Pipes suck ASS

[Dunhill]

I just came back to my factory after a 3 hour exploration session because I had nothing else to do while it was making research components. Lo and behold, it produced nearly nothing because pipes are bugged to ♥♥♥♥.

There's a completely full pipe segment right before a pump with a flow of 0/min (should be 405), and the pump itself is pumping 200/min somehow. Later in the system, there's the opposite issue, where 40/min is passing through a pipe segment, but 0 passing through segments after it.

A friend of mine spent hours troubleshooting and rebuilding his coal plant because a similar issue occurred then.

And no, building 28 packagers in place of pipes is not an acceptable solution to this.


This isn't some obscure, niche indie game alpha from last Thursday to have bugs like these. This level of bugs and jank is unacceptable for a 1.0 release of a game this big.

[ShelLuser]

As soon as you build your system to fully work the numbers then you're opening yourself up for major problems. Even a tiny elevation difference can cause problems.

Also... sorry but your story doesn't tell us much. You see, pipes are segmented and each section has a different content value. So obviously smaller sections can appear to be fully filled while larger ones don't because of the flowrate. I mean... if your flowrate is approx. 30 / 40 m3 and you have a section which contains up to 10m3 then one "push" could easily fill that up.

There's really nothing wrong with pipes, but the mechanic is tricky to master because of the way fluids behave. Which is why you shouldn't try to fully work the numbers to the maximum if you're inexperienced with all this.

Don't copy big (shared) exampled but instead start small and then slowly expand your setup.

Copying pipe designs can cause plenty of issues, especially if you're building on a different terrain (once again: elevation differences are the biggest issue).

[quintosh]

Interesting. I've never had any issues with pipes that I couldnt detect straight away and fix either by adding a pump or just replacing the pipes. I'm sure that in this case it's mostly just a user issue, and not a game issue. Liquids actually have physics in this game.

[MechBFP]

Pumps have headlift limits. Add more pumps, learn.

[Dunhill]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

As soon as you build your system to fully work the numbers then you're opening yourself up for major problems. Even a tiny elevation difference can cause problems.

Also... sorry but your story doesn't tell us much. You see, pipes are segmented and each section has a different content value. So obviously smaller sections can appear to be fully filled while larger ones don't because of the flowrate. I mean... if your flowrate is approx. 30 / 40 m3 and you have a section which contains up to 10m3 then one "push" could easily fill that up.

There's really nothing wrong with pipes, but the mechanic is tricky to master because of the way fluids behave. Which is why you shouldn't try to fully work the numbers to the maximum if you're inexperienced with all this.

Don't copy big (shared) exampled but instead start small and then slowly expand your setup.

Copying pipe designs can cause plenty of issues, especially if you're building on a different terrain (once again: elevation differences are the biggest issue).

Originally posted by quintosh:

Interesting. I've never had any issues with pipes that I couldnt detect straight away and fix either by adding a pump or just replacing the pipes. I'm sure that in this case it's mostly just a user issue, and not a game issue. Liquids actually have physics in this game.

Originally posted by MechBFP:

Pumps have headlift limits. Add more pumps, learn.

I have 550 hours in Factorio and 200 in Satisfactory. On top of that, I'm an engineer. I know how head lift works and this isn't that.

https://imgur.com/a/WPblhQU

Here's a quick sketch of the set up. As you can see, there's more than enough head lift provided by the pumps. It's the numbers that make 0 sense. Again, this is after 3 hours of exploration, so fluid buildup in the pipes should have long been drained and unable to affect the flow rates in any significant way. There's 0 going in and 200 going out. Then there's 40 going in and 0 going out. Then there's 0 going in and 30 going out.

The friend's coal plant would take in water at all initially, but then started taking it in at half rate after a certain segment was removed and replaced. The pipe should have carried ~480 water/minute, but it carried only 240. There were 4 extractors, but only two were working. The other two weren't working because the pipes were too full of water. Again, not a head lift issue. If there was a mk1 segment somewhere in there, then the flow would have been 300 and not 240. What solved it was removing a junction, even though there was 0 flow through it.

[Joelle]

Originally posted by MechBFP:

Pumps have headlift limits. Add more pumps, learn.

Normally would think similarly, but kinda agree with OP. I have two main lines, identical full of fluid with MK2 pumps on each running to a upper floor level. One line works as expected and the output on the other side of the floor hole has fluid. The second line does not despite any changes, rebuliding of the pipe etc. I am going up 40m and using a 50m headlift which works fine for the other line. Beginning to think there is an issue around MK2's.

[Dunhill]

Originally posted by Joelle:

Originally posted by MechBFP:

Pumps have headlift limits. Add more pumps, learn.

Normally would think similarly, but kinda agree with OP. I have two main lines, identical full of fluid with MK2 pumps on each running to a upper floor level. One line works as expected and the output on the other side of the floor hole has fluid. The second line does not despite any changes, rebuliding of the pipe etc. I am going up 40m and using a 50m headlift which works fine for the other line. Beginning to think there is an issue around MK2's.

I have a completely symmetrical coal plant with a pump on each side. One reports a head lift of 11 meters and the other 17 meters. These pipes are broken to hell and back. Hell, even in Factorio, the definition of polish, pipes are kinda broken, but that's only when you get to junctions. Here, you can run into problems even with a single line.

[Joelle]

Was just searching the https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/ bug reporting site and do see some noting when you add floor/wall holes it can break the it where it doesn't function correctly with fluid passing through.

[Dunhill]

Originally posted by Joelle:

Was just searching the https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/ bug reporting site and do see some noting when you add floor/wall holes it can break the it where it doesn't function correctly with fluid passing through.

I can't recall if the friend's coal plant had those, but I think my factory does. I'll go check.

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by Nebbi Nedilla:

I have 550 hours in Factorio and 200 in Satisfactory. On top of that, I'm an engineer. I know how head lift works and this isn't that.

Well, obviously you don't know how any of this works.

Once again: a pipe system isn't one single circuit but a segmented one. Also: just adding more pumps ... is an obvious example of being new to this.

Anyway, it's obvious that you have no intention to pay any attention to the things we're saying so I'm out; not gonna waste my time over this talking to a brick wall.

(edit)

Real engineers usually understand how to do problem solving by ruling out possible causes for problems until they found the actual culprit. Self proclaimed experts however... usually complain without much else.

[Sasheria]

something fishy about this setup.

Why use two different pipes (one at base) and one at 35m up?

Why not just build a water tower and then use gravity to feed the lower one (that is what I did) and I have no issue.

I think splitting even with valves is janky at best (you split your headlift)

[Mr. Poopdog]

Early game i also had 2 pipe floor holes not working correctly, i now just use the vertical option to clip them through the foundation (which looks even better to me) and had 0 problems in late game with big factories, everything works perfect, even refeeding byproduct is still working after hundreds of hours.

[Sasheria]

Originally posted by Mr. Poopdog:

Early game i also had 2 pipe floor holes not working correctly, i now just use the vertical option to clip them through the foundation (which looks even better to me) and had 0 problems in late game with big factories, everything works perfect, even refeeding byproduct is still working after hundreds of hours.

I have to admit that floor holes was a bit janky for me too unless I do long distance (like 40m up) I do what you did. I just pipe from low to high if it is less than 20m
sure it is not pretty, but it works and my coal factory is happy ;)

[Dunhill]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Originally posted by Nebbi Nedilla:

I have 550 hours in Factorio and 200 in Satisfactory. On top of that, I'm an engineer. I know how head lift works and this isn't that.

Well, obviously you don't know how any of this works.

Once again: a pipe system isn't one single circuit but a segmented one. Also: just adding more pumps ... is an obvious example of being new to this.

Anyway, it's obvious that you have no intention to pay any attention to the things we're saying so I'm out; not gonna waste my time over this talking to a brick wall.

(edit)

Real engineers usually understand how to do problem solving by ruling out possible causes for problems until they found the actual culprit. Self proclaimed experts however... usually complain without much else.

I know exceptionally well how this works; it's not rocket science, it's checking if A>B, and it is.

This is not a circuit.

I gave you a sketch of the system because you said the description isn't descriptive enough. Just admit that you can't explain this. Or go ahead and prove me wrong. What's wrong on this sketch?

[Lawn-Mower]

No, pipes are fun.

Though there are a couple small bugs. Just reloading the save or rebuilding a dodgy connection resolves mine though.

[Dunhill]

Originally posted by Sasheria:

something fishy about this setup.

Why use two different pipes (one at base) and one at 35m up?

Why not just build a water tower and then use gravity to feed the lower one (that is what I did) and I have no issue.

I think splitting even with valves is janky at best (you split your headlift)

Because the lower branch goes to a much older factory, and the other one goes to a new one built on top.

Because that would require two long vertical lines instead of just one.