pipeline valves?

[smbrr]

Hello

I have a question about valves.
I just started my oil processing base and unlocked tier 2 pipelines to get all 960m3/min back home.
This also unlocked the valve.

So I made one and looked at it and I understand what it does, but for the life of me I can't see WHY?

It's designed to allow micro-management of pipes, but that's completely inconsistent with everything else in the game, ie. conveyor belts.
You can't micro-manage conveyor belts. At best you can split them and use mk.1,2,3 to limit the rate, but at the end of the day you can only do the math and make sure your total belt output >= your total factory input. Most of the time you rely on the fact that the factory will only consume what it needs, so if you give it more, it will stack up at the entrance, and allow for more to move to the other factories.
When it comes to pipelines, it's exactly the same thing. You give the factory AT LEAST what it needs, and then the surplus will goes to the other branch in your split, and so on, until the last factory.

So for both belts and pipelines there's 2 points that matter:
1/ total input >= total required output
2/ potential flowrate at all the nodes >= total required output.
That's it.

So where does the valve fit? What am I supposed to micro-manage? And why don't I have a similar tool for belts?

[Alt-F4]

There is a similar tool for belts, it is called the splitter - or intelligent splitter (was it... been a minute). It's technically not possible to do the exact same thing with splitters until you get to the version that allows you to specify overflow routing, but you could work with statistics to split 2/3 back into the supply/storage chain in each stage until you reach a rather low ratio, such that only 1 part in 100 or more will be routed toward the overflow - until you hit an overflow condition.
I used an overflow condition splitter in my steel production process with coal power plants. I routed the coal into a supply and storage loop before overflowing it into steel production. In theory, this wasn't fully necessary as the belt was able to provide more than enough to satisfy maximum rate power plant consumption.
I also did this on a few parts critical to keeping oil byproducts under control - gating their overflow to the incinerator - but with the actual intelligent/advanced/whatever splitter.

The reason why you would do this for fluids is probably because of how fluids work. They don't really seem to work like conveyors and output seems to be connected evenly to all connected pipes. Further, when trying to do the math for how to balance the consumption - it gets ... complicated, to say the least. Aluminum refinement, particularly when you get into alternate recipes and the like, get complicated to work out with the potential for recycling of used materials and the like.

In a more simple scenario, take liquid fuel power plants as an example. Power demand is often variable and therefore the rate of fuel consumption is variable. You may want to package some of the overflow fuel for use in vehicles and the like - however, the rate of consumption for a fuel packaging station might be high enough to cause problems if allowed to pull from the same inventory feeding the power plants - which could cause a troublesome cascade failure if inventory drops too low. Sure, you could add refineries to produce more fuel - but that also means more byproduct and that will mess with whatever ratios you have balanced, there. Further, if fuel production stops because your power plants aren't eating their maximum rate of fuel and the pipes are full, then whatever byproducts you are relying on for other production purposes will stop, as well, leading to a cascade production shortfall - and as production machines shut down, power demand draws down, further deepening the production shortfall on your oil-byproduct-dependent lines.

True story: 10/10 modern economists would be unable to play this game as their entire education contradicts simple math.

[smbrr]

Ah, interesting I didn't expect the game to have so much more stuff in just 2 locked tiers.
Would really way better if we had these intelligent splitters since the start :/
Managing overflow is just akward with basic splitters, mergers and industrial storage. I used to do it but realized it was way better to calculate what I need from the top and split exactly. Don't care about 15 screws being overproduced somewhere as long as I have enough.

Maybe this will be all clearer when I get into aluminum and so on as you mention.

But I am not sure I follow your fuel packaging example.
Take this scenario and put it in numbers:
- my pipe has 300 m3/min moving through it at all time
- I have enough power station plugged in that pipe to consume
- 100 m3/min at low power need
- 200 m3/min at medium power need
- 300 m3/min (the whole supply) at high power need
Okay, so as you say, most time I'm at let's say 100 a minute, low power need.
So I want to move 200 to packaging.
How does the valve help that? I branch my pipeline out and limit it with a valve at 200, this way, no matter what happens, at least 100 will always go to the power station.
But then my power need kicks up, now I need 200 at the power station. But there's also 200 being sucked through the valve to being packaged.
So my need is now 400, and my max is still 300.
Then, failure.

[Blast]

That game really need a programmable valve with an overflow option.
With aluminium it's a real pain in the ass to deal with the water which is reinjected in the circruit.

[Schalimah]

Publicado originalmente por Blast:

That game really need a programmable valve with an overflow option.
With aluminium it's a real pain in the ass to deal with the water which is reinjected in the circruit.

This is exactly the one case where I use the valve.
I limited the flow from the pumps to 240 m3/min so there is enough space in the pipe for the 60 m3/min from the refinery.
Although the pumps should only produce 240 m3/min i found the pipe to be full sometimes and thus blocking the aluminium production.

[Faustus]

Publicado originalmente por Blast:

That game really need a programmable valve with an overflow option.
With aluminium it's a real pain in the ass to deal with the water which is reinjected in the circruit.

I channel the water to a Wet Concrete recipe rather than try to feed it back into the Alclad production loop.
Plenty of concrete on-hand for a big build and simple to Sink any overflow.

[Faustus]

Publicado originalmente por smbrr:

So where does the valve fit? What am I supposed to micro-manage? And why don't I have a similar tool for belts?

In addition to the uses others have mentioned they can also be used to stop backflow.

[Alt-F4]

Publicado originalmente por smbrr:

How does the valve help that? I branch my pipeline out and limit it with a valve at 200, this way, no matter what happens, at least 100 will always go to the power station.
But then my power need kicks up, now I need 200 at the power station. But there's also 200 being sucked through the valve to being packaged.
So my need is now 400, and my max is still 300.
Then, failure.

When your packaging runs out of fuel, it can't pull from beyond the overflow valve. Imagine if you had a double-sided sink, and you have the faucet pouring into one side. You can put a giant gaping hole in the other side of the sink that can handle a small waterfall going through it, and it won't change that only the water which can flow over the divider will go into the other side of the sink.

That is how the overflow valve works. It requires everything on the side closest to the source be filled first. So it would prevent the packaging operation from drawing any more fuel than what the power plants weren't using.

[smbrr]

Ah ok I did not get that. I assumed the fuel would be evenly sent to the fuel station and the valve.

So if my tube has 300 m3/min, my power station can potentially consume 300 m3/min and my packaging can also potentially consume 300 m3/min, then I put a valve from the power station side to the packaging side, I set it wide open to 300 m3/sec, and then it will only consume the overflow that the power station is not using? And if I turn off the power station it will get all the fuel as it is technically overflow? And if the power station is 100% efficient the packaging won't get any?

In that case, I get it.

[Digital Merc]

not sure, but it sounds like you haven't unlocked the 600m3 pipes yet...?

As others have said, the oil & by-product factory lines can get very complicated at later stages in the game, and can occasionally necessitate flow restrictions, but you would want the higher volume pipes for them to really be useful... also don't forget that node purity plays a part in maximum flow rate from your oil extractor.

[Maehlice]

The big difference here between belts and pipes is that a belt can be split and merged in such a way to choke it and set an exact throughput. Outside of a valve, there is absolutely no way to choke a pipe.

The valve allows you to more effectively manage overflow to feed multiple processes.

[tulle040657]

Publicado originalmente por Schalimah:

Publicado originalmente por Blast:

That game really need a programmable valve with an overflow option.
With aluminium it's a real pain in the ass to deal with the water which is reinjected in the circruit.

This is exactly the one case where I use the valve.
I limited the flow from the pumps to 240 m3/min so there is enough space in the pipe for the 60 m3/min from the refinery.
Although the pumps should only produce 240 m3/min i found the pipe to be full sometimes and thus blocking the aluminium production.

Exactly this, I no longer have to flush the pipes anymore now that I added a valve to the aluminium water flow from pump

[Zorlond]

So, bottom line is that valves exist because liquids have a bad habit of flowing backwards if you let them.