Lube, So much lube...

[FlamingTP]

Even if I optimize my oil processing using available blueprints and wiring, I still end up with too much lube and everything stops. I can always dump it so production of things ramps back up again. What I want though is more uses for the stuff, besides the obvious use for it on this....lonely...lonely world. I haven't played since .16 so if vanilla added more uses for it, please let me know. Flying enemies would be nice too. Just sayin'. I'm aware of mods, I just wish the stuff wasn't so useless in the standard game.

[Zorz]

Originally posted by IXBlackWolfXI:

Uh, what part of that makes any kind of sense? My post was about how its nigh-impossible to NOT have an excess of something. Unless you're not producing enough of anything anyway. Balancing is impossible because one of the variables, one much you're producing, is constantly changing, which means that you can't just make a set-up and forget it. Either you're not using it all, or you're not able to sustain all of your refineries. And that still doesn't fix the issue with you not being able to produce enough of one thing, while having too much of another. The only solution I've found to having too much of something is to just go over and build more tanks, which is obviously only a temporary solution.

again:
u just need 2 tanks of each liquid and enough pumps to control the flow..

[Fel]

Outside of storing you can also make use of either solid fuel or cracking, only fed the liquid if the storage for that liquid is over a certain amount (a pump from the tank and a red or green wire from the tank to the pump, putting the activation to "that liquid above X amount").
Solid fuel is a great way to "burn" your extra oil products (just put it as "priority input" with a splitter to mix it in the coal lines that feed your boilers and smelters), cracking is unlocked later but it lets you make more light oil or petroleum gas when the others are in surplus, you should never have surplus of petroleum gas if your factory is running since it's the most used by far.

[FlamingTP]

I haven't played this game since x16 so it's been awhile. I have determined that it is likely that I just over produce things and something gets clogged along the way. Getting two tanks of light and heavy oil (I'm assuming this is what people mean) and then making whatever I need out of it where it is needed seems far more logical. That said I wish this game had more vanilla variety. More enemy types, flying enemies. perhaps more goals beyond "build a rocket" etc.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by IXBlackWolfXI:

Uh, what part of that makes any kind of sense? My post was about how its nigh-impossible to NOT have an excess of something. Unless you're not producing enough of anything anyway. Balancing is impossible because one of the variables, one much you're producing, is constantly changing, which means that you can't just make a set-up and forget it. Either you're not using it all, or you're not able to sustain all of your refineries. And that still doesn't fix the issue with you not being able to produce enough of one thing, while having too much of another. The only solution I've found to having too much of something is to just go over and build more tanks, which is obviously only a temporary solution.

Maybe it's because this topic comes up all the time, and the solution is a simple pump system with a few wires. You control sending excess of light/heavy oils off to be cracked using a pump, thus ensuring you never seize up processing of oils due to filling up heavy/light, while also making whatever byproduct those two are needed for (lube and solid fuel) without using them up via cracking.

Then you come in here and up and declare that balancing is impossible, due to oil pumps running out of oil. Strange that I don't see you complain about iron or copper veins running out of resource. Just treat depleted oil veins as gone, rip them up, and find more.

[Ext3h]

Originally posted by Fel:

Outside of storing you can also make use of either solid fuel or cracking, only fed the liquid if the storage for that liquid is over a certain amount (a pump from the tank and a red or green wire from the tank to the pump, putting the activation to "that liquid above X amount").

Don't use a fixed amount. You will eventually top out on the final resource in the chain, while still draining or under-supplying another. Use a comparator to balance resource stocks of each component in the chain.

E.g. activate the pumps for heavy->light cracking only when heavy oil > light oil, and likewise for light oil to petroleum gas.

If resources still unbalance in favor of heavy / light oil, you need more cracking capacities.

They should never unbalance in the other direction, unless you don't have enough plastic production to keep up with the raw petroleum gas output from the refinery. In which case your factory is quite odd, usually the majority of your light / heavy oil output should end up being cracked to pretoleum gas to keep up with plastic. In vanilla 1.6 or 1.7, it should never be possible to consume more lubricant / solid fuel than plastic (unless literally burning solid fuel, I guess?)

You should never have to convert pretroleum gas to solid fuel btw., that's just wasteful. Solid fuel should only be created from light oil.

If all tanks run empty , well, that just happened. You need more oil. Otherwise they should always fill up and empty evenly.

[RLS0812]

add your own recipe to turn lube into solid fuel ?

[Warlord]

Originally posted by IXBlackWolfXI:

I rarely had my local resources run out, so that honeslty hasn't come up much. And even on the few cases I did make an iron colony or whatnot, it was able to keep my factory running. Oil isn't like that. It runs out quite quiickly, and its production is steadily declining as it mines. In contrast, 'ground' resources stay steady until they run dry. Each individual miner's output doesn't change as it sits there; it's either working its not. In contrast, an oil well's productivity is perpetually dropping, always changing from one moment to the next.

And its not a wise idea to abandon oil colonies once they bottom out; in my experience they're rare and rather thinly spread out, making finding them difficult. Also, when I did try to set up additional oil colonies, I often found that they had HUGE biter nests sitting on top of them that I simply didn't have the ability to clear, thus preventing me from getting more oil.

The game is also highly customizable. Turn the size and richness (the latter is most important) up for oil, and you shouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I do admit the oil runs out FAST in normal settings. I am currently doing a map where the oil I normally turned up is on default. And the 5 oil spots I tapped already ran out before I started blue science. (to be fair, I am running 10X science costs).

As for resources running out, they kind of do peter out. The center of ore mines are richer than the edges, so the outer spots run out before the middle. I've had some under-performing mines that still fed me ore, but slower than I liked. Almost like oil, just.... usually all at once near the end.

[eberkain]

I just wire network all my oil production lines. I have a tank for each type of liquid and a production line that creates that liquid that only runs if the tank gets low. Never had an issue with that.