What's your chemical plant like?

[Nanako]

I went into oil processing knowing nothing and just winged it. I ended up with an overcomplicated and cramped monstrosity that just barely struggles to make oil byproducts

I'd like some ideas on how to organise this better. show me your setup for a decent, easily expandable chemical plant!

[KatherineOfSky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJbqdZTQC7o&list=PL4o6UvJIdPNpm9szThfI-2y3Bv0c3rPlB&index=6

[Emmote]

This is the current 25:3:21 setup I'm using for Advanced Oil Processing. It's not expandable because it's the perfect ratio already. So if I ever need more, just another build block.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=953259892

It has 4 Lubricant makers that are valved off with Pumps connected to the circuit network.
If the Lubricant tanks are >=90% full, Heavy Oil gets cracked, otherwise it gets turned into Lubricant.

The Light Oil tanks are pretty much pointless unless you want to valve some off for Solid Fuel, otherwise you might as well just crack it all into gas.

[Nanako]

Emmote that looks pretty impressive, but aren't you missing a few things? I don't see any sulphuric acid/batteries

[Emmote]

You make them further down the production line. Once you've got Petroleum gas, just pipe it or barrel it or train it to where it's needed.
There's no need to make them locally to the oil production. In fact, it's preferred not to, so you have extra space to expand oil production.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Emmote:

You make them further down the production line. Once you've got Petroleum gas, just pipe it or barrel it or train it to where it's needed.
There's no need to make them locally to the oil production. In fact, it's preferred not to, so you have extra space to expand oil production.

Exactly. When we hear "oil production", it is pretty much the hard part to produce the petroleum gas in quantity for sulfuric acid and plastics. Those are simple enough compared to a good looking "pipe dream" that is oil processing.

[84rc3]

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198016796757/screenshots/

[GMC]

The main thing is to create a fluids bus (crude oil, water, steam, heavy oil, light oil, petroleum gas), with each process (oil processing, coal liquefaction, heavy-to-light cracking, light-to-gas cracking, solid fuel / rocket fuel, plastics) having its own row perpendicular to the bus, so that you can just add more structures (refineries or chemical plants) onto the end of the row.

Keep "minority" processes (lubricant, sulfuric acid) away from the main plant.

I normally put coal liquefaction first, as that's the only one which requires steam, and one of only two which require coal. That's followed by two rows of refineries for advanced oil processing, and that's the end of the line for crude oil. The next row is heavy-to-light, the one after that is light-to-gas, then solid fuel / rocket fuel and plastic in that order. After all that goes lubricant and sulfuric acid, which are taken away in barrels by logistic bots.

Sometimes coal follows the bus, sometimes the feeds for liquefaction and plastics enter from opposite ends; whichever turns out to be easier.

Cracking plants use the circuit network to keep the levels of heavy oil, light oil and petroleum gas equal (heavy oil cracking has an additional constraint to keep at least 5k in reserve for liquefaction). I don't bother working out ratios for cracking plants; I just check that none of the levels get out of balance, and add more plants if they do.

[Lothos]

curious though, i saw xterminator say something about the new oil ratio if you fully beacon is still 5:1:7 which is a hell of alot easier to deal with than that 25:3:21 monstrosity.

[Emmote]

Originally posted by lothos:

curious though, i saw xterminator say something about the new oil ratio if you fully beacon is still 5:1:7 which is a hell of alot easier to deal with than that 25:3:21 monstrosity.

Yes, if you use Productivity modules the ratio will change. Also, he may have been rounding down a little because, as you say, the full perfect 25:3:21 is a beast.
Using lower numbers makes it more manageable, but it stops being perfect.
And using Productivity you will never be able to get a perfect ratio.

[Lothos]

nope, he insisted it was PERFECT fully beaconed. IE: speed 3 modules. Of course productivity in the refineries though.

[Emmote]

I'd like to see how he worked that out. Due to Refineries being a speed of 1 and chem plants being a speed of 1.25, as soon as you add Productivity modules, you completely throw off their speeds, which immediately breaks them being perfect.

[Lothos]

again though, you're leaving out the beaconed speed module effect.

[Emmote]

Doesn't make a difference. The 25:3:21 remains that way even if you beacon everything (with the same number of beacons) and use only speed modules in the machine, because they provide the same bonus to everything. A linear increase.

However, Productivity doesn't do that. It increases production by 10% per, but reduces speed by 15% per, which throws off the maths big time.

If you're going by what Xterm said, I'd double check it for myself, however, if MadZuri said it, I'd take it as gospel.
Xterm isn't very good when it comes to number crunching.

[Nanako]

this magical ratio seems to be concentrated purely on making petroleum. But i use a lot of light oil for making solid fuel right now, too. its what keeps my factory running

[Emmote]

It's because Petroleum Gas will be needed far, far more than Light Oil will.

I would still use my setup above if I were making Solid Fuel though. It would just be a matter of valving off the Light Oil storage tanks, so Light Oil only gets cracked if it's >=90% full.

This way, if your Solid Fuel line gets backed up, Light Oil will stop getting used, and so you still have enough cracking to turn it into gas, so your whole oil system doesn't lock up due to too much light oil.