Always problems with liquid flow in Oil-->Petro-->Plastics - What am I doing wrong?

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

Every time I get far along toward a Mega Base I have the same problems with liquids:
I will have more than enough volume of liquids in storage tanks but the input for oil/petro will always be bottlenecked. I must be doing something wrong.

Please help give advice or a link to an optimal setup (image)

Thanks in Advance!

[KatherineOfSky]

When you get to a megabase stage, you probably need to look at having multiple pipes for liquids.... they don't have unlimited throughput, so add more pathways for better throughput.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=818574642

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=818574768

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

two pics showing that i have reserves in the storage tanks but several of the plants/refineries are not running.

if pipes have a throughput limit, what is it? i havent read any info on this in reddit or anywhere else?

I have been using pumps, i have read that pump down-throttle your throughput to 30/s....should i not be using any pumps at all?

[Cycle_Of_Insanity]

Originally posted by Atlas:

two pics showing that i have reserves in the storage tanks but several of the plants/refineries are not running.

if pipes have a throughput limit, what is it? i havent read any info on this in reddit or anywhere else?

I have been using pumps, i have read that pump down-throttle your throughput to 30/s....should i not be using any pumps at all?

Well there are pump "stations" to increase that way above just a single pump
and i dont belive thats your problem
can you tell us how much oil, heavy oil, light oil, and petrolium are in one pipe? It shows if you hover over it cus you might have not enough oil or full tanks

[AlexMBrennan]

if pipes have a throughput limit, what is it? i havent read any info on this in reddit or anywhere else?

I have been using pumps, i have read that pump down-throttle your throughput to 30/s....should i not be using any pumps at all?

Conventional wisdom [forums.factorio.com] is that you need to place pump stations ever N tiles to maintain maximum flow rate over long distances. To get past the 30u/s limit you just have to use more in parallel.

Personally, I found 3 pumps in parallel to force liquid into my refinery/chemical plants to be quite effective.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by Atlas:

two pics showing that i have reserves in the storage tanks but several of the plants/refineries are not running.

if pipes have a throughput limit, what is it? i havent read any info on this in reddit or anywhere else?

I have been using pumps, i have read that pump down-throttle your throughput to 30/s....should i not be using any pumps at all?

On the Refinery picture, that pump below the line of refineries is seriously limiting your throughput. You will want to remove that, and any other pumps that are there for "throughput" reasons. If you have pumps that are controlling flow, (e.g. with circuit conditions to split fluid/assign priorities), you will want to create a pumping station with several pumps.

(I split my petrol output between sulfur and plastic with circuit conditions. At some point, I needed 3 pumps to deliver enough petroleum to plastic... and then upgraded to 5 pumps, (which gives you max throughput).

There's a page on the web site forums about fluid dynamics -- talks about fluid throughput per distance, etc. https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=6066

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

Originally posted by Atlas:

two pics showing that i have reserves in the storage tanks but several of the plants/refineries are not running.

if pipes have a throughput limit, what is it? i havent read any info on this in reddit or anywhere else?

I have been using pumps, i have read that pump down-throttle your throughput to 30/s....should i not be using any pumps at all?

On the Refinery picture, that pump below the line of refineries is seriously limiting your throughput. You will want to remove that, and any other pumps that are there for "throughput" reasons. If you have pumps that are controlling flow, (e.g. with circuit conditions to split fluid/assign priorities), you will want to create a pumping station with several pumps.

(I split my petrol output between sulfur and plastic with circuit conditions. At some point, I needed 3 pumps to deliver enough petroleum to plastic... and then upgraded to 5 pumps, (which gives you max throughput).

There's a page on the web site forums about fluid dynamics -- talks about fluid throughput per distance, etc. https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=6066

@ KoS - that is *EXACTLY* what I was looking for and is so helpful! Thanks so much!

I don't know how anyone can run their liquid operations up to scale on a larger level without this knowledge!

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by Atlas:

@ KoS - that is *EXACTLY* what I was looking for and is so helpful! Thanks so much!

I don't know how anyone can run their liquid operations up to scale on a larger level without this knowledge!

You're very welcome!

I hope that when the devs are revamping the tutorial in the final version that they add some more liquids info :-)

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

absolutely. the usage of pumps is very counter-intuitive. Why would pumps *throttle* all throughput down to 30/s? So strange

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by Atlas:

absolutely. the usage of pumps is very counter-intuitive. Why would pumps *throttle* all throughput down to 30/s? So strange

Presumably it is because the pumping mechanism doesn't run as fast as natural flow for some reason.

IMO it's one of the most confusing parts of the game.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

@ KoS - do you know if Storage Tanks are treated as a 'new' output so the first pipe out of them flows at 240 fluid/sec or are they treated as 'pipes'?

I feel like a lot of my flow problems stem from the fact that i use storage tanks in my lines between the oil refiniries and the chemical plants. the liquids seem to get 'stuck' in the storage tanks

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by Atlas:

@ KoS - do you know if Storage Tanks are treated as a 'new' output so the first pipe out of them flows at 240 fluid/sec or are they treated as 'pipes'?

I feel like a lot of my flow problems stem from the fact that i use storage tanks in my lines between the oil refiniries and the chemical plants. the liquids seem to get 'stuck' in the storage tanks

I don't know the answer that question. However, anecdotally, I have heard that tanks should be put on the side of lines, rather than the fluid being required to flow through them.

Alternatively, you could also tap more than one output pipe of the tank to increase flow.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡Atlas]

that makes a lot of sense about not putting tanks in the middle of your lines, i feel like that is what snowballs into all my flow problems. I wish there was a method to meter the overflow (any volume greater than 10 fluid/sec) off into a storage tank