ALUMINUM

[Btkidd]

Is there a bug feeding silica into the foundries when making aluminum ingots? Have plenty of silica but the foundries stop taking it? I have 8 foundries taking silica and aluminum scrap. When I hook all conveyors up they fill with scrap maybe a couple fill with silica few may fill to odd numbers and some just with one or 2. It is not the silica line I have excess going into sink and all water and solution numbers are right on but for some reason the foundry will not fill with silica. If I remove the conveyor going directly into the foundry and replace it, it takes off filling up for a while then stops. They all do this and the only fix which isn't a fix is to remove the conveyor to the foundry put it back maybe several times. When I start production I do not get ingots coming from all 8 because of this issue so I have to baby sit it.

[Kage Goomba]

You know what's really funny?

If you had posted this a month ago - I'd think you'd be on to something.

I had the exact same problem - and all I ended up doing is losing 4-5 hours of my life and ended up belting all the "Waste" silica into the sink and making fresh silica.

For some reason the waste silica is just a hair too slow - and by the time it gets to the foundries - they would stutter.

The reason I lost all that time was me blaming my pipes - when in fact it was the silica - it was a cascade problem that would bury the issue.

Honestly I can't tell you why it does that - I figured it was something I overlooked or maybe the belts.

Unless someone else can tell me otherwise - generally I'd suggest switching to the sloppy recipe to get rid of the Silica waste all together and/or sinking it and just make it fresh off a Quartz node - odds are you have one already as its not enough to make aluminium. Which is what I did ultimately.

Would love to see your setup and compare notes - the math says it SHOULD work.

Frankly I can see why the popularity favors the recipes that completely remove silica from the equation.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

Silica have to be provided on one side and on other side you need to deal with the silica produced as by product.

Usually is a no brainer to feed foundries with a mix of produced sica and the silica that you get as byproduct.

But.... If you do exact math you can end up in a bad position (bad planning). Because you use now silica at time zero. But byproduct arrive later as you need to produce aluminium to get a need for more scraps and silica is outputted only after a cycle of scraps production.

My setup (that has tens of hours of continuous go, with start and stops as demand of aluminium is needed)

Considering simple setup of a single belt feeding foundries....
That line has to be coming from your silica production.
A parallel line of byproduct silica merge with main silica just before foundries factory area.

Obviously byproduct silica line need to have (for safety) a smart splitter set with overload to send silica in excess to a sink.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Jack-o-Lantern:

Silica have to be provided on one side and on other side you need to deal with the silica produced as by product.

Usually is a no brainer to feed foundries with a mix of produced sica and the silica that you get as byproduct.

But.... If you do exact math you can end up in a bad position (bad planning). Because you use now silica at time zero. But byproduct arrive later as you need to produce aluminium to get a need for more scraps and silica is outputted only after a cycle of scraps production.

My setup (that has tens of hours of continuous go, with start and stops as demand of aluminium is needed)

Considering simple setup of a single belt feeding foundries....
That line has to be coming from your silica production.
A parallel line of byproduct silica merge with main silica just before foundries factory area.

Obviously byproduct silica line need to have (for safety) a smart splitter set with overload to send silica in excess to a sink.

All good and fine - but I preloaded mine as a stop gap - and it took very little time for the silica product to stack up - not to mention I had excess product coming in on the fresh side.

You do raise a good point tho - but you'd think preloading would stop that issue.
Def food for thought.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

Originally posted by Kage Goomba:

All good and fine - but I preloaded mine as a stop gap - and it took very little time for the silica product to stack up - not to mention I had excess product coming in on the fresh side.

You do raise a good point tho - but you'd think preloading would stop that issue.
Def food for thought.

Isn't that you problem is that refinery is stuck as it can't output silica that is full?

considering the factory as tiers....

tier 1: water and raw resources....
tier 2: refineries to produce solution (with silica by product) (sent to tier 4 if you want)
tier 3: refineries to produce scraps, with by products water (sent back to tier 2)
tier 4: fundries (getting scraps and silica)

if belt with silica in output from 2, it will stop producing solution.

anyway in my case (i can go in further details if you need or want)....
I never primed the factory, it just prime by itself.... depending on situation some silica could be sent to a sink from time to time during first minutes while it get stable (first run).
After that sink is never activated but I keep it just in case something happen.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Jack-o-Lantern:

Originally posted by Kage Goomba:

All good and fine - but I preloaded mine as a stop gap - and it took very little time for the silica product to stack up - not to mention I had excess product coming in on the fresh side.

You do raise a good point tho - but you'd think preloading would stop that issue.
Def food for thought.

Isn't that you problem is that refinery is stuck as it can't output silica that is full?

considering the factory as tiers....

tier 1: water and raw resources....
tier 2: refineries to produce solution (with silica by product) (sent to tier 4 if you want)
tier 3: refineries to produce scraps, with by products water (sent back to tier 2)
tier 4: fundries (getting scraps and silica)

if belt with silica in output from 2, it will stop producing solution.

anyway in my case (i can go in further details if you need or want)....
I never primed the factory, it just prime by itself.... depending on situation some silica could be sent to a sink from time to time during first minutes while it get stable (first run).
After that sink is never activated but I keep it just in case something happen.

No - my problem is the silica isn't reaching the foundry in a timely fashion.

But like a second or two - its the damnedest thing.
Everything was perfect in terms of math - just enough units /min to meet demand.

But as you pointed out - the first initial cycle won't deliver that silica so maybe its that - but as I pointed out - preloading SHOULD mitigate that.

It's almost like belt lag - but half a second too slow - not sure how to define it - but it's just about the same issue the OP is pointing out.

And before you ask - belts where same speed - Mk4 at the time. So it wasn't that (I don't mix belts :P)

[Btkidd]

I will pre load see if makes any difference but having more silica than you need coming in then should not be an issue I sink at the refineries on smart spliter so they don't back up then mix with produced giving me more then needed. Its like 3rd foundry will fill then 4th willl not 5th maybe half and so on going down the line with the last filling it doesn't seem like a lack of silica and removing a conveyor to a specific foundry putting back and it starts filling again. If the foundry has maxed with ingots this is when they stop filling but you would think it would start at 1 and go down the line there is no pattern.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Btkidd:

I will pre load see if makes any difference but having more silica than you need coming in then should not be an issue I sink at the refineries on smart spliter so they don't back up then mix with produced giving me more then needed. Its like 3rd foundry will fill then 4th willl not 5th maybe half and so on going down the line with the last filling it doesn't seem like a lack of silica and removing a conveyor to a specific foundry putting back and it starts filling again. If the foundry has maxed with ingots this is when they stop filling but you would think it would start at 1 and go down the line there is no pattern.

I'm willing to bet good money this isn't a "max capacity" problem - its stuttering - pure and simple.

I saw it happen ever so slightly as I was troubleshooting why my aluminium factory would "hang"

With my setup I'm pumping out 120/min Ingots a min (I think?) - so that's 2 Refineries spitting out scrap (pretty sure - not there atm) - and when the foundries stopped working - scrap would back up - when scrap backs up - refineries go yellow - keep in mind they make a ton of scrap VERY Fast - and then suddenly empty out - and at some point eventually - it would empty at some point in the production line and stall out all together.

If your math is good - your foundries should all be running at 100% Efficiency.
Assuming your waste water is dealt with and everything else - refineries will fall into line.

In my case I fed the waste Silica to the first 4 foundries (2 split) then merged the "Fresh" Silica in for the rest - the stuttering would start at - you guessed it - the first 4 foundries on that 2 split line.

Which makes you ask - what - the - hell. Even if they had a slight delay - it should start at full speed at pre-fill max load - but it eventually just flat runs out in about 1-2 hours.

That only happens if there's a very very slight latency on the feed of that Silica.

Which is why I flipped my table and just flat removed it all together - sloppy Alumina for the win - and eventually ill do away with Silica all together with the Pure Aluminium Recipe - at some point.

But for the time I didn't use "Sloppy" - I sinked the Waste Silica and just provided more Silica off my quartz node - problem solved and its running smooth as silk.

[Fenix]

Honest, just go HDD hunting for the Sloppy Aluminia Alt Recipe, and the pure Aluminium Ingot alt, to remove Silica from the production line completely
that way you only need Bauxite, Coal and Water for Scrap to Ingots, and Copper Ingots for The Alclad Sheets.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Fenix:

Honest, just go HDD hunting for the Sloppy Aluminia Alt Recipe, and the pure Aluminium Ingot alt, to remove Silica from the production line completely
that way you only Bauxite, Coal and Water for Scrap to Ingots, and Copper Ingots for The Alclad Sheets.

Valid - and the solution is great - but I want to know.... WHY!?!?!

XD It's maddening....like a crooked picture in my mind.

[SuperMeatBag]

I fixed a similar-sounding issue by using a storage for the silica and scrap both. A solid buffer if you will, as noted above the outputs are not truly constant, more sporadic and in my case at least the storage really helped.

[Btkidd]

Yeah I just watched this go for an hour and I am at a total loss. I have production running but the foundries just go silica dry nothing else off, plenty of scrap and more than enough silica the feed line runs on a mk5 conveyor there is no lack for silica on the line it just stops feeding into the foundry from the spliter off the main and it isn't in any order the last in line may run fine and the first and middle run dry?? I will have to find the alt recipe I do not have it cause I am at a complete stand still and really really tired of this! All the refineries work perfect I have them clocked right and they run smooth its all the silica going into the foundry. Thanks all

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Btkidd:

Yeah I just watched this go for an hour and I am at a total loss. I have production running but the foundries just go silica dry nothing else off, plenty of scrap and more than enough silica the feed line runs on a mk5 conveyor there is no lack for silica on the line it just stops feeding into the foundry from the spliter off the main and it isn't in any order the last in line may run fine and the first and middle run dry?? I will have to find the alt recipe I do not have it cause I am at a complete stand still and really really tired of this! All the refineries work perfect I have them clocked right and they run smooth its all the silica going into the foundry. Thanks all

Id like to see your setup - see if you did anything different or obvious - feel free to hit me up on Steam and we can discord or something.

Maybe what Jack said has an valid point - storage buffer idea could work - but I have my doubts.

[Grandaddypurple]

Yooo I had such an issue with this recipe back in update 8, but my issue was with the scrap.
The way I fixed it was messing with the scrap producing refineries. Basically they were churning out scrap all at the same time, which would clog my mk4, even though the total production didn't exceed an mk4 capacity overall. So I desynchronized them and it eventually worked, maybe try that

[Btkidd]

I got 5 hard drives I think, I'm going for the alt recipe screw the silica I've wasted 2 days on it now.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Grandaddypurple:

Yooo I had such an issue with this recipe back in update 8, but my issue was with the scrap.
The way I fixed it was messing with the scrap producing refineries. Basically they were churning out scrap all at the same time, which would clog my mk4, even though the total production didn't exceed an mk4 capacity overall. So I desynchronized them and it eventually worked, maybe try that

Didn't have this issue - at 120/min (unless I'm misremembering) - I had an even split - so it was two lines of scrap.

Worked out nicely for me.
And again - the OP is having trouble with supply being fast enough - not being overwhelmed.