Max. pipe throughput

[RedPanda (/^_^)/]

So atm i'm playing a multiplayer game with a fiew friends and i set up our oil production and refining. I fed every oil pump (2x) in one single pipe leading to my refineries and feeding them in the same way (6x directly connected to the single pipe). At one point one of my friends told me that there is a maximum number of refineries that i can feed with one pipe. He went as far as showing me a video from somone who said something about 3x refineries per pipe (it was a very complex setup tho).
I didn't knew that yet and tryed ro search online for specific numbers but everything i found seemed to be...very weird and not really exact (i simply don't understand it).
So far my setup works perfectly and it seems like i could hook even more oil pumps and refineries to that single pipe connecting both.
Am i missing something? If yes can somebody please explain to me how the max. throughput per pipe is calculated exactly?

[Warlord]

I'm don't know the numbers, but unless you seriously speed up the refineries with speed modules and beacons, one pipe is more than enough for a hundred or more refineries. I am currently running 100 refineries off one pipe, and all are running at once.

The same works with the pumpjacks. One well I've tapped has close to 40 wells, all of which are pumped to some tanks. While the ones in back are starting to pool some oil a bit, it's still not capped and all flows fine.

I think one of the reasons we all use 1-20-40 pump-boiler-engine setups for power is because that is actually the limit to how much liquid can flow through pipes at once. If you want to start looking at in-game numbers, start there.

[Ancient]

Originally posted by Warlord:

I think one of the reasons we all use 1-20-40 pump-boiler-engine setups for power is because that is actually the limit to how much liquid can flow through pipes at once. If you want to start looking at in-game numbers, start there.

Pipes can handle much more than that. The reason for the 1-20-40 ratio is that 1 offshore pump produces 1200/s and boilers use 60/s, so 1 pump can ultimately only feed 20 boilers after which there is not enough water being produced by the pump to feed any additional boilers.

I've made as many as 100 boilers in line (with 5 off-shore pumps feeding a storage tank first), with fluid pumps after each 20 boilers to keep the flow moving down the line, and they all ran fully even though that one pipe is effectively pushing 6000/s in total by the time it reaches the final boiler.

The upper limit of a pipe under the most ideal condition, which is a pump to pump or tank to pump connection, is 12000/s: https://imgur.com/EgQSz0W

The wiki explains it all here: https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system

[THE kilroy]

For long distance you need to use pumps at interval to increase flow capacity.

You can definatly run more than 3 refineries off 1 pipe assuming you have enough in the input pipes .

Perhaps your friend was referring to a limited ammount of crude, as 2 pumpjacks isnt much. The efficiency of pumpjacks reduces overtime aswell, so i cant tell you 1 pumpjack can supply x refineries.

Or perhaps you are refering to the number of chemical plants cracking light to petrol and heavy to light, per refineries?

[Purpleganja]

It is also mentioned in the wiki on pipes that tanks acts as pipes with very large capacity and that tends to reduce pressure and low pressure reduces flow. Avoid putting tanks everywhere on your pipe setup; put em before pumps or near the end of the line close to the destination.