Is the fact that crude oil becomes obsolete intended?

[Slayrix]

Something I found out and I don't think this was intended, or maybe it was idk but I don't see why it would be intended is eventually crude oil can become obsolete. Once you get coal liquefaction not a single drop of crude oil is needed because oil cracking exists and so with heavy oil you can produce a huge amount of every other oil as needed. Why would this be at thing? I mean I love it because one less basic resource I need to train in but I still find it curious.

[Nonotorious]

Once you have enough mining productivity old oil fields do more than enough despite being 'depleted', coal on the other hand WILL run out considering you also need it for plastic and grey science.

[astrosha]

A decent oil well produces 100 crude/sec at start. After a long time, it can deplete to 20 crude/sec.

It can hold two modules, so assuming SM3's (which is a safe assumption) you add 100% to that, bringing it to 40 crude/sec. Throw in speed beacons, and for each one, add another 10 crude/sec.

Its possible to bring the output to 80 oil/sec, and that's before factoring in mining productivity technology. Mining Productivity 3 tech, by raising the output 30%, brigs that 80 crude/sec to 104 crude/sec, above the initial 100/sec!

Yes, it does require an outlay of beacons and modules. And yes, both the base oil output and the number of beacons you can put around it are going to vary, and yes, you should probably only put beacons where they will affect 2 or more pumpjacks. So, it may take more mining productivity tech to achieve it, The point, however, is that you have the means to combat the oil well depreciation. There is no such (vanilla) means of combating ore/stone/coal depletion. You have to go find more fields. You do not have to go find new oil wells.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Fel:

Once you grow to a certain scale, you can't really do without advanced oil processing because of the sheer amount of petroleum gas you need on top of the light oil (required for rocket fuel both as solid fuel and as light oil).

Coal liquefaction is great when/where you need a lot of heavy oil, like robot or blue belt production lines but it's not all that great when you need a lot of petroleum gas and light oil.

Coal liquefaction is also great if you want a dedicated plastic facility. It only requires coal and water - the latter of which you can supply locally - to produce oil products, which all can be cracked down to petroleum for producing plastic, which then only needs ... more coal.

I.e. coal in; plastic out.

Personally, I've also used coal liquefaction as a 'booster' on top of my advanced oil processing when my supply of crude into an incoming train station falls shy of the petrol demand on the outgoing station. Works quite well that way as well.

[Slayrix]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Ok oil is infinite in a sense but not really, it just gets worse and worse until it isn't worth it to mine it any more.

But the same is true for coal...

But coal is everywhere

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by RiO:

Coal liquefaction is also great if you want a dedicated plastic facility. It only requires coal and water - the latter of which you can supply locally - to produce oil products, which all can be cracked down to petroleum for producing plastic, which then only needs ... more coal.

I.e. coal in; plastic out.

Personally, I've also used coal liquefaction as a 'booster' on top of my advanced oil processing when my supply of crude into an incoming train station falls shy of the petrol demand on the outgoing station. Works quite well that way as well.

Not to be pedantic but the same is true for sulfur and explosives. You can even set it up so that it produces solid or rocket fuel for the train that moves it elsewhere. You just have to remember to bring a barrel of heavy oil and an assembler to empty it, to jump start the liquefaction plant's first cycle.

[RiO]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Originally posted by RiO:

Coal liquefaction is also great if you want a dedicated plastic facility. It only requires coal and water - the latter of which you can supply locally - to produce oil products, which all can be cracked down to petroleum for producing plastic, which then only needs ... more coal.

I.e. coal in; plastic out.

Personally, I've also used coal liquefaction as a 'booster' on top of my advanced oil processing when my supply of crude into an incoming train station falls shy of the petrol demand on the outgoing station. Works quite well that way as well.

Not to be pedantic but the same is true for sulfur and explosives. You can even set it up so that it produces solid or rocket fuel for the train that moves it elsewhere. You just have to remember to bring a barrel of heavy oil and an assembler to empty it, to jump start the liquefaction plant's first cycle.

While that's true, usually sulfur production is paired with consuming some of it to also produce sulfuric acid. And that requires at least also some (albeit very minor) amounts of iron plates.

The explosives case is interesting. I honestly never considered producing them off-site. Usually I just integrate it into my arms factory that can spit out 2~4 rockets/sec for a Spidertron. Given that you can fit, what? 9.6k into a single provider chest you usually have more than enough buffer that way for an emergency refill, if needed.

Using liquefaction as a coal -> light+petrol -> rocket fuel upgrade chain for coal fueling to rocket fuel fueling is interesting. That's a refreshing idea for me. Will have to try to that some time.

No worries about the remarks. I enjoy the additional insight. There are so many different approaches one can take to Factorio. One of the more beautiful aspects of the game, imho.

Ah; and perhaps a bit off-topic but I find "not to be pedantic" such a funny expression.
There's a bit of a joke hidden in there, because no-one is actually ever pedantic. And those who claim they are, by definition aren't. That's because the message can be pedantic, but not the person. The person can "be a pedant." 😉
(Like I'm sort of being right now, I suppose. So I'll quit it. 😆 )

[Дива Виви]

I use it for balance:
Liquifaction - if crude > heavy => make heavy from coal (+others).
If heavy > light => make light from heavy
If light > petrol => make petrol from light.
If it still crude > petrol => make petrol right from crude.
I use just same exact icons of liquids and this same conditions inside circuit network (turn on off pump to fill assemblers for oil transition from one to another)

[That Fish Guy]

So much necromancy the last couple days.

[Emma]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.