What is better? Basic or Advanced Oil Processing?

[Freezpior]

I finished the game not minding that there are Advanced Oil Processing.
And also I saw that it reduce the Heavy Oil making it just 10 instead of 25+
Doesn't it affect Lubricant?

[vts6482]

Advanced Oil Processing gives you a bit more but yes, it can mean running out of lubricant if you suddenly want to put down 10k belts somewhere. A few storage tanks as a lubricant buffer usually is enough.

[piccolo255]

You usually need much more petroleum (for plastics) than you need heavy oil. I don't think I've ever run out of heavy oil, and even with Advanced Oil Processing in all refineries my heavy->light->petroleum cracking runs pretty much always.

I do keep large stocks (5+ tanks) of each of the three, though, so even if there is a sudden surge in heavy oil usage it will certainly return to the usual trickle way before my stocks deplete.

[pat]

I've run low on heavy oil before and used to build additional tanks for light and gas, but now I prefer to just burn it off stockpiling plastic and maybe solid fuel.

[Heckett]

Once I unlock advanced processing I switch a few refineries over, but most stay with basic. I find with the ability to crack oil, having extra heavy oil isn't a problem, but there's a catch, because you do need SOME.

IMO, oil is probably about the only thing in the game that is almost 100% mandatory to use the circuit network to keep yourself sane and keep oil flowing without interruption. I use it to meter everything from heavy oil, light oil, lube, and sulfuric acid. Being able to set a hard cap on how much of those products allows you to dedicate excess to petroleum production without shutting down your refineries and really starving yourself.

And remember, in the grand scheme of things, tanks are cheap. I always keep at least 5 tanks for the 3 basic oils, and a few for the other stuff. I would say oil is also probably the only thing where over production and large amounts of excess product is a good thing.

[brian_va]

I'll usually use a circuit condition where all the heavy is either pumped for lube if less than a certain amount, and once that hits it all gets pumped to cracking. Once you get to where you are pushing Petro gas usage hard, you will have a decent number of refineries and will usually get more than enough heavy oil even on advanced oil setup.

[zOldBulldog]

It really depends on how you play.

- In most scenarios you are better off with Advanced Oil Processing.

- But if you use a LOT of lubricant (like when you use massive swarms of bots to lay down solar) you are better off setting it back to Basic Oil Processing.

Also... launching the rocket is NOT finishing the game. What you do is up to you, but here are a couple suggestions:

- Use white science for some cool and very useful research.

- Make a train line that goes very far away - where the ore deposits are in the 100s of millions. Start a cool new base there, maybe with better designs than those you did in previous times.

[Mist of Majora]

Originally posted by zOldBulldog:

It really depends on how you play.

This.

I've swapped back and forth between them in different playthroughs, and as a lot of people have said already - it depends on what you and your factory needs.

My personal favorite setup to get to the rocket before .17 was to do half basic and half advanced, due to all the extra lubricant you need for the bot rush and the scarce amount that advanced oil gives you.

[AlexMBrennan]

- But if you use a LOT of lubricant (like when you use massive swarms of bots to lay down solar) you are better off setting it back to Basic Oil Processing.

Those are all one-off projects - it's not like you can make 1000 bots per minute for the rest of the game (unless you want to keep blowing them up?) so sooner or later you will find yourself wanting to switch to advanced processing.

Long term demand is dominated by science + rocket construction, which just so happens to use proportionally more light oil and petroleum than you get from advanced processing (i.e. you still need to use heavy-to-light cracking). Switching to basic oil processing for your 1000 SPM factory means you get even more heavy oil (which you don't need), and will have to do even more cracking to dispose of it.

[Lunacy]

You usually want advanced, and maybe 1-2 refineries still on regular in case lubricant is falling behind. Just have the heavy oil going into lube then into cracking on the same pipeline. If light oil backs up (which will cause plastics to stop) make more solid fuel and rocket fuel.

[zOldBulldog]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

- But if you use a LOT of lubricant (like when you use massive swarms of bots to lay down solar) you are better off setting it back to Basic Oil Processing.

Those are all one-off projects - it's not like you can make 1000 bots per minute for the rest of the game (unless you want to keep blowing them up?) so sooner or later you will find yourself wanting to switch to advanced processing.

Long term demand is dominated by science + rocket construction, which just so happens to use proportionally more light oil and petroleum than you get from advanced processing (i.e. you still need to use heavy-to-light cracking). Switching to basic oil processing for your 1000 SPM factory means you get even more heavy oil (which you don't need), and will have to do even more cracking to dispose of it.

As I said, depends on how you play.

I never found doing a 1000SPM base interesting. Also, after completing all of the achievements I find myself getting more and more creative on what I build and one-off projects is most of what I do.

Lately, I find myself often finishing all of the science research before even building my first full size smelting line for a given map. In my current 0.17 map I am almost done with yellow science and I have yet to build a volume smelter or a fully functioning train line. In this game I started using Advanced Oil aas soon as possible, but there were others where Basic Oil was more appropriate for my goals.