Fuel Refinery

[Doombringer]

Some Info about building Fuel Refineries:
A Refinery can have up to 100 additional parts. (any more than that will not connect)

Efficiency = 10 * (0.5*Crackers+1) * (0.3*Cokers+1) * MIN(1, SQRT(2)*5/Altitude) [*1.1 if Desalter]
Refineries do not work underwater, and work best just above sea level.

Process Time = (1.5*Crackers+1) * (0.6*Cokers+1) [*1.2 if Desalter]

With a Desalter:
Gas Build-Up = 0.4*Efficiency - 1.5*(FlareStacks+3)
Always use one Desalter, it triples the effectiveness of Flare Stacks.
(If a Refinery pitches too much/tips over there will be a ton of additional Gas Build-Up)
If Dangerous Gas Build-Up = 50+ then the Refinery health starts degenerating rapidly.

(Temperature is 1000*Process Time, it just makes the refinery easy to spot with IR)

The most efficient refinery possible within the parts limit (that doesn't blow itself up) is:
Refinery, Desalter, 14 Crackers, 8 Cokers, 77 Flare Stacks
299.2 fuel/material, 19.540 fuel/second

The fastest refinery possible is just the Fuel Refinery. (100 fuel/second, but only 10 fuel/material)


One way to compensate for the slower fuel generation of efficient refineries is to simply build more of them - 5 ultra-efficient refineries will make up the difference in their build cost (vs. 1 simple Fuel Refinery) within 1 hour of operation.

[FourGreenFields]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/268650/discussions/0/2579854400755943176/#c1473095331484290802
Best efficiency is 299, with some gas buildup (but less than 50%).

[Doombringer]

You are correct, 299.2 Efficiency, 19.540 fuel/second :/
Edited original post.

That lets you use all 100 parts without blowing up (instead of getting stuck at 96 because you can't add enough flare stacks).

Mathematically the optimal number of Crackers is 1.33 more than Cokers, but you run out of parts to get more than 21 (11+10) while keeping Gas<50.
(That setup lets you use 22 instead)

Also the Gas Build-Up equation above is simplified by assuming you just want to stay below 50 Gas Build-Up. With a Desalter the unsimplified equation is: 0.4*Efficiency - 1.5*FlareStacks - 1.0 - 0.5*(Gas Build-Up)^0.5.
(at 49 Gas Build-Up, the square root is 7, *0.5 = 3.5, add in the other 1 (0.5 base & 0.5 Desalter) and you get 4.5, which ends up being the 1.5*(+3) in the simplified equation.)


As a note, you can place a refinery 6m above sea level without a hit to efficiency, and the tops don't form connections, so you could theoretically layer 3 refineries on top of each other...
Flare Stack can be pointed sideways and down without a problem.

EDIT: made a 23x20x9 triple stacked refinery, it works. That many Flare Stacks is super laggy though...
(can fit 348 blocks worth of fuel/material storage & 3 max refineries in that volume)

[Clanking Clocomotive]

I tried to make the refinery talked about at the beginning of this discussion and I haven't gotten it to work.

[Doombringer]

Well, it's an in development game and this post was made over 2 years ago... a lot has changed.

There were massive changes to fuel engines recently (at least in devtest, not sure about stable), refinery efficiency is much lower now.

[BlueWolf]

Just reproduced it in stable. Math worked out as presented. Must've been due to devtest then.