his patrons, never has been, but if you're into factory genre games in general it might be worthwhile.

There used to be a website where people could upload and share Blueprints for this game, but I've never used it, and I don't know if it's still working.

[steholliday]

My last Map, Crater (just sent up the rocket), I flared Heavy Oil all through. Light Oil I also flared until I set that up for Naptha.
You can make your setup as easy or complicated as you want.....currently on YSNP map & holding off Refining until Iv got the Space for my usual setup.

[michael434]

I use pipe balances for the light and heavy oil - I use one for each and then a third feeding from both initial balances into the steam boiler. Have priority out of both oil balances go to the third balance (feeding the boiler) and to a reserve tank for each light and heavy oil. Then have an out from each of the initial balances to a flare (it will only fire if the oil can't go to the boiler OR can't go to the buffer oil tanks. This is allow production to continue and will minimize pollution at the flare. You can use the extra light and heavy oil for Naphtha processing and/or creating steam on other boilers (truck or pipe it to another boiler). As Peter mentioned above, JD Plays has great videos on all things related to COI. Good luck! FYI - I recommend having buffer tanks and storage for most production assets but especially steam and water production - also have an ocean dump for sour water and acid into the ocean if you can't use all of the those by-products for fertilizer and copper - you don't want diesel production to stop.

[^1R^7ocky^1R^7ocketeer]

Light oil can be made use of with stage 3 distilling (for naphtha which finds its uses in plastic and rubber fabrication with new recipes for example) while heavy oil can be cracked into more diesel later on in the research tree.

If you are still in stage 2 distilling, what I'd suggest you do with light and heavy oil is to indeed burn it to create steam for your distillery and if boilers are satisfied, burn it off with flares. It's important to make sure your distillery stages never get stuck due to side products piling up at distillery exits which would stop the distillery from producing the main product which is diesel. You want the distillery to stop working only if your diesel storage tanks where everyone else gets diesel from are full. That means one needs to make sure that every other side product from your distillery chain has an overflow valve so to speak. Consequently those side products are either used to produce something else and if demand already satisfied, dumped instead or just plain dumped if no use at all yet (flares, smoke stacks, dumped into the sea, transformed into less harmful substances and recycled etc.)

stage 1 distillery -> medium oil -> stage 2 distillery
stage 1 distillery -> heavy oil -> balancer -> priority out into HO storage tank, second output into flare (overflow type of product)
stage 1 distillery -> sour water (overflow type of product which has other uses if needed)
stage 2 distillery -> diesel (main product, no overflow check) -> diesel storage tank
stage 2 distillery -> light oil -> balancer -> priority out into LO tank, second output into flare (overflow type of product)

Now connect exit port from LO and HO tank into one pipe which then leads to your gas boiler to produce steam. Make sure to select both LO and HO recipes in your boiler. Also keep in mind that if one uses multiple recipes with the same machine, recipes are prioritized from top to bottom if input materials satisfied which can be used to ones advantage. Once the distilling process starts, LO and HO production are enough to keep your distillery steam production running. I didn't do the math but it's quite possible that just using HO or LO for boiler is enough to run it but you'll have to test it yourself. If so, just remove one tank plus balancer and dump the product into flare right away. Btw. the reason why I use HO/LO tanks instead of going to boiler directly is to create a buffer.

You still need a "helper" boiler to get the process started though which you can easily do with a coal boiler. Connect both boilers steam output into a balancer and set priority input for gas (HO/LO) boiler, balancer steam output goes into distillery. Now provide some coal, wait for the distillery to get running and as soon as you see your gas boiler turn on, turn off the "helper" boiler and it should run without ever using the helper boiler again in the same setup.

A steam input balancer isn't strictly necessary btw. It just makes sure that if you don't outright turn off your coal boiler, the gas boiler will be used if it produces steam while the coal boiler will stop working because of output port overflow. The coal boiler will then automatically serve as a backup boiler if you're not quite sure that the other boiler has enough resources to do the job on its own (which would stall the distillery due to lack of steam).

[Darkaiser]

After watching videos from both JD and Nilaus (and all of the advice here), I have determined the crux of my problem; I'm thinking too small. The Distilling processes are the first real hurdle in the game where you go from 'I can plan for 3-4 of these but only build one' to 'I HAVE to start out fairly big or else the waste is huge.' This is because distilling is the first tier where you have three outputs and each stage of production. Up to that point, most of your systems produce one desired output and (at most) one undesired output like polluted water or slag.

Thanks again for all of the help.

[Tregon]

Originally posted by Darkaiser:

After watching videos from both JD and Nilaus (and all of the advice here), I have determined the crux of my problem; I'm thinking too small. The Distilling processes are the first real hurdle in the game where you go from 'I can plan for 3-4 of these but only build one' to 'I HAVE to start out fairly big or else the waste is huge.' This is because distilling is the first tier where you have three outputs and each stage of production. Up to that point, most of your systems produce one desired output and (at most) one undesired output like polluted water or slag.

Thanks again for all of the help.

It is not just that. Distilling is also essential part of your food production due to sour water ammonia being used in fertilizers. Which is why I try to design system that never stops running, producing rubber, plastic and fertilizer from side products and then cracking rest into fuel gas (including some excess diesel to prevent it from blocking my production) and further hydrogen (for excess ammonia should there be any). Else suddenly my food production could stutter when fertilizers are gone followed by food shortage.

And decent tutorial to dealing with new nuclear power.

It is really a web of useful products that you have to balance.