why is the offshore pump not working properly?

[DONAR]

So I have 20 offshore pumps (23 in total but 3 are seperately going to a chemical plant) as shown in the picture, connected to 17 heat extractors which are connected to 4 nuclear reactors. My problem is, there's just not enough water getting to the heat extractors to create steam. As you can see in the picture, only a few steps down the pipes, the water is already down to 75%, and by the time the water reaches the heat extractor, there only about 1% left. Why? Where does all the water go along the way? The pipes are connected to nothing else and the water just vanishes into nothing. I don't get it.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956482225

[Emmote]

Well, as far as I'm aware, pipes can only support the throughput of 10 Offshore pumps to begin with. So there's that. In fact, it may even be less as I read somewhere else, due to the capacity of a pipe and the 60 updates per second being a limiting factor.

You're also not using enough underground pipes, as pressure decreases the longer the pipe is (per segment), and undergrounds only count as 2 segments, whereas long normal pipes count as many more.

You've also got a lot of branches in your pipe network which severely drop pressure in the system in ways you wouldn't expect due to how the fluid mechanics and flow rate are calculated.

Add that all up (combined with the water simply being used up by things) means you're not getting enough water.

[Killcreek2]

Emmote hit it spot on ~ your pipes do not have enough throughput to cope with that amount of fluid.
Here is a great post on the Factorio forums explaining the fluid mechanics [with helpful pictures]:
https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19851

[DONAR]

Originally posted by Emmote:

Well, as far as I'm aware, pipes can only support the throughput of 10 Offshore pumps to begin with. So there's that.

You're also not using enough underground pipes, as pressure decreases the long the pipe is (per segment), and undergrounds only count as 2 segments, whereas long normal pipes count as many more.

You've also got a lot of branches in your pipe network which severely drop pressure in the system in ways you wouldn't expect due to how the flow rate is calculated.

Add that all up (combined with the water simply being used up by things) means you're not getting enough water.

Hmm, I re-made the pipe system a little bit, and it's a little bit better, thanks! But still not ideal. I might have to move the entire nuclear power facility over close to the pumps. ehh. I wish there was just a move powerful offshore pump.

[Emmote]

Originally posted by RAC Warrior:

I wish there was just a move powerful offshore pump.

I think you're still not quite understanding.

The Offshore pumps pump *a lot* of liquid, but you don't have the pipe network to support it. A stronger pump would suffer the same problem. Square peg, round hole, that kind of thing.
Use more pipes, separate them out into individual lines, remove branches and use undergrounds as much as possible.

[DONAR]

Originally posted by Killcreek2:

Emmote hit it spot on ~ your pipes do not have enough throughput to cope with that amount of fluid.
Here is a great post on the Factorio forums explaining the fluid mechanics [with helpful pictures]:
https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19851

Well, then I also not only need bigger pumps but bigger pipes! Sucks that there aren't any. But thank you! I will read through that.

[DONAR]

Originally posted by Emmote:

Originally posted by RAC Warrior:

I wish there was just a move powerful offshore pump.

I think you're still not quite understanding.

The Offshore pumps pump *a lot* of liquid, but you don't have the pipe network to support it. A stronger pump would suffer the same problem. Square peg, round hole, that kind of thing.
Use more pipes, separate them out into individual lines, remove branches and use undergrounds as much as possible.

Yea I see now. Thank you.

[Huillam]

That's unrelated to your issue but you should always keep an empty space between turrets and walls as big and behemoth biters have and attack range of two tiles.

[DONAR]

Originally posted by Huillam:

That's unrelated to your issue but you should always keep an empty space between turrets and walls as big and behemoth biters have and attack range of two tiles.

There's behemoth biters??? I used to have spacing between the turrets, but the firepower wasn't big enough to fight off bigger hoards, so I just said, ♥♥♥♥ it, put turrets everywhere.

[Huillam]

Not a space between the turrets but between the turrets and the walls (in your screenshot by moving the wall one tile to the right).

[DONAR]

Originally posted by Huillam:

Not a space between the turrets but between the turrets and the walls (in your screenshot by moving the wall one tile to the right).

Oh I see. When do those behemoth biters come up?

[Killcreek2]

Behemoth biters & spitters can show up after your evolution factor passes 0.9 [type "/evolution" into the ingame console to see your current stats. This command does not affect cheevies.]

Source: https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Enemies#Evolution

[DONAR]

Originally posted by Killcreek2:

Behemoth biters & spitters can show up after your evolution factor passes 0.9 [type "/evolution" into the ingame console to see your current stats. This command does not affect cheevies.]

Source: https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Enemies#Evolution

Thanks! 0.85 currently. Oh boy!

[lightningdragon10065]

If you want bigger pipes and are not averse to mods, Bob's Logistics mod includes pipes with greater capacity.

Be warned, though, that bigger pipes lead to reduced flow rates, due to the way fluid mechanics work.
It's like how you could use storage tanks to transfer your fluids everywhere, but it would be painfully slow once you go beyond a few tanks.

[KayDawg13]

each offshore pump supplies 100 units of water, a pipe can support 100 units per segment. like Emmote said, redesign with as much undergrounds as you can and run more individual lines.
after a certain distance, the fluids in a pipe will lose pressure. so I use this to build the pressure back up....
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=959992981
each of the pumps holds 200 units, so they kind of act as little storage tanks. if you use this at the end of a pipe network, the end bit should always have full pressure as it should drag everything in the pipe to that end and you'll have 600 units trying to push into the space of 100.
I use a quad reactor blueprint design that I picked up from someone else (can't remember the name, sorry) and I run 6 pumps and 6 pipe lines to the 6 water inputs it had, the pressure isn't always maxed but it has storage tanks included so it has never ran out of water.

[Nellvan]

Originally posted by kadawg13:

each offshore pump supplies 100 units of water, a pipe can support 100 units per segment. like Emmote said, redesign with as much undergrounds as you can and run more individual lines.
after a certain distance, the fluids in a pipe will lose pressure. so I use this to build the pressure back up...

OP is playing 0.15, this doesn't apply anymore. An offshore pump does 1200/s, and there's no need for pumpstations anymore. At least not as much as it used to be, I think. (small) pumps are 5x faster now.