Petroleum Throughput and Plastic Production

[wizcreations]

I can’t figure out what’s wrong with my build. Despite having what I think is ample resources, I’m only getting a trickle of plastic.

I have 20 refineries doing advanced oil processing with a appropriate number cracking and producing light oil and lubricant. All have pumps with a circuit network to ensure nothing holds up production, and I manually checked the machines to verify they weren’t stalling.

I output petroleum gas using underground pipes back to my bus with pumps after every 10 or so pairs of pipes, then I produce plastic off the bus with 14 assembly machine lvl2 Chemical Plants producing plastic. Using full red belt for coal. But I’m only getting about 5 plastic per second rather than a full red belt. Looking at the machines, they are short on petroleum.

So I set up a second oil outpost and brought that back to the bus. And I’m still short on petroleum. Am I reaching some kind of throughout limit on my pipe that ie causing a shortage in my production?

[Fel]

Without counting what you get from cracking since you didn't give numbers.
20 refineries on advanced oil processing make 11 petroleum gas per second each (55 in 5 seconds) for a total of 220 petroleum gas per second.
Plastic is made in a chemical plant, not an assembling machine so there is no mk2, it makes 2 per second at the cost of 40 petroleum gas per second.

Your 220 per second are enough to feed 5.5 chemical plant making plastic, assuming that coal is not the issue you would produce 11 plastic per second.


Your issue is just that refineries are slow, taking 5 seconds per cycle so you will need a lot more of them (and potentially more crude oil), it's definitely not the pipes reching a trhoughput cap or anything like that.

[Hedning]

If you have a throughput limit on your pipe your oil refineries and cracking plants will have their outputs full and shut off every now and then. Go to your refineries and look if their outputs are full. It could be that you accidentally cut off a pipe or turned a pump the wrong way. The easiest way to see if a refinery is working is looking at the chimney. Is there fire coming out of it or not. if not go to it and see what the issue is.

[wizcreations]

Whoops. I was trying to type from memory what I had built. Obviously using the chemical plant, not the Assembling Machine.

I'm using the 20-5-17 ratio for Advanced Oil Processing-Heavy Oil Cracking-Light Oil Cracking from Factorio Cheat Sheet. No modules or beacons. And I store 10k each of Light Oil and Lubricant before cracking the excess to petroleum. I'm just now reaching the point of using oil products, so nothing is consuming the light oil or lubricant yet.

[KatherineOfSky]

Assuming you have enough from cracking plus regular petroleum production, are you using petroleum to make other products like sulfuric acid and/or solid fuel?

[wizcreations]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

Assuming you have enough from cracking plus regular petroleum production, are you using petroleum to make other products like sulfuric acid and/or solid fuel?

Yes, I am now starting to add some other products like batteries and processing units, building to the point where I am able to produce science at 1.5 per second. But I figured a second set of oil refineries would have produced enough petroleum.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by wizcreations:

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

Assuming you have enough from cracking plus regular petroleum production, are you using petroleum to make other products like sulfuric acid and/or solid fuel?

Yes, I am now starting to add some other products like batteries and processing units, building to the point where I am able to produce science at 1.5 per second. But I figured a second set of oil refineries would have produced enough petroleum.

Second set, as in second set of 20? When you look at your petroleum tank, do you have any petroleum in storage? Are all your refineries working, (e.g. do you have enough crude oil)?

[wizcreations]

I gathered from everyone's comments that it was not my refineries or my pipes that were the problem, so I took a closer look around my base everywhere else. Turns out a critical power pole was disconnected from one of my power plant locations, making my base unable to satisfy power demand. Reconnect, satisfaction becomes positive, and I'm up to full red belt on plastic.

Thanks for inadvertently steering me in the right direction! I appreciate you.