How to keep Petroleum from tanking

[jboord44]

I launched my first rocket, now onto my 2nd factory. I started a brand new game. Now I'm running into an issue with oil that I also had on my 1st playthrough and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

I setup my refineries, I start producing petroleum gas, and everything is great. I get sulfur on a belt, I get plastic on a belt, both of those lines are totally full at all times working wonderfully. Then all of a sudden at a certain point, my chemical plants that are producing the plastic and sulfur aren't getting enough petroleum gas; it's just trickling in there. This same thing happened to me on my last playthrough too.

I know I haven't given a ton of details about how I've set things up, but based on the description of the problem, can anyone think of what I might be doing wrong? Idk if this helps or not but I've never really figured out the proper use for a pump to use in my fluid pipe system. Would pumps in certain places help?

Thanks

[DCYW]

tried fill barrelling then empty barrelling with assembly plant 2 + not 1?, 'cause Assembly plant 1 does not support fluids.

[AlexMBrennan]

Would pumps in certain places help?

Technically speaking yes.

Your problem is that oil refining produces 3 outputs (light oil, heavy oil, petroleum) of which you are only using 1 (petroleum). In Factorio, buildings stop working if their output is full.

You need to set up oil cracking (heavy to light, and light to petroleum), and you need to enable those when there is too much heavy and light oil respectively. This is done by using pumps, and enabling them only when the storage tank is too full.

[jagholin]

Sounds like you simply don't produce/have enough petroleum

Are your petroleum tanks full?

[Dunhill]

Basic oil refining only produces petrol. Advanced refining produces light and heavy oil as well. Only a part of light and heavy oil gets used, the rest you have to convert to petrol. If you fail to use up all light and heavy oil, your production of petrol will halt as refineries have no where to put the other two. If your chemical plants are producing at a decreased rate, then your issue is simply not enough petrol being produced, and you needing more refineries. Pumps only help if pipe throughput due to length is the bottleneck, but that only happens in really big refinery setups, and I presume you're nowhere near that. Can you tell us how many refineries you have, are you doing basic oil refining and how many chemical plants producing what you have?

Tl;dr:
Build more refineries.

[jboord44]

Ok so I do in fact notice that the problem I run into only occurs when I switch to advanced oil processing with the 3 outputs and I don't use the light and heavy like you all said.

Just making sure I understand how this works; with advanced oil processing, if you don't use all 3 outputs to keep fluid moving through the entire system the refineries will shutdown/slowdown?

[Dunhill]

Originally posted by jboord44:

Ok so I do in fact notice that the problem I run into only occurs when I switch to advanced oil processing with the 3 outputs and I don't use the light and heavy like you all said.

Just making sure I understand how this works; with advanced oil processing, if you don't use all 3 outputs to keep fluid moving through the entire system the refineries will shutdown/slowdown?

Yes.

[astrosha]

The Advanced Oil Processing technology not only comes with AOP, but with the two Cracking recipes as well. Make what you need from Heavy Oil, and crack the excess to Light. Make what you need of Light Oil, and crack the excess to Petroleum Gas.

Just be sure to factor in the Chem Plants as well as the Refineries when determining how much cracking you need.

[jboord44]

My issue is solved, thanks for all the responses. I needed to make use of the heavy and light oils; once I did my petroleum supply shot right back up. I appreciate everyone's help

[Cosmic]

Completing this to say that the "almost" correct ratio for 100% Petroleum from Advanced Oil Processing is 8 Oil Refineries, 2 Heavy->Light, 7 Light -> Petroleum. the actual perfect ratio is in the 20~ iirc which is useless, 8/2/7 works great.

[Lunacy]

You could try using a pump to make sure certain stations are full, in case you have a really long pipe that's getting a lot used up before further stations.

[darkscaryforest]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Would pumps in certain places help?

You need to set up oil cracking (heavy to light, and light to petroleum), and you need to enable those when there is too much heavy and light oil respectively. This is done by using pumps, and enabling them only when the storage tank is too full.

This definitely helps in cases where you want to hit the perfect ratio and/or minimize supervision. You can also make solid/rocket fuel from light oil and petroleum if you find you need to offset their excess in favor of heavy!

[jboord44]

I actually have a new question if anyone is interested. I seem to have fixed my petroleum situation and actually have a surplus; I've had to start converting the extra to solid fuel to cope. I also have extra light oil; I have like 6 chemical plants converting my light oil to solid fuel just to burn through it, and still I have a full storage tank.

Heavy oil is the mystery to me now. It seems the only way to get it is directly from the refinery, whereas with light oil and petroleum you can use other products to tinker with the supply. My heavy oil supply is always low, and I can't seem to bump it up. Granted, I have a few chemical plants converting it into lubricant, but I need the lubricant damnit lol.

How do I bump the supply of heavy oil so that I can keep making lubricant for my blue pipe pieces? Do I just need more refineries?

[Hurkyl]

First a sanity check: you've disabled any chemical plants that were cracking heavy oil to light oil, right?

There is always the coal liquefaction option, whose outputs are heavily skewed towards the heavy end.

In older Factorio builds, you could actually switch your refineries back to basic oil processing to deal with this problem, since that shifted the ratios you get towards the heavy end... but in the modern builds it gives pure petroleum so that doesn't help any more.

[knighttemplar1960]

A couple of ways to use up excess light oil is to convert some of your solid fuel to rocket fuel. That uses a bit more of your light oil and you can use it to fuel trains and your car for increased speed. You will also need A LOT of rocket fuel to launch your rocket. Another way to use excess light oil is to use it to defend your base in flame thrower turrets. Light oil as flame thrower fuel does 10% more damage to the bugs.

If you have surplus petrol you aren't making enough plastic or you have turned the bugs off or to peaceful. I suspect you have a red circuit bottle neck if you have started making blue circuits, if not, that's the reason you have a surplus of pertol. Sulfur is used to make blue science, explosives, and sulfuric acid. You don't use much sulfuric acid to make batteries or mine uranium but if you have the bugs on you'll need a lot of explosives for rockets and artillery shells.

As Hurkyl mentioned the best way to increase your supply of heavy oil is to use coal liquefaction. For my bases my coal liquefaction plant is in the same location as my oil refinery since I'm all ready using trains to bring in coal to make explosives and plastic in the refinery area.

Once you have all the blue belts, splitters, and undergrounds you need your demand for lubricant will decrease. You'll still need a steady supply to make electric engines since you'll continue to use those up to make flying robots frames to make yellow science packs but it should cut demand in about half.

[AlexMBrennan]

How do I bump the supply of heavy oil so that I can keep making lubricant for my blue pipe pieces? Do I just need more refineries?

Rockets are your biggest petroleum sink so the best solution is building more rockets.