Fluid trains: barrels or fluid wagons? Which is best and why?

[BustedHipGaming]

Which method do people use for moving things like oil - fluid wagons, or barrels? Is one method always best, or are there cases where one works better? I use fluid wagons simply to avoid having to shuttle empty barrels around, but I have no idea if there are times when barrels are worth the effort. Help me out here :)

[piccolo255]

From what I hear, barrels are good if you need a relatively small amount of fluids (mining a small uranium patch, maybe). They also have the advantage of being able to be carried by bots. Still, I've literally never, ever used them in my 900+ hours :)

I reeeealy don't want to bother with barrel logistics :D

[The Chaotic Coder]

I always use fluid wagons. Making enough barrels to fill a train car uses a lot of steel. Also you need machines to fill/empty the barrels at each end. With fluid wagons all you need is a pump and a few storage tanks.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by jchardin64:

I always use fluid wagons. Making enough barrels to fill a train car uses a lot of steel. Also you need machines to fill/empty the barrels at each end. With fluid wagons all you need is a pump and a few storage tanks.

Technically, I think it's only 4 stacks of steel per wagon. You should be making a LOT of steel, so that isn't a lot.

That being said, I HATE HATE HATE barrels. Managing extras, making sure you don't flood the pumpjacks with empty barrels or your refinery with fulls.

Love the new(ish) fluid wagons. But that needs a rail system (which I always have) to be able to use.

[Killcreek2]

For general fluids transit, I'd also recommend the new fluid wagons in 0.16+.
Quite simple to set up, & can cope with high-throughput demands very well.
Something like this works well: https://i.imgur.com/qwKaOId.png


Barrels still have some low-throughput niche uses though, such as in a bot-based player shoppe, & especially for mining uranium ~ you don't need a seperate fluid wagon & can just reserve a few cargo slots for full / empty acid barrels, with the rest set for ura ore.
Also good for supplying light oil to the walls, for flambé turrets ~ it doesn't need many barrels to keep the flambé flowing for ages, so they can fit in the cargo wagon alongside the ammo & repair packs &etc.


I have had no problems with barrel management whatsoever, & used it for my crude oil supply trains throughout v0.13 to v0.15 ~ it really is much easier than a lot of players seem to think. ;)

Oil unloading example: https://i.imgur.com/Brs87CX.png
Oil loading example: https://i.imgur.com/fMiSLat.png

But, barrel capacities (and cost) got nerfed to 20% in this version (0.16), which has utterly killed my barrel-fed 2n reactor design: it now needs 5x the bots & ports & barrels & deliveries ~ nuupe! Back to pipes & pumps...


edit ~ P.S. You can fit more oil storage per tile with barrels in steel chests than you can with storage tanks. IF available space is an issue (11 chests, vs 1 storage tank +2 pipes).

[Maelstrom]

I used barrels back before fluid wagons were a thing.

Even with the massive nerf they got in 0.16 fluid wagons are still just way better at practically everything and you don't have to deal with shuffling empty barrels around.