Question on pipe flow and pressure

[FraGmenToR]

I am currently in the midst of trying to sort my oil problems now that i have advanced oil processing. I managed to clear out enough space at a distant oil field getting myself access to a field with a yield around 3,500%. I have loaded it onto fluid wagons and transported it back to my base. Now i am trying to figure out a way of processing it into the various oil sorts. I know that 3 pumps per wagon is the optimal ratio. But i am curious about pipe capacity and pressure. It would seem neater to only have a single pipe run from the wagon to the refinery. But would that not result in not enough oil getting through - and as a consequence the refinery at the end of the line only gets a dribble whereas the first one gets a torrent? As i was worried this might be the case, i added a whole second row of pipes connecting to the pipes from the first wagon. But im wondering whether this is not needed. Screenshot attached. Advice appreciated :)

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1687122191861447264/CD283BDD5756AECBB5A7A5DE99F58332E363CC9C/

[Fel]

Your setup doesn't result in a higher flow than a single pipe since the bottleneck for you right now is how much the machines are taking.
10 machines with advanced oil processing means 1000 crude oil every 5 seconds or 200 per second.

The second pipe could even cause more issues since it introduces loops that the liquid can take, especially when the pipes are nearly empty.

I would recommend the wiki page about the fluid system, in particular the portion about pipelines and flow:
https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines

[CHR]

second pipe is useless, your pipes are full and the wagons dont have some storage space for the oil
try some tanks for the crude oil before pumping into the refinery!
One pipe is enough for many more refineries :)

[CHR]

just one pipe ;)
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1685996137036459301/21DA34D7DB4850085417132C940A44D2FD7C72C9/

[Arachniid]

I suggest moving that crude to storage tanks and starting from there. You will find that you will have plenty of room for your fluid wagons to move at that point. If you find that you are overflowing on crude, start making rocket fuel. Or you could just add more crude tanks.

[astrosha]

Pump->tank->pump is a LOT faster than Pump->pipe->wherever.

I usually only use one or two storage tanks per fluid wagon; each tank holds exactly the amount that the fluid wagon does, but it makes for a lot faster loading/unloading the fluid wagon.

One tank, or one fluid wagon, holds 25,000 crude oil. You're using 10 refineries to process it, and that's fine. But, as mentioned above, that means they only consume 200 crude/second. It takes 125 seconds to consume the 25000 crude of just one tank/fluid wagon - that's just over two minutes! Your trains are at least 3 fluid wagons long, and you have two of them, for a total of minimum 6 fluid wagons, or 12.5 minutes of operation on a full double load, just in the screenshot.

If your refineries are constantly full of crude oil, then they are good in that regard, no supply-side bottlenecks.
If your refineries are constantly empty of heavy/light oil and petroleum gas, then the demand for those is at least equal to the supply, if not greater. So the things that the refineries supply may be bottlenecked by their supply (the number of refineries) but as far as the refineries are concerned, everything is ok.

Its only when they are not able to get enough crude to work full time, or when they get backed up on what they are putting out, that the refineries themselves have a problem.

EDIT :
If you check around online, you'll see that pipes don't really operate as a pressurized system. Instead, they try to equalize (as a percentage!!) how full they are with their neighbors. Pumps do two things : force all the fluid from the inlet to the outlet (so long as there is room) and prevent fluid from flowing back from the outlet to the inlet. In other words, they act as a one-way that forces everything through.

You will want a Pump every so often, depending on the fluid flow you are seeking to maintain in your pipe. If you only need 200/sec, you do not need pumps nearly as frequently as if you are trying to maintain 1200/sec.

[Hedning]

3 pumps are completely overkill. A pipe can at most handle half a pump.

You know how you have chests at regular cargo stations and don't just unload directly from the wagon to the belts? Well for fluid stations it is good practice to treat the pumps as inserters and storage tanks as the chests. Ie instead of
inserter -> chest -> inserter -> belt you have
pump -> tank -> pump -> pipe.

Of course you never need to increase flow rate above what you actually consume. In general before beacons you do not have to worry about flow rate as the rate is quite high. You can always look at the pipes to see if the flow is high enough the same as you can see when you need another belt. If the belt is empty but it's not full when going in you don't need another belt, just more assemblers to fill it. If however the ingoing belt is full but it gets empty half way then you need another belt. The same is true for pipes. If your pipes are full at one end but empty at the other then you need another pipe, or more frequent pumps.

[FraGmenToR]

The thinking behind what i am aiming for is that i dont really want the crude or petroleum. What i really want is lubricant and light oil (i already have oil - but its all basic). So i was going to refine all this new stuff right next to the train and then store the heavy, light, petroleum and lubricant all in a central storage area which i can then use when i am ready to use it.

I should point out that i have not gotten any further than this before (after a number of aborted factories). So i still dont know what all the "stuff" is used for - or in what quantities. And, i dont really want to know that either. As thats half the fun. So in general, as i cannot really plan properly, when i get new stuff to make i set up a supply chain and then dump large quantities of the new thing in either chests or tanks to be used later.

But i also dont want unnecessary pipes all over the place if i can help it. This was pretty useful:

Pump->tank->pump is a LOT faster than Pump->pipe->wherever

I dont think a lot of it matters anyway. By the time ive figured out what im doing next all forms of efficiency are a moot point and i can deal with supply issues later. Useful to know that 3 pumps is overkill too. I also realised my fears of flow were unfounded when i turned the refineries on. As everything filled up super quick. I now have a store of 200,000 of each ingredient so that will keep me going.

[Purpleganja]

I find that 1 pump every 200 pipes for 1004 u/s is quite comfortable compared to the 1 pump every 17 pipes for 1200 u/s. Unless I'm making something specific that needs more, I'll tend to this range.

[Fel]

To be fair, 17 pipes with underground pipes can already cover quite a bit of ground but yes the bottleneck is rarely around the throughput of your pipes until you have a pretty big base and are already having to worry about bottlenecks and throughput everywhere else as well.

[astrosha]

Advanced Oil Processing is heavily skewed towards Petroleum Gas production. You get 5 Heavy Oil/sec, 7 Light Oil/sec, and 11 Petroleum Gas/sec for each Refinery doing AOP. And since you can crack down, but not up, you can shift all of the Heavy Oil to Light, and then all of that Light to Petroleum Gas, but you cannot turn PG into Light or Heavy Oil.

Coal Liquifaction, on the other hand, is heavily skewed towards Heavy Oil production. Unfortunately, it requires "purple science" to research. But, it gives 13 Heavy Oil, 4 Light Oil, 2 Petroleum Gas per second, per refinery. This is the thing you want for producing a lot of Lubricant.

Why? Because as soon as one product backs up, the refinery stops working. If the PG backs up, then you cannot produce more LO or, more to the point, HO for the Lubricant.

just something to look forward to!

[Purpleganja]

Originally posted by Fel:

To be fair, 17 pipes with underground pipes can already cover quite a bit of ground but yes the bottleneck is rarely around the throughput of your pipes until you have a pretty big base and are already having to worry about bottlenecks and throughput everywhere else as well.

Yeah. I just like imagining a standard package written 200 for 1000. just eyeball less than 200 away? 1000 is enough? lay down, plug and play without pressure pump.
It works for a lot of things in the midgame. If it doesn't, bring out the table and start counting pipes.

[Zhardoz]

use pumps