Problems with Water for Coal

[Yrth]

Hello, I have a problem with the water supply of my coal-fired power plants. So far I had 6 power plants each connected to 3 water pumps (2x120, 1x30) with a 300m3 pipeline. Worked perfectly.
Now I have improved the pipeline to 600m3, set all pumps to max flow (3x120) and try to run 8 power plants each with it. Now, however, 1-3 power plants per 8th set fail again and again due to lack of water.
This happened to me in earlier games and I just don't understand what the reason is. Does anyone know the problem?
Is there a solution for it?

[Wolfgang]

I would recommend to check if you aren't having problems due to backflow and/or headlift. Let your coal gens be idle for some time to let them fill up with water.

[Apokh]

I had the same problem and used valves to solve it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2987552835
Fill the generators and set one valve after the other to 45. With 600m3 you can use 5 water extractors to power 13 generators like in my screenshot.

[Hassel]

are all the pipe segments full of water?

liquid in satisfactory is abit weird but most of the issues is flow rate due to the pipe not having proper amount of fluid

also if you are running the 3 water extractors at 100% into a MK2 pipe you still need another 240 water/min (2 more extractors) to hit 600/m

3 100% water extractors can only supply 6,6 coal generators, which is most likely the issue here

1 MK3 pipe can supply 13.3 coal generators If it is getting the 600/m water (5 water extractors)

[Wolfgang]

Originally posted by Hassel:

3 100% water extractors can only supply 6,6 coal generators, which is most likely the issue here

That isn't correct. One coal gen needs 45m³ Water/min (so with 8 that makes 360m³/min) while 3 Water extractors at 100% (120m³ Water/min per extractor) produces 360m³/min of Water. So OP has enough water.

[F'lar]

I would also suggest turning off the individual coal gens that are cycling on/off and letting the water pipe and machines fill completely before turning them back on. If you're producing the exact amount of water needed for the machines they can never make headway and keep vacillating between 0 and 1, so to speak.

I had something similar happen with my fuel gens when, after adding production, I had to re-tweak the by-product fuel production. Gens 4 & 5 kept cycling on and off because the fuel produced was exactly what was needed and could never build in those two machines.

[Yrth]

It is simply frustrating. I build a Storage Tower pump the water into the upper tank and use the lower tank (on higher terrain as the gens) to feed my gens. All supporting tanks are filled. One of my 2 8-Set gens are now working without any issues, the second one still has 2 gens running out of water. With the water tower I should have potentially 600 while the need is only 360, the pipes are full.
Switched off the power of the 2 failing gens (No 2 and 3) and switched them on again after they are filled, they still loosing water and running out of water. Using valves seem to make it even worse. Have absolutely no clue.

[Wolfgang]

Are you sure that all segments are MK2 and that you haven't overlooked one MK1 segment?

[Yrth]

Solved. The Tanks solved the backflow problem so one line did working, and indeed (shame on me) there was a tiny pipe segment not updated :( Thx Wolfgang and all the others :)

[Bobucles]

Storage tanks don't really contribute anything to a coal power setup. The plants are always active and the demand is steady. So it's 50/50, either there is enough flow rate to keep it stable, or there isn't. Buffers don't change that.

Buffer tanks do cause extra problems for coal power. When they are not full, they delete the headlift of previous pipes. So they can't both buffer and provide head lift at the same time, which can break a setup.

Match the water extractor rates to the coal plants, then add just a tiny bit of surplus water. That's the best way to keep things stable.

Pipe flow rates do get flaky if you try splitting main lines or making weird pipe spaghetti. Manifold setups are the most stable, have one main pipe and branch it to each machine as needed.

[Shadow]

Originally posted by Yrth:

Using valves seem to make it even worse. Have absolutely no clue.

I could be wrong, but from what I understand, valves will actually reset the head lift for the pipe that comes after them. So even if you had for example, a pump right before the valve, the valve will essentially erase everything the pump is doing.

I think storage tanks are the same. You only get head lift from whatever the last device the liquid passed through was. Everything before that may as well not exist as far as that last section of pipe is concerned.

[kLuns]

Originally posted by Shadow:

I could be wrong, but from what I understand, valves will actually reset the head lift for the pipe that comes after them. So even if you had for example, a pump right before the valve, the valve will essentially erase everything the pump is doing.

Valves don't reset headlift.
They stop the blue flow indicator when placing a pump but the headlift passes through despite this phenomenon.

Originally posted by Shadow:

I think storage tanks are the same. You only get head lift from whatever the last device the liquid passed through was. Everything before that may as well not exist as far as that last section of pipe is concerned.

Fluid buffers do reset headlift.
But if you make a pipe around the buffer you can maintain headlift and have a buffer.

[Shadow]

Originally posted by kLuns:

Valves don't reset headlift.
They stop the blue flow indicator when placing a pump but the headlift passes through despite this phenomenon.

If that's true then good. Didn't make much sense to me when I heard they block it because that would make valves more of a detriment than a help in a lot of the places you might want them. But I haven't really messed around with them much so it hasn't been something I was particularly motivated to look too deeply into yet.

[Bobucles]

Fluid buffers do reset headlift.
But if you make a pipe around the buffer you can maintain headlift and have a buffer.

Um. Yeah. Don't, don't make pipe spaghetti. Fluid mechanics have a hard enough life as it is. It's one of those systems that should be kept as simple as possible.

Fluid tanks are useful when the input is unreliable, or the output has huge waiting times. Those setups mean "trucks, trains, drones". If there are no vehicle shipments as part of the setup, then fluid tanks don't have anything to contribute except trouble. Just match the input to the output, and lean towards having slightly more fluid than demand.

[Wood_[OBC]]

Check the wiki for explanation on mk2 pipe known issues/workarounds

https://satisfactory.fandom.com/wiki/Pipeline

[ChickenMadness]

I always use 1 extra pump than needed and then underclock them until they're just 1% over what's needed for the production line. The pipe system is a bit buggy and janky if you don't overproduce slightly. You also save power doing it this way. So it's great for early game (i.e. coal) when you need to squeeze out as much power as possible.