water overflow issue

[lemon-lime]

I can't figure this out. I've got aluminium production with sloppy alumina -> aluminium scrap which pumps out 120 water/minute, that I ran back into the sloppy alumina refinery. I've got a pump underclocked supplying 80/min water, which totals 200/min necessary to run the whole system. but somehow, water ALWAYS backs up and stays full at aluminium scrap refinery. I tried adding valves restricting flows, but no result. setup runs fine for a while, then always backs up and I have to flush the whole pipe network. Does anyone know a solution to this issue?

[MJS WARLORD]

if you struggling to balance it all out make some empty canisters and feed them and your waste liquid into a packager and then sink it ...... no more flushing ..

[LostME]

It's all individual. Sometimes you add a meter of pipe and everything collapses. In the last game I put everything under the foundation and surprisingly it worked. Therefore, no one can give you the right answer.

[Mr.America]

I solved mine by adding a dead end pipe with a liquid buffer unit at the end. The pipe goes straight up and acts as a buffer taking iregularities in flow due to how the game seems to calculate fluid flow (differentials I think?). As long as bauxite input and aluminium scrap output don't jam the setup runs smoothly and has done so for about 300 hours now. And in case it ever breaks, all I have to do is flush the buffer and it'll be fine again.

[silvanspirit]

Easiest is to create a "wet concrete" recipe refinery and just sink the concrete created this way. I know you can package the water, but that requires plastic - I think limestone is easier to get almost anywhere on the map ..

[Vectorspace]

The main problem is, your main water supply will backflow into, and fill up, the water pipe that's delivering the excess water from the later machines. Then there's no room for excess water to be outputted, and the whole thing locks up.

The recommended solution is to use valves right at the junction point where the main and excess water pipes join, so that each can only push the required amount, and so that neither can fill the other's pipe.

Personally I never got that to work. My preferred solution was to use 2 sets of refineries. One that uses just the main supply, and one that runs only off the excess (the first excess and its own excess).

[Jeff]

Just run the water into the creek. Plant some bushes around the exit. EPA will never know :D

[kLuns]

Fluid buffers balance everything out.

[lemon-lime]

Originally posted by kLuns:

Fluid buffers balance everything out.

tried that too, they just fill up. weird part is, I have 6 sets of refineries. 5 of them back up every time, but one works like clockwork with no problems.

[Xhaleon]

You use a priority junction and a buffer for good measure. Byproducts enter the junction straight on with a pump on the entry pipe, fluids coming from any extractor enter the junction from above (rotate the junction 90) and have a valve or unpowered pump on its entry pipe. Leave the valve maxed since flow rate for them is dependent on how much is backed up behind the valve. A priority junction makes fluids from the lower input pipe be prioritized for travel into the output pipe.

Are you sinking all your excess aluminum or is it allowed to back up? Water extractors don't care that your refineries cannot unload their alum products and so they will eventually fill up the input pipes, leaving nowhere for the byproducts to go. A small buffer tank for the byproducts is still a good idea to deal with the fact that machines don't consume fluids continuously, instead they take them in short gulps, which might not clear enough space in the pipes for the byproducts to go into.

You'll want to learn to use priority junctions because using excess sulfuric acid on a separate isolated uranium cell line is going to be a headache later. Much easier when you can safely put the acid back into the same system.

[SourHammer]

How I solved it was to use a bit of coal and set up some coal generators using the water byproduct. Just set up one to many generators for how much water your producing and the last one will starve for water. This gets rid of the water and gives you a little more power.