Moving fluid around...

[Mister Dawg]

I read the thread on Fluid Mechanics. Very interesting, though I'm interested in practical applications in the game itself.

I'm piping crude to a Refinery. It's a few game screens away (maybe 1/2 dozen). Through put is not great. Based on the thread, it seemed to indicate that you needed a pump ~100 pipe sections or so. I don't know if that counted underground as 1 or 10... but either way through put still sucks, even with pumps. In order to get the pipe to not loose much, I'd have to have a lot of pumps.

So I'm going to go the route of shipping the crude back. I read if you put fluids in barrels you can ship a lot more than in a fuild wagon. Is this a good idea? Drawbacks - other than having to pre and post process to add/remove the barrel? Looks like you'd reuse the barrels if you were smart.

I'm also using some pumps to control the flow of fluid in my oil processing area. Storage tanks for one. I like a crap-ton of tanks so while I'm off taking care of other things, the oil's being processed. What I noticed though is that through put on a bank of tanks also sucks, even if you pump it in and pump it out again - a good deal still sits in the tanks that lie between your inflow and outflow, taking forever to work it's way to the outflow. To help this, I'm trying a block of four tanks (2x2), then pumps, then another block of four tanks etc... In addition to pumping, the pumps act as valves, so the most oil is always at the last block of tanks (which gets used first). I'm also trying the same thing but with only two tanks (side by side), then pumps, then two more tanks etc... These both seem to work, but I'm interested in how others manage this.

[Lady Naween]

Barrel all the things. Yeah pipes are not good for long distance, it is better to barrel it or use the fluid wagon. I only use pipes for the very first bootstrap part of a base then it is trains to haul liquids any distance that isn't just inside the refinery itself.

I have one tank of each liquid (talking vanilla only here) and never more, as you say the tanks do hinder flow quite a bit when you connect them. And it is generally better to not have huge stockpiles of things but have a plant that can always create what you need. Otherwise you run the risk of your stockpile draining out and then everything grinding to a halt as you struggle to get production up to speed. But if you want to have a stockpile.. lots and lots of pumps between the tanks and always avoid creating a loop where the fluid flows around from tank to tank continously.

so no.. a to b to c to a again. for instance

[stlyau]

Originally posted by Mister Dawg:

I read the thread on Fluid Mechanics. Very interesting, though I'm interested in practical applications in the game itself.

I'm piping crude to a Refinery. It's a few game screens away (maybe 1/2 dozen). Through put is not great. Based on the thread, it seemed to indicate that you needed a pump ~100 pipe sections or so. I don't know if that counted underground as 1 or 10... but either way through put still sucks, even with pumps. In order to get the pipe to not loose much, I'd have to have a lot of pumps.

Yes in order to keep the fluid above 120 flow, you'd have to have a pump every 16 pipe sections.
Pulled from Fluid Mechanics -"Underground pipes can help alleviate this issue; although they can connect a distance of up to 10 tiles, their volume is always equivalent to TWO pipes."

Originally posted by Mister Dawg:

So I'm going to go the route of shipping the crude back. I read if you put fluids in barrels you can ship a lot more than in a fuild wagon. Is this a good idea? Drawbacks - other than having to pre and post process to add/remove the barrel? Looks like you'd reuse the barrels if you were smart.

Cargo wagon can hold 400 barrels (40 spaces at 10 stack each), this is 100k fluid total (400*250). Fluid wagon only holds 75k, currently until the patch fix. Main drawback to Barreling is the steel used to make each barrel. If you're fine with the cost, go for it. Yes it's best to set up a system that loops the newly emptied barrels back into the wagons to be shipped back to the oil fields for refilling.

Originally posted by Mister Dawg:

I'm also using some pumps to control the flow of fluid in my oil processing area. Storage tanks for one. I like a crap-ton of tanks so while I'm off taking care of other things, the oil's being processed. What I noticed though is that through put on a bank of tanks also sucks, even if you pump it in and pump it out again - a good deal still sits in the tanks that lie between your inflow and outflow, taking forever to work it's way to the outflow. To help this, I'm trying a block of four tanks (2x2), then pumps, then another block of four tanks etc... In addition to pumping, the pumps act as valves, so the most oil is always at the last block of tanks (which gets used first). I'm also trying the same thing but with only two tanks (side by side), then pumps, then two more tanks etc... These both seem to work, but I'm interested in how others manage this.

You have to kinda think of the Storage Tank as a pipe that holds 25k fluid, if the fluid level is low in the tank, it will appear to flow slower to the next connected item. So just like your pipe flow mentioned earlier in post, several tanks in a row or grouping can be even worse on flow the further you get from the intake source.

[Mister Dawg]

Originally posted by Linda Hartlen:

...

I have one tank of each liquid (talking vanilla only here) and never more, as you say the tanks do hinder flow quite a bit when you connect them. And it is generally better to not have huge stockpiles of things but have a plant that can always create what you need. ...

I guess I was partly using stockpiling as a way of buffering the refineries output so they don't shut down when one of the three resources backs up. How do you deal with this? In order to supply on demand, you have to be able to have your refineries running.

You're probably going to say say circuit network lol....

[Lady Naween]

Yupp circuit network BUT!! it is super simple.

Like. so simple even I can do it :)

basically hook a decider combinator up to the tank holding say heavy oil. then set the combinator to output a signal to a pump when heavy oil is more than. say 10.000. Set the pump to work when it recieves said signal. The pump controls the oil going into your heavy oil cracking.

So then, when you get above 10k heavy oil, the combinator sends a signal to the pump and the cracking starts.

If you want the blueprint etc holler :) Don't know how much you know about circuits. Katherineofsky also has a video tutorial on how to do it

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1246584421

[Mister Dawg]

Almost 3k hours and I have not used circuits :D. Haven't had to, but this is a reason to learn.

I will look up her video. Is it on using circuits, or how to manage oil production in the fashion you suggest?

[Lady Naween]

It is on how to use the circuits in a similar way to my example above. As well as how to set up basic oil. Where I learned it. let me see if I can find it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJbqdZTQC7o

It is from 0.14 so the pumps are one tile.. and ill be honest there are a few of her setups I don't like but she explains the circuit part easily enough :)

Circuits are MUCH easier than you might think. Sure if you want to make the really complex stuff.. have fun. But for things like this, it is honestly really easy. I am blonde! And I get it.

[Mister Dawg]

I will give it a look. Thanks for the help.

[Mister Dawg]

Alright I ripped everything out and am going to try the one storage tank for each output with a circuit setup as suggested. Split off Lube and Plastic sans pump, and when those are satisfied turn on cracking for whichever resource is topping out.

I will push the scalable aspect in going to one rocket/min.

First I have to move all this plastic :(.

[Lady Naween]

giggles. Good luck :) You can do it!

[Mister Dawg]

All is well. Thanks again.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1248088875

[Lady Naween]

Good job :)

[Ryan]

You don't even need Decider Combinators or the Arithmetic ones to use Circuits. Just connect a wire straight from the Pump to the Storage Tank. Then click the Pump and tell it to Enable when your Oil/Petroleum/Water/whatever > or < than a certain #. You can connect wires from inserters to chests to do the same thing. This way is really easy even I can do it. :)

[Ryan]

If I have to move fluid more than a few screens I just use trains and the fluid wagon. Two storage tanks connected together fit perfect to pumps that supply a fluid wagon. I add a couple levels of these tanks for a buffer at each station.